The Art of Poetry

Poetry. I love poetry so much. All of it. One time I skimmed through a book of Italian poetry that had the English version on one side and the Italian version on the other. I could only pick out a few of the Italian words, but it was still beautiful. I tried with French poetry once too, but that didn't work out as well. I don't know French like at all.



Anyway, poetry is a way of expression. It isn't just all about literature (though, it can be). There is no right or wrong way to write poetry, despite what your school books tell you. What makes poetry so beautiful is the uniqueness of each poem that the poet puts into the words. The style. The feelings. Each poet has their own way of writing a poem. Some just do free verse, some do haikus, and other do rhyme. Poetry is art.

I have been writing poetry for a long time, way before I started novels. When I was like seven, my parents put me into piano, and one thing I always wanted to do was write songs. Well, I found out I was better at the actual lyrics than the music. I can play what's already written, and can occasionally mess around on the piano with my own tune, but I couldn't ever make both the lyrics and music to fit together. Thus, I started writing poetry. A lot of them are super lame and will never see the light of day, but after practicing and finding my own voice, I found that I really, really love poetry. I love writing it, I love reading it. I love everything about it.

what is poetry?

Poetry as a definition is: a literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature.

I like the first part. "A literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas..."

Sometimes poetry can be the simple 'outline' sketch, or the poem can be the whole 'painting'. Sometimes the poet clearly spills out what he/she wanted people to know, other times, the poet hides the meaning between the lines in abstract.

Poetry is a little piece of ourselves. It's the part of our souls that are unmasked and naked on the page. When we write poetry we reveal hidden secrets, use metaphors to unveil our feelings, and symbolism to put a mask on it just so it's harder to figure out every meaning of the poem.  Poetry is how we explain our pain, and how we show our joy. It's how we express the intensity of our heartbreaks, or the amount of love we are feeling.

Poetry is explaining the un-explainable. The taking off of the mask, as you will.

types of poetry

There are SO many ways to write a poem. You can rhyme the words, you can free-verse it. You can make them short, or long, or in between. You can make them Sonnets or Epics. I found a good list of the different types of poetry with the definitions of each here so if you want to learn more about that, then you can. 

Following the simple guidelines of what type of poem you are writing, there really is no limitations.

modern day poets

As much as I love the classic poetry, I am into the modern day poets. My favorite being R.M. Drake. He has some brilliant work.  We live a world full of color and full of art and literature, and every day poets combine it all into a few simple lines of intense emotion. 

Another one of my favorite modern day poets is a young artist named Emma. You can find her poetry here. 

I have more, but I don't have their websites. Atticus is a really brilliant poet and so is E.E. Cummings. So if you randomly want to read some good poetry, you can look them up. 

doing your own

Poetry isn't hard. It's fun to do and you can really get across your point without having to write a whole paragraph. You can write three sentence poems, or ten stanza poems. It doesn't take a lot to be a poet, just a willingness to let your creativity unmask and show a bit of yourself on the page. You can write about rain, snow, or traveling. You can write about a break up or how Jesus is working in your life at that moment. People think poetry is hard, but honestly it's not. All you have to do is start. 

What about you? Do you write poetry? Do you enjoy reading it? What's your favorite part about poetry?