Poetry & Drama

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Definition of Poetry

Poetry is an imaginative attentiveness of experience expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language choices so as to evoke an emotional response. Poetry has been known to employ meter and rhyme, but this is by no means necessary. Poetry is an ancient form that has gone through numerous and drastic reinvention over time. The very nature of poetry as a genuine and individual mode of expression makes it nearly impossible to define.

But there are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;" Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;" and Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way. "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing."

 Types of Poems

Haiku

Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry which is composed of three non rhyming lines. The first and third lines have five syllables each and the second line has seven syllables. They often express feelings and thoughts about nature; however, you could write a poem about any subject that you would like to in this form. Perhaps the most famous Haiku is Basho's Old Pond:

Furuike ya 

kawazu tobikomu 

mizu no oto

Translated, this poem reads:

The old pond--

a frog jumps in,

sound of water.

Pastoral

One of the poetic favorites is pastoral poetry because it elicits such wonderful senses of peace and harmony. Examples of this form include Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn, which is also a type of ode. A stanza of this poem reads:

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,     

Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,     

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express     

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:     

What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape             

Of deities or mortals, or of both,     

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?     

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?     

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?     

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Like the haiku, nature is often at the center of these types of poems as well. In general, pastoral poetry will focus on describing a rural place, but the terms will be peaceful and endearing. You will feel at ease after reading these types of poems.

Many pastoral poems are written about shepherds. They are written as a series of rhyming couplets.

Imagery

Individuals who often write imagery-based poems are known as Imagists. William Carlos Williams' short poem The Red Wheelbarrow is a famous example of a short imagist poem:

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

These types of poems work to draw a picture in the mind of the reader, in order to give an extremely powerful image of what the writer is talking about. They work to intensify the senses of the reader.

Limerick

A limerick is a poem that is often silly or whimsical, written in five lines with an AABBA rhyme scheme. Often, limericks tell a short, humorous story.

There was a Young Lady of Dorking,

Who bought a large bonnet for walking;

But its colour and size,

So bedazzled her eyes,

That she very soon went back to Dorking.

Epic Poem

One of the longest types of poems is known as the epic poem, which has been around for thousands of years.

Technically a type of narrative poem, which tells a story, epic poems usually tell the story of a mythical warrior and the great things that he accomplished in all of his journeys such as The Odyssey and The Iliad.

He who has seen everything, I will make known (?) to the lands.

I will teach (?) about him who experienced all things,

... alike,

Anu granted him the totality of knowledge of all.

He saw the Secret, discovered the Hidden,

he brought information of (the time) before the Flood.

He went on a distant journey, pushing himself to exhaustion,

but then was brought to peace.

He carved on a stone stela all of his toils,

and built the wall of Uruk-Haven,

the wall of the sacred Eanna Temple, the holy sanctuary.

Free Verse

While it is easy to think that poems have to rhyme, free verse is a type of poetry that does not require any rhyme scheme or meter. Poems written in free verse, however, do tend to employ other types of creative language such as alliteration, words that begin with the same sound, or assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds.

Sonnet

A sonnet contains 14 lines, typically with two rhyming stanzas known as a rhyming couplet at the end.

There are several types of sonnets, including:

·         Italian (also known as Petrarchan)

·         Spenserian

·         English or Shakespearean sonnet

Reference :

1. Mark Flanagan – Contemporary Literature: What is Poetry? .  (nd). Retrieved October 5, 2013, from http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/poetry/a/poetry.htm

What Are Different Types of Poems? . (n.d.). Retrieved October 12th, 2013, from http://examples.yourdictionary.com/what-are-different-types-of-poems.html