Poetry

Poetry, meaningful arrangement of words into an imaginative or emotional discourse, with a strong rhythmic pattern. The language, seeking to evoke image and idea, uses imagery and metaphor. Rhyme or alliteration may also be important elements. The length of poems varies from brief lyric poems to long narrative poems or epic poems, with the length and scope of the novel. The kind of forms and devices used (for example, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia) depends on the tone and intentions of the poet. Since the sense of poetry is intimately tied to its sound, it is extremely difficult to translate. In most cultures poetry, linked by its rhythmic elements to music and dance, develops before prose literature; the poetic form aids memory in oral transmission. Eventually poetry is written down; a “higher” form then develops—poetry carefully crafted for the printed page and intensely involved reader. Even such written poetry, however, must remain to some extent “musical.”