Moody, or Funny, Poetry Has Something For Everyone. (Poetry)

Name: janharper

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Product:	Poetry
Date:	16.05.08 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great art form for self expression

Disadvantages: Not enough around in daily life

Mmm! How do you discuss poetry without dissecting it and taking all the soul and rhythm out of it?

Poetry is an art form in which words are used to paint a picture. There are many formal styles of poetry which, for the purist define it. For me, poetry is using words to paint a detailed, sensuous picture of emotions, or illustrate a story. It can be fun and loosely formed in rhyme, or free form. Rhythm, metre, rhyme, assonance and alliteration all come together in different combinations to form poetry.

All cultures have their own particular poetic forms and that may be the Shakespearian sonnet of England, the Haiku of Japan, or even the Persian Rubaiyat.

My own personal favourite are the poems of Lewis Carroll including the following:


Father William.


'You are old, Father William', the young man said,
   'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
   Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

'In my youth', Father William replied to his son,
   'I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
   Why, I do it again and again.'

'You are old', said the youth, 'as I mentioned before,
   And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
   Pray, what is the reason of that?'

'In my youth', said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
   'I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box -
   Allow me to sell you a couple?'

'You are old', said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak
   For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -
   Pray, how did you manage to do it?'

'In my youth', said his father, 'I took to the law,
   And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
   Has lasted the rest of my life.'


Limericks have also been a favourite of mine and there are few of us who haven't heard of them.
Victorian writer and poet, Edward Lear invented this form.

Limerick by Edward Lear.

There was an Old Man with a nose,
Who said, 'If you choose to suppose,
That my nose is too long,
You are certainly wrong!'
That remarkable Man with a nose.



A sample of my own limericks:


There was a young lady from Leeds
Who swallowed a packet of seeds
Within half an hour
Her nose was in flower
And out of her ..... grew weeds.

(Please fill in the blank space with a word of your choice.)


Childish? Well, yes, quite possibly, but that's what poetry is to me. It can be deep, moody and emotional, or it can be silly, fun stuff like those cheeky verses you get in greetings cards:

'I've never seen a purple cow. I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you you here and now,
I'd rather see than be one.'


My personal poetic tastes aren't confined to the 'silly'. I am a reader and admirer of Blake and Keats. For anyone who does enjoy poetry, no matter what kind, there is an amazing resources to be found free on-line at:

http://www.poetry-online.org

If you really want to discover what poetry is all about browse through the collection on this site.

I have often heard people say that they hate poetry because they only have memories of being forced to learn poems like 'Cargoes' and 'I wandered Lonely As A Cloud' and repeating them over and over parrot fashion. I hated that in school but now, almost forty years later I can still recite....

'Dirty British coaster with a salt caked smoke stack
Dashing through the channel in the mad March days............'

and....

'In Xanadu did Kublai Kahn his stately pleasure dome decree.....'


The strange thing is that I really didn't understand these wonderful poems while I was being force fed them, but they have stayed with me and I think I know what they are are about now!


I hope you didn't find this too boring. I have tried to write naturally and reveal a bit about me. Poetry is one of my great loves in life, whether it be song lyrics, great long elergies, or silly verses made up on the spur of the moment. My poetry gives me chance to really paint masterpieces with words (or at least the chance to try.)

Thanks for reading.

Jan

Summary: Something for everyone