Poetry

In my last Blog I talked about Art and how it can be many things. One form of art that isnt so popular today is the art of poetry. The definition of poetry from dictionary.com is "the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts". A poem is a composition of poetic devises like alliteration and Imagery. Many poets like to use imagery so that the reader can "see" what is happening in their poem. Allot of poetry is made up of the emotions and feelings of the poet but before this poems were very different. Poems before the Renaissance were very religious based with references to god and other holy things. During the renaissance the way people thought changed along with poetry. It became very humanistic with the idea that your interest and values are most important. The Transcendental era was also an impact on literary work. Writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau wrote about things like nature and individuality. Before Thoreau no one dared to challenge the government but in his work "On Duty Of Civil Disobedience" he spoke about the government and how he resented it. These writers changed what people wrote about in General which also had an impact on poetry. Poets during the early twentieth century were called "The imagists", according to "The Humanistic Tradition" textbook these poets got their name from their use of free verse. Free verse "became notorious for its abrupt and discontinuous juxtaposition (http://dictionary.com com/browse/juxtaposition) of lean images".Some of the most famous imagists were Ezra pound and Amy Lowell. I used to feel like poetry was boring and a waste of time. Partially because I never took the time to actually read any. After learning somewhat about Modernists like Robert Frost and their poems I became a little more interested in poetry. Since Poetry is a form of art its almost necessary to pay attention to it. If everyone feels like poetry shouldn't be read then it would ruin the balance of art. Not only that but it could set a chain reaction causing people to stop being creative and expressing themselves. OK so that is impossible but it is kind of our responsibility to keep what the modernists, imagists, romantics and everyone else who contributed to making poetry what it is today alive.