What is poetry?

To me, as a reader, poetry needs to flow and paint a descriptive picture in the readers mind as does a well composed story, only a poem needs to do it with less words.  

Quote by heidi

To me, as a reader, poetry needs to flow and paint a descriptive picture in the readers mind as does a well composed story, only a poem needs to do it with less words.  

Quote by Lurker411

Quote by sprite

Quote by Lurker411

Someone told me that poetry has to have a regular rhythm to its lines. I wonder if anyone told Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot (Nobel Prize), and Sylvia Plath (Pulitzer Prize).

"someone"? and your point is...?

Why does everything have to have a point? It was someone on here, but why did you feel the need to respond? As I’ve been told so many times in the last 2 weeks: if you don’t agree with it, move on. 

You missed my key words "TO ME" unless we are communist's speech is free and so is thought.  Your likes differ from mine  but to me, poetry has to fit this mold for me to read 

Poems are aloud to tell a story as in the following poem by the famous poet Edgar Allen Poe

The Raven

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

    While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

            Only this and nothing more.”

    Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

    Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow

    From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

            Nameless here for evermore.

    And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

    So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

    “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—

            This it is and nothing more.”

    Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

    But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

    And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—

            Darkness there and nothing more.

    Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

    But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

    And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—

            Merely this and nothing more.

    Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

    “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;

      Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—

            ’Tis the wind and nothing more!”

    Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

    Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

    But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—

            Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

    Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;

    For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

    Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

            With such name as “Nevermore.”

    But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

    Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—

    Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—

On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”

            Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

    Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store

    Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

    Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

            Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”

    But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

    Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

    Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

            Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

    This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;

    This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

    On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,

But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,

            She shall press, ah, nevermore!

    Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

    “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee

    Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”

            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

    Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—

    On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—

Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”

            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

    “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—

    Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

    It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

    “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

    Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

    Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

            Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

    And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

    And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

    And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

            Shall be lifted—nevermore!

 Related

Here’s a love poem by another famous poet

Love

BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

We cannot live, except thus mutually 

We alternate, aware or unaware, 

The reflex act of life: and when we bear 

Our virtue onward most impulsively, 

Most full of invocation, and to be 

Most instantly compellant, certes, there 

We live most life, whoever breathes most air 

And counts his dying years by sun and sea. 

But when a soul, by choice and conscience, doth 

Throw out her full force on another soul, 

The conscience and the concentration both 

Make mere life, Love. For Life in perfect whole 

And aim consummated, is Love in sooth, 

As nature’s magnet-heat rounds pole with pole. 

And another example from William Wordsworth 

The Green Linnet

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed 

Their snow-white blossoms on my head, 

With brightest sunshine round me spread 

Of spring's unclouded weather, 

In this sequestered nook how sweet 

To sit upon my orchard-seat! 

And birds and flowers once more to greet, 

My last year's friends together. 

One have I marked, the happiest guest 

In all this covert of the blest: 

Hail to Thee, far above the rest 

In joy of voice and pinion! 

Thou, Linnet! in thy green array, 

Presiding Spirit here to-day, 

Dost lead the revels of the May; 

And this is thy dominion. 

While birds, and butterflies, and flowers, 

Make all one band of paramours, 

Thou, ranging up and down the bowers, 

Art sole in thy employment: 

A Life, a Presence like the Air, 

Scattering thy gladness without care, 

Too blest with any one to pair; 

Thyself thy own enjoyment. 

Amid yon tuft of hazel trees, 

That twinkle to the gusty breeze, 

Behold him perched in ecstasies, 

Yet seeming still to hover; 

There! where the flutter of his wings 

Upon his back and body flings 

Shadows and sunny glimmerings, 

That cover him all over. 

My dazzled sight he oft deceives, 

A brother of the dancing leaves; 

Then flits, and from the cottage-eaves 

Pours forth his song in gushes; 

As if by that exulting strain 

He mocked and treated with disdain 

The voiceless Form he chose to feign, 

While fluttering in the bushes. 

Quote by kistinspencil

Quote by Lurker411

Quote by sprite

Quote by Lurker411

Someone told me that poetry has to have a regular rhythm to its lines. I wonder if anyone told Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot (Nobel Prize), and Sylvia Plath (Pulitzer Prize).

"someone"? and your point is...?

Why does everything have to have a point? It was someone on here, but why did you feel the need to respond? As I’ve been told so many times in the last 2 weeks: if you don’t agree with it, move on. 

So you were just spitting on the sidewalk just to spit? Gee, thanks.

Quote by Lurker411

Quote by kistinspencil

Quote by Lurker411

Quote by sprite

Quote by Lurker411

Someone told me that poetry has to have a regular rhythm to its lines. I wonder if anyone told Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot (Nobel Prize), and Sylvia Plath (Pulitzer Prize).

"someone"? and your point is...?

Why does everything have to have a point? It was someone on here, but why did you feel the need to respond? As I’ve been told so many times in the last 2 weeks: if you don’t agree with it, move on. 

So you were just spitting on the sidewalk just to spit? Gee, thanks.

If the only posts allowed on the forum had to have a point that everyone agreed was important, there wouldn’t be much here. 

You have a senior moderator willing to help you understand things from the mod perspective.

I know how hurtful it can be when something you've poured your heart into gets rejected. I know how hard I found it to get over that first hurdle and get my first story published.

I'd like to work with you to help you to get your work through the process, so we can see your vision through your words. So if you'd like an editor I'd really like to work with you. If you don't, then I still wish you great success in your efforts.

At the moment our home isn't as we'd ideally like it to be but that doesn't mean that new voices aren't needed or very welcome to join us. After all we all started our creative journey and struggled our way to where we are now.

So would you do me the honour of sending me your work so I can help you.

Thank you, kistinspencil