Poetry

Poetry is formed by sounds and syllables of language combined in distinctive and sometimes rhythmic ways. It can rhyme or have no rhyme to it at all, have structure or none at all. Poetry with assonance has rhyming vowel sounds, but no rhyming consonance sounds. A consonance is a useful sound device. They are vowels that seem similar, but are not. For example: "spelling" and "spilling," "grain" and "green," "dance" and "dunce" are vowels that seem, but aren't similar. The word called onomatopoeia means using words whose sound suggests their sense. The phrase such as "the buzzing of busy bees" is alliterative, but also tells you the sounds made by bees. Music has sound, but it also has rhythm. Lines of poetry also have rhythms in addition to the sound effects created by the words. The rhythms of poetry are heard when the lines are read aloud. The basic components of many poems are syllable, foot, line, and stanza. The rhythm in a line is measured in meters.

Poetry can be put to many uses--from telling long stories to presenting some small piece of writing by the author. The uses of poetry have led to the development of different types of literature. Among them are the narratives, dramatic, and lyric forms of poetry.

Narrative poetry tells a story. Best known among narrative works are the Greek epics. The Bible's Book of Job is also a narrative.

Dramatic poetry is nearly as old as the narrative form. In the English language, Shakespeare is considered the most outstanding of dramatists. Later poets as John Dryden, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Robert Browning wrote verse plays. In the 20th century Christopher Fry, T.S. Eliot, and W.H. Auden produced verse dramas.

Lyric poems were originally meant to be set to music accompanied by an instrument called the lyre. Lyric poems are the most common type in English. They are shorter than narrative and dramatic works. They express the poet's thoughts or feelings on one subject. The sonnet is one of the best forms of lyric poetry, in which Shakespeare was an expert. Other great lyric writers were Petrarch, John Milton, and Edmund Spenser.

Here are some samples of poetry:    A Winter Chill    Shooting Star    The Tree