Kindle Notes & Highlights
Poetry is …? That’s a question for the ages, isn’t it? Answering what “poetry is” is like answering what love is, or what life is, or, more precisely, what art is.
A better question might be “what does poetry do?”
The first recognized poet in Anglo-Saxon culture was a herds-man named Caedmon, who lived around 670 B.C.E. Caedmon dreamed one night that a spirit told him to sing of the Beginning of Created Things.
Elements of verse, such as rhyme and repetition, were mnemonic devices that helped our ancient ancestors to remember the tales of the tribe and pass them down from generation to generation.
Poetry is story condensed; it can help us to understand with one phrase how we came to be, what we are, and what we will be in the future.
American Poetry Whatever it is, it must have A stomach that can digest Rubber, coal, uranium, moons, poems. Like the shark, it contains a shoe. It must swim for miles through the desert Uttering cries that are almost human.
This poem addresses the subject of “American poetry,” as we can see from the title. The poem indicates that American poetry must be hardy, enduring, and suffer a bit, among other things. Ideas like these come from inside our brains and our bodies, and to show them
Using the world around you, the things and actions of your everyday life, is the stuff that much of contemporary poetry is made of.
Using obscure symbols and heightened language, on the other hand, may only serve to alienate or confuse your reader.
Poetry is a verbal art written in verse, using a heightened sense of language to convey feeling, experience, meaning, and consciousness.
Your job as a poet is not only to write, but to read as well. Indeed, good poets read other good poets.
To write good poetry, you have to pay homage to the poets who came before you. They will teach you how to write. They are your mentors and your muses. Don’t ignore them.
Read modern and contemporary poets. Read poets living today.
A poetry slam is a cross between a poetry reading and a gladiator competition with only metaphorical bloodshed.
