{"id":4940,"date":"2016-10-28T10:50:05","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T09:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.city-academy.com\/news\/?p=4940"},"modified":"2019-06-05T14:51:30","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T13:51:30","slug":"5-things-you-didnt-know-about-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.city-academy.com\/news\/5-things-you-didnt-know-about-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things You Didn\u2019t Know About Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poetry is one of the most accessible\u00a0art forms in the world. All you need is your creativity, paper and a pen – and sometimes the tip of your tongue will do instead. Forget\u00a0money, a laptop\u00a0or a studio, the materials are within your mind and the means of\u00a0expression is you. With help from our Poetry Writing Tutor, Pele Cox, we ponder\u00a0what else makes poetry so special…\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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1. Poetry, spoken or written, predates other styles of literature<\/h4>\n

\"poetryMankind\u2019s oldest surviving manuscript is from the Geometric period (900-700BC). It was an epic poem about the demigod and Sumerian king, Gilgamesh, that circulated from Mesopotamia, Europe all the way to Asia, carved on stone pillars. It goes to reason that the first ever scripture\u00a0was based on verbal storytelling styles that existed way before – so yes, spoken word and written poetry are positively, decisively,\u00a0ancient art forms.<\/p>\n

They also go hand in hand. From the 11th to the 14th century, troubadours and\u00a0trobairitz (male and female\u00a0composers and performers of Old Occitan lyric poetry) formed\u00a0the first Romance language – meaning they used techniques to beautify or spoil words when speaking,\u00a0adding\u00a0layers\u00a0of depth\u00a0to the already apparent meaning of what were normally humorous or vulgar satires. They advanced metaphysical and intellectual perspectives, developing\u00a0European lyricism with mechanisms such as euophony,\u00a0cacophony, sound symbolism and metre.\u00a0Bringing language to life, and performing is a large part of poetry. Poems aren’t songs because they don’t need music. A poem has music between the lines, on either side of each word, and inside the very syllables of each word.<\/p>\n

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2. Officially, there are three main types of poetry<\/h4>\n

You may know\u00a0of the philosopher Aristotle, or heard his name in passing and never really known what the dude was about. His writings formed the basis for much of Western philosophy,\u00a0covering everything from biology,\u00a0zoology and metaphysics to ethics, government,\u00a0and poetry. He lived from\u00a0384 BC to\u00a0322 BC, further proof of just how old (and wise) poetry is.\u00a0He divided poetry into the epic, the comic and the tragic – developing rules to distinguish each genre and the basis for future interpretations throughout the Middle East in the Islamic Golden Age and Europe during the Renaissance.<\/p>\n

It was upon his philosophy that the\u00a0three still-standing categories of poetry were established: lyric (expresses personal emotions,\u00a0usually\u00a0in the first person), dramatic (describes\u00a0an event or situation, normally a story told out loud to teach something) and epic (covers\u00a0topics around culture, patriotism or heroic deeds, typically a lengthy, character-led narrative).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s in the latter that Aristotle’s comic and tragic ended up being subcategorised. Most poems find a way to defy these classifications, so why does having a system like this even matter? It’s important historically, because poetry was often distinguished from prose by its\u00a0supposed\u00a0lack of logical content or\u00a0course – these labels denoted that\u00a0poems were rational\u00a0stories in their own right, just\u00a0free of the shackles of a\u00a0linear structure.<\/p>\n

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3. While there are rules that help us define\u00a0poetry, poetry is all about breaking protocol<\/h4>\n

\"ca-4508\"Poets are the directors, the runners, the cast, the entire team – they decide and deliver every single element of their own work. Because poetry is such an autonomous act, it is often born from the depths of our souls and covers very personal material, becoming the movies of self – think of the likes of\u00a0Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, Frank O’Hara, and Don Paterson.<\/p>\n

As such, there can be\u00a0a loneliness in the process, as\u00a0a poet\u00a0chases\u00a0the perfect way to express what they alone know and crystallise how they feel in words. That desire to encapsulate memories and emotions, which are often shapeshifting, means poems can be equally shapeshifting – a poem\u00a0doesn’t have to rhyme, readers of poetry\u00a0don’t need to pause at the end of every line – often you’re actually meant to\u00a0push through onto the next line, and poetry is\u00a0the only art form where there’s never really\u00a0clarification\u00a0as to whether the context\u00a0is fiction or nonfiction. Poetry empowers you\u00a0to adapt and to experiment, that is why we have\u00a0the term ‘poetic license’.<\/p>\n

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4. Poetry can be a gateway to other creative arts<\/h4>\n

Poets are investigators who have been\u00a0liberated\u00a0from the conventions of language and social mores: changing patterns of language as they write,\u00a0to change\u00a0the metacognition of their audience as they read.\u00a0They say all the world’s greatest thinkers do\u00a0poetry – either writing it or reading it.<\/p>\n

As a thinking, feeling, philosophical artist, you can use your poetry\u00a0experience to deal\u00a0with your\u00a0internal world and free it from the seclusion of your soul, expressing yourself in the\u00a0external world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Poetry can be the breath that gives life to your own unique voice, becoming the foundation for understanding yourself as a creative being in the wider world.\u00a0Many poets have simultaneously\u00a0been philosophers (Friedrich Nietzsche), actors (Peter Sellers), authors (Maya Angelou), musicians (Leonard Cohen) and even politicians (Pablo Neruda) – and conversely they’ve also been some the most vital activists throughout history.<\/p>\n

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5. Poetry is a vehicle for social change<\/h4>\n

\"cityOne of the earliest authors and poets ever known by name in world history, was\u00a0early female philosopher and poet, Enheduanna (2354 BC) – but from what we know, it was extremely rare for women to be literate during this era.\u00a0Poetry proved itself just as radical in\u00a0the Women’s Movement of 1960; a decade when many women writers challenged traditional poetic form and subject matter, entering into feverish\u00a0dialogue with the sexist and\u00a0racist society around them, and mobilising\u00a0the civil rights camp – especially in America.<\/p>\n

To name just a few legendary poets\u00a0of the time, there\u00a0was\u00a0Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, and Audre Lorde. She was born in 1934 and died in 1992, but understood intersectional feminism way before it became the buzzword it is today, famously\u00a0saying; “Those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older — know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” More than a hobby or a career, women like her saw it as their duty to bring an anger, an emotional precision to the table for the sake of survival, fuelling generations of literary activists, both male and female, to come.<\/p>\n

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To try your hand at this\u00a0amazing art form, please see our Poetry Writing Class<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you’re interested in different styles of\u00a0literature, check out our wide range of Writing Courses<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poetry is one of the most accessible\u00a0art forms in the world. All you need is your creativity, paper and a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,118],"tags":[404,405,402,403],"yoast_head":"\n5 Things You Didn't Know About Poetry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Poetry is one of the most democratised art forms in the world - all you need is your creativity, paper and a pen. 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