Welcome to the Poetry Portal
![The first lines of the Iliad](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Beginning_Iliad.svg/300px-Beginning_Iliad.svg.png)
![Great Seal Script character for poetry, ancient China](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/%E8%A9%A9-bigseal.svg/200px-%E8%A9%A9-bigseal.svg.png)
Poetry (from the Greek word poiesis, "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particular instance of poetry is called a poem and is written by a poet. Poets use a variety of techniques called poetic devices, such as assonance, alliteration, euphony and cacophony, onomatopoeia, rhythm (via metre), and sound symbolism, to produce musical or incantatory effects. Most poems are formatted in verse: a series or stack of lines on a page, which follow a rhythmic or other deliberate pattern. For this reason, verse has also become a synonym (a metonym) for poetry.
Poetry has a long and varied history, evolving differentially across the globe. It dates back at least to prehistoric times with hunting poetry in Africa and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile, Niger, and Volta River valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, was written in the Sumerian language.
Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing as well as from religious hymns (the Sanskrit Rigveda, the Zoroastrian Gathas, the Hurrian songs, and the Hebrew Psalms); or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Egyptian Story of Sinuhe, Indian epic poetry, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. (Full article...)
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![Page from a Ramayana folio, circa 1820-1840](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Double-sided_folio_from_a_Ramayana_1.jpg/120px-Double-sided_folio_from_a_Ramayana_1.jpg)
Verses in the Ramayana are written in a 32-syllable meter called anuṣṭubh. The Ramayana was an important influence on later Sanskrit poetry and Hindu life and culture. Like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana is not just a story: it presents the teachings of ancient Hindu sages (Vedas) in narrative allegory, interspersing philosophical and devotional elements. The characters Rama, Sita, Lakshman, Bharata, Hanuman, and Ravana are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India, Nepal, and many south-east Asian countries such as Thailand and Indonesia. (Full article...)
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Poetry WikiProject
![Charles Baudelaire](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Gustave_Courbet_033.jpg/100px-Gustave_Courbet_033.jpg)
Selected biography
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ed/Dylan_Swansea.jpg/120px-Dylan_Swansea.jpg)
Although Thomas was appreciated as a popular poet in his lifetime, he found earning a living as a writer difficult, which resulted in his augmenting his income with reading tours and broadcasts. His radio recordings for the BBC during the latter half of the 1940s brought him to the public's attention and he was used by the Corporation as a populist voice of the literary scene. In the 1950s, Thomas travelled to America, where his readings brought him a level of fame, though his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. His time in America cemented Thomas' legend, where he recorded to vinyl works such as A Child's Christmas in Wales. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that Polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski – considered "the founding father of Polish literature" – wrote threnodies, the first Polish-language tragedy, and epigrams?
- ... that Francis Orray Ticknor was a country doctor whose fame as a poet relies on "Little Giffen", a poem about one of his patients who died in the American Civil War?
- ... that poet Trina de Moya was the first Dominican presidential wife to be called first lady?
- ... that Ashiq Peri was the first prominent female folk poet in Azerbaijan?
- ... that the film Evangeline, based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was praised by Longfellow's daughter?
- ... that the Three Bards are the most celebrated poets in the history of Polish literature?
Selected poem
Odyssey, book 1, first verses by Homer |
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Muse make the man thy theme, for shrewdness famed |
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