Poetry is words written from the heart and mind.
What do you believe determines what is a poem & what is not a poem? Be specific
Poetry has always been based on opinion. I think poetry can be anything, really. Whether it be a few stanzas or "short story-like", it can be considered poetry. Lyrics, can also be poetry. In a sense, poetry is "expression of the artist/poet". Poetry is not always written bluntly. It can be a mysterious puzzle, in which the reader must decode and break down each paragraph, in order to fully comprehend the message that is being written.
I feel like when, the poet puts things together that have no meaning, thought-process, or any heart into the work, than it's not really poetry. Its just a person free writing dumb, useless things.
Visit www.Poets.org – review several poet biographies & their poems. Select 2 poets that are of interest to you. Summarize their biographies (one paragraph for each) and select one poem for each poet to post on your blog. How are these poems an example of what poetry is to you?
Sylvia Plath
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1932. In 1940, when Sylvia was eight years old, her father died from diabetes. He had been a strict father, and both his authoritarian attitudes and his death drastically defined her relationships and her poems. She kept a journal from the age of 11 and published her poems in regional magazines and newspapers. She was an exceptional student, and despite a deep depression she went through in 1953 and a subsequent suicide attempt, she managed to graduate summa cum laude in 1955. After graduation, Plath moved to Cambridge, England, on a Fulbright Scholarship. In early 1956, she attended a party and met the English poet, Ted Hughes. Shortly thereafter, Plath and Hughes were married, on June 16, 1956. Her first collection of poems, Colossus, was published in 1960 in England, and two years later in the United States. She returned to England where she gave birth to the couple's two children, Freida and Nicholas Hughes, in 1960 and 1962. That year Ted Hughes left Plath for Assia Gutmann Wevill. That winter, in a deep depression, Plath wrote most of the poems that would comprise her most famous book, Ariel. Then, on February 11, 1963, during one of the worst English winters on record, Plath wrote a note to her downstairs neighbor instructing him to call the doctor, then she committed suicide using her gas oven.
Daddy Poem
How is this poem an example of what poetry is to you?
I LOVE this poem, and well i love her as a writer. I studied many of her poems in highschool.
I consider her work to be real poetry. She is a true artist. Everything in this poem is absolutely true, its not pretend or make belief. This was her life. Her dad was jewish, and some of the foreign language is "German" what he taught. She described how she was lonely in the poem and how she herself tried to join him in the afterlife, referring to her attempted suicides.
Emily Dickinson
Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830. She attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, but severe homesickness led her to return home after one year. Throughout her life, she seldom left her house and visitors were scarce. The people with whom she did come in contact, however, had an enormous impact on her thoughts and poetry. She was particularly stirred by the Reverend Charles Wadsworth. Possibilities for the unrequited love in Dickinson’s poems include Otis P. Lord, a Massachusetts Supreme Court Judge, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican.
By the 1860s, Dickinson lived in almost total physical isolation from the outside world, but actively maintained many correspondences and read widely. She spent a great deal of this time with her family. Her father, Edward Dickinson, was actively involved in state and national politics, serving in Congress for one term. Her brother Austin attended law school and became an attorney, but lived next door once he married Susan Gilbert (one of the speculated—albeit less persuasively—unrequited loves of Emily). Dickinson’s younger sister Lavinia also lived at home for her entire life in similar isolation. Lavinia and Austin were not only family, but intellectual companions during Dickinson’s lifetime.
Her work was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as her reading of the Book of Revelation and her upbringing in a Puritan New England town which encouraged a Calvinist, orthodox, and conservative approach to Christianity.
The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 and the last in 1955. She died in Amherst in 1886.
Upon her death, Dickinson's family discovered 40 handbound volumes of nearly 1800 of her poems. Furthermore, the original order of the works was not restored until 1981, when Ralph W. Franklin used the physical evidence of the paper itself to restore her order, relying on smudge marks, needle punctures and other clues to reassemble the packets. Since then, many critics have argued for thematic unity in these small collections, believing the ordering of the poems to be more than chronological or convenient. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson (Belknap Press, 1981) remains the only volume that keeps the order intact.
By the 1860s, Dickinson lived in almost total physical isolation from the outside world, but actively maintained many correspondences and read widely. She spent a great deal of this time with her family. Her father, Edward Dickinson, was actively involved in state and national politics, serving in Congress for one term. Her brother Austin attended law school and became an attorney, but lived next door once he married Susan Gilbert (one of the speculated—albeit less persuasively—unrequited loves of Emily). Dickinson’s younger sister Lavinia also lived at home for her entire life in similar isolation. Lavinia and Austin were not only family, but intellectual companions during Dickinson’s lifetime.
Her work was heavily influenced by the Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, as well as her reading of the Book of Revelation and her upbringing in a Puritan New England town which encouraged a Calvinist, orthodox, and conservative approach to Christianity.
The first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890 and the last in 1955. She died in Amherst in 1886.
Upon her death, Dickinson's family discovered 40 handbound volumes of nearly 1800 of her poems. Furthermore, the original order of the works was not restored until 1981, when Ralph W. Franklin used the physical evidence of the paper itself to restore her order, relying on smudge marks, needle punctures and other clues to reassemble the packets. Since then, many critics have argued for thematic unity in these small collections, believing the ordering of the poems to be more than chronological or convenient. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson (Belknap Press, 1981) remains the only volume that keeps the order intact.
http://poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/155
Excellent choice of poets!
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