poetry

The art of poem writing and poetry has always intrigued me, the whole effort that goes in expressing one's self in mere 15-20 lines (or less than this or even more) truly amazes me. Beginning from epic writing to the stanzas to the ballads to the odes to the sonnets to the modern poetry - all have one thing common in them, a language of it's own. However, the modern poems deviate heavily from the major norms and constructs of writing poems that is confined to a structure, meter and a measure; the modern poems often use the prose language in the form of verse and one can always accept this as the poetic-license that a poet has in constructing a poem.

Prior to this day, that is, in the past weeks, I was reading the old English poems (of Shakespeare, John Keats, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Donne, Robert Frost and Pablo Neruda) and I was simply moved and was thoroughly awe-struck reading them. In order to substantiate my statement, I shall take Shakespeare's sonnets for explanation - a total of 154 sonnets that maintain the same rhythm with regards to the rhyme pattern, the iambic pentameter and consistency is something that really needs to be appreciated and admired at. The use of alliterations in these sonnets are more like sugar icing on top of a delicious cake!

The structure of the poem, which I call the verbal architecture, interests me and urges me to learn the style of poetic writing or rather writing per say. The themes, problems, emotions and solutions are all evidently and very rhythmically put in just few lines - this is true love for the subject and a hallmark of a true genius. Modern poetry also maintains a rhythm but this is more of spontaneous and immediate vent out of emotions, at least to me; unlike the earlier forms of poetry writing, modern poetry uses its own method in bringing about aesthetic pleasure.

The best way to understand a subject is when we understand or rather analyze poems written in the particular languages. This is evident in all languages, in order for an individual to learn the beauty of a language, then poems are the key genre for one to begin with. I too have been experimenting with the art of poetry writing and I can only say that I have a long but sweet journey to travel for the roads in this journey have many digressions yet they suffice to my learning experiences.