What is poetry?

Poetry is the art of expressing one´s thoughts in verse. Is a form of literary art and may be written independently as discrete poems; or may occur in conjuction with other arts as in poetic drama, hymns, lyrics, or prose poetry.

Poem

A poem is an arrangement of words containing meaning and musicality . Most poems take the form of a series of lines separated into groups called stanzas.

Elements of Poetry

Poets have many tools they use to add to the poem´s sound, meaning and emotional effect on the reader.

Stanza

One of the divisions of a poem composed of two or more lines usually caracterized by a common pattern of meter, rhyme and number of line.

Lines

A single line in a poem, often organized into stanzas.

2 lines is a couplet3 lines is a triplet or tercet4 lines is a quatrain5 lines is a quinrain or cinquain6 lines is a sestet7 lines is a septet8 lines is a octet or octave

Rhyme and Rhyme Scheme

Words rhyme when they have the same sound. Poems aften use rhyme at the end of the lines.

Rhyme scheme is a pattern in which the rhymed line-endings are arranged in a poem or stanza. This may be expressed as a sequence of recurrences in which each line ending on the same rhyme is given the same alphabetic symbol.

Free verse

Free verse is a modern form of poetry which doesn´t follow any specific rhyme or metrical scheme, although it doesn´t completely abandon the basic poetic precepts of heightened language and sonics.

Sonnet

A poem properly expressive of a single, complete thought idea or sentiment, of 14 lines usually in iambic pentameter, with rhymes arranged according to one of certain definite scheme.

Simile

Is a comparison between two things using the words “like” or “as”. A simile used to surprise the reader and to create strong images.

Metaphor

Is a direct comparison between two things, doesn´t use the words like or as. Poet describes a thing or person as if it actually were the other thing or person.

Imagery

The language that appeals to the five senses, are “words picture”. Helps the reader to experience familiar things in a fresh way using the senses, such as smell, taste, touch, sight and hearing.

Hyperbole Is a figure of speech in which statements are exaggerated or extravagant. There are two kinds of hyperbole, overstatement and undersatement.

Symbol

Something that stands for something more than just itself. Suggest another larger meaning.

Personification

Type of figure of speeh that gives humans qualities to animals, objects or ideas. Personification adds life to a poem and helps the reader view a familiar thing in a new way.

Oxymoron

Is a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous seemingly self-contradictory effect.

Paradox

Is generally understood as seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true.

“Hot understands cold”

Onomatopoeia

Is the use of words that sound like the noises they describe. Poets choose words not just for what they mean, but what they sound like. Poets use onomatopoeia to liven up their writing and add fun sounds to it.

On the Ning Nang Nong By Spike Milligan On the Ning Nang NongWhere the Cows go Bong!and the monkeys all say BOO!There's a Nong Nang NingWhere the trees go Ping!And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.On the Nong Ning NangAll the mice go ClangAnd you just can't catch 'em when they do!So its Ning Nang NongCows go Bong!Nong Nang NingTrees go pingNong Ning NangThe mice go ClangWhat a noisy place to belongis the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!

Alliteration

Repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of several words or sentences or a line of poetry. Poets use alliteration to make their poetry musical and more interesting.

“Dancing Dolphins”By Paul McCann

Those tidal thoroughbreds that tango through the turquoise tide.

Their taut tails thrashing they twist in tribute to the titans.

They twirl through the trektumbling towards the tide .

Throwing themselves towards those theatrical thespians.

Is a clear example of alliteration.

Mood

Feeling that a poem creates in the reader, can be positive or negative. Poet creats the mood with the lenght of sentences, the words chosen, punctuation, and the sound of the words.

Tone

Is the attitude a writer takes toward the subject or audience of a poem.

Theme

This is what the poem is all about. The theme of the poem is the central idea that the poet wants to convey.

Conclusion

The elements of poetry are an essential part of what any good poem is all about, structurally. But it doesn´t mean that all poems must have all these elements, it depends entirely upon the poet, who has all these tools at his disposal to use in order to convey his ideas effectively.

Pablo Neruda(July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973)

Neruda became known as a poet while still a teenager. He wrote in a variety of styles including surrealist poems, historical epics, overtly political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and erotically-charged love poems such as the ones in his 1924 collection Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair. In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez once called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language“. Neruda always wrote in green ink as it was his personal color of hope.He died of heart failure.In the winter of 1914, Neruda composed his first poems. Neruda´s father opposed his son interest in writing and literature, but Neruda received encouragement from others. On 1917, at the age of thirteen, he publish his first work an essay entitled Enthusiasm and Perseverance in the local daily newspaper.

In 1921, at the age of 16, Neruda moved to Santiago to study French at the Universidad de Chile with the intention of becoming a teacher, but soon Neruda was devoting himself full time to poetry. In 1923, his first volume of verse, Crepusculario (Book of Twilights), was published, followed the next year by Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair), a collection of love poems that was controversial for its eroticism, especially considering its author's young age. Both works were critically acclaimed and were translated into many languages. Over the decades, Veinte poemas would sell millions of copies and become Neruda's best-known work, though it did not go to a second edition until 1932.

By the age of 20, Neruda had established an international reputation as a poet, but was facing poverty. In 1926, he published the collection Tentativa del hombre infinito (The trying of infinite man) and the novel Tentativa y su esperanza (The inhabitant and his hope). In 1927, out of financial desperation, he took an honorary consulship in Rangoon, then a part of colonial Burma and a place of which he had never heard before. Later, mired in isolation and loneliness, he worked stints in Colombo (Ceylon), Batavia (Java), and Singapore. In Java he met and married his first wife, a Dutch bank employee named Maryka Antonieta Hagenaar Vogelzang.