Poetry

Hello Michael, what are you writing? A poem? How did you know? When you see a poem in writing, you usually know immediately that it’s a poem you have in front of you. But...why?

When you’re writing a poem, you continue writing on the next line, break the line, when you think it’s needed. In regular text, prose, the lines mostly continue until the paper ends, right? In poems, the lines are shorter. That’s because you usually read a poem in a specific rhythm. Then it suits well to break the line to help the reader find that rhythm.

But why is the rhythm so important? To answer that, we need to go back to the origin of poetry. … In Greece, China, and Mesopotamia, poetry was written long before our era. In those times, poetry was mainly an oral tradition – poems were written to be read out loud. Pace, rhythm, and certain recurring speech sounds – like rhymes – then make it easier to remember the text. But they also have a different function: they resemble music a bit.

And just like music this can create feelings in the person listening. You can say that the text has a musicality. Next time you’re reading a poem – try reading it out loud to yourself, and see if you can find any musicality in the pace, and how the words sound. … Poetry differs from other types of text in another way: how you use language. In regular text – prose – language is used to convey stories, information, or instructions... It can be beautifully written, but what’s most important is what you want to convey: the content.

Words and sentences are chosen for what they mean. In poetry you also choose words for other reasons, for how they make you feel: if they are beautiful, ugly, or because they remind the reader of other things: create associations. You can also choose words for their sounds, for example if they contain certain speech sounds that you want to repeat. For example when the endings of words sound the same: when they rhyme. Twinkle twinkle little star How I wonder what you are Up above the world so high Like a diamond in the sky But is that really poetry?

It’s a song. A children’s song. Yes, it is. Nursery rhymes and songs can also be forms of poetry. There are great similarities between song lyrics and poetry.

Many poems have been given melodies after they were written, been set to music. This one, for example: Twinkle twinkle little star How I wonder what you are Many poems are written to follow certain set rules or patterns – meter. These rules say how many syllables there should be. Or how they should rhyme. But the most important thing about poetry isn’t what patterns they follow, or how they are constructed.

What’s most important is what thoughts and feelings you get when reading them. So it doesn’t have to follow a certain rhythm, or rhyme then? Not at all. There are actually no rules for how a poem should look. You can play around with grammar and word order as much as you want to.

You don’t even need to follow writing rules, like using full stops and commas. Poems can be short, long, funny, sad... They can entertain. Or tell you something important. The same poem can also mean different things to different people.

They can create different feelings, and be interpreted very differently, depending on who’s reading them. So… how do you want.. Lina to interpret your poem, Michael? ...Michael?