What is Poetry?

What is poetry? Poetry is an art form that predates the written word. It was used as a means of recording oral history and may have had its origins in song. The oldest surviving poems, like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, were meant to be recited along with music. These poems were long narratives, known as epic poetry, and usually centered on heroic deeds. For example, the Iliad was an epic account of the Trojan War. According to Greek mythology, the Greeks laid siege to Troy for ten years after the Trojan prince, Paris, kidnapped the Spartan queen, Helen. In the Iliad, the story centered on the heroic deeds of both the Greeks and the Trojans during the war. In the Odyssey, the story follows the hero Odysseus on his way home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.

Since the ancient period, defining exactly what poetry is and what determines good poetry has been debated. Plutarch described poetry as “painting that speaks.” Poetry uses language and prose that conveys a meaning and a purpose but can also be interpreted differently by different readers. Vocabulary is used to “paint” a story or express a particular emotion. For the ancients, the study of poetry revealed that it is a distinctive form of art, and they struggled for a definition that completely encompassed the aesthetics of poetry. Throughout the following centuries to the modern era, the definition of poetry continued to be elusive and interpreted as an art form that uses words as a creative means of expression. In general, poets are very careful about choosing words for a poem. Poets consider the clarity of the word, the emotional value, the spacing, and the spatial relationship of the word to the page. There is a beauty and significance when using the right word. In short, vocabulary can make or break a poem.

Determining what makes a good poem versus a bad poem is even more elusive than defining poetry. Poetry can be historical, fantasy, comical, tragic. Poets have a gift of communicating a thought with vocabulary and verse. By comparing great works of poetry over the centuries, we can get an impression of what makes a poem great. It is no coincidence that the best poetry stirs the emotions and can influence an entire culture, but the truest test of what makes a poem great is if it can stand the test of time. To be a good poet, you must first understand the mechanics behind poetry. Vocabulary plays a significant role, but poetry also contains many elements (rhythm, rhyme, form, and diction) as well as specific components (line, stanza, and meter), each of which will be discussed in future blog posts.