Welcome to the Poetry Portal


Poetry (from the Greek word poiesis, "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particular instance of poetry is called a poem and is written by a poet.
Poets use a variety of techniques called poetic devices, such as assonance, alliteration, euphony and cacophony, onomatopoeia, rhythm (via metre), and sound symbolism, to produce musical or other artistic effects. They also frequently organize these effects intos, which may be strict or loose, conventional or invented by the poet. Poetic structures vary dramatically by language and cultural convention, but they often use rhythmic metre (patterns of syllable stress or syllable (mora) weight). They may also use repeating patterns of phonemes, phoneme groups, tones (phonemic pitch shifts found in tonal languages), words, or entire phrases. These include consonance (or just alliteration), assonance (as in the dróttkvætt), and rhyme schemes (patterns in rimes, a type of phoneme group). Poetic structures may even be semantic (e.g. the volta required in a Petrachan sonnet).
Most written poems are formatted in verse: a series or stack of lines on a page, which follow the poetic structure. For this reason, verse has also become a synonym (a metonym) for poetry. (Full article...)
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Ginsberg began work on "Howl" as early as 1954. In the Paul Blackburn Tape Archive at the University of California, San Diego, Ginsberg can be heard reading early drafts of his poem to his fellow writing associates. "Howl" is considered to be one of the great works of American literature. It came to be associated with the group of writers known as the Beat Generation, which included Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.
There is no foundation to the myth that "Howl" was written as a performance piece and later published by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books. This myth was perpetuated by Ferlinghetti as part of the defense's case during the poem's obscenity trial, as detailed below. Upon the poem's release, Ferlinghetti and the bookstore's manager, Shigeyoshi Murao, were charged with disseminating obscene literature, and both were arrested. On October 3, 1957, Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that the poem was not obscene. (Full article...)
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Did you know (auto-generated) -

- ... that Canadian poets Milton Acorn, Margaret Atwood, and Gwendolyn MacEwen performed at the Bohemian Embassy on the same bill as burlesque dancer Libby Jones?
- ... that Ida Ospelt-Amann led the revival of dialect poetry in Liechtenstein and was awarded the Golden Cross of Merit?
- ... that Tang dynasty poet and calligrapher Li Yong was falsely accused and executed for attempted treason in 747, but had actually committed treason 37 years earlier?
- ... that Barcroft Boake, the author of one of Australia's most anthologised poems, hanged himself with a stockwhip a few months after it was published?
- ... that Tout est lumière, a setting by Maurice Ravel for soprano, choir and orchestra of a poem by Victor Hugo, earned Ravel a place in the second round of the 1901 Prix de Rome?
- ... that Iraqi poet Isa Hasan al-Yasiri ran away from school at 10 years old, before travelling with a camel caravan overnight to another village?
Selected poem
The Erl-King (Der Erlkönig) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
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Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
"My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
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