Content introduction Chapter I

COMMON FEATURES OF POETRY
● It looks like a poem – if it looks like a poem and it reads like a poem, then the chances are pretty good that it is, indeed, a poem. Poetry comes in lines, some of which are full sentences, but many of which are not. Also, usually, these lines don’t run out to the margins consistently, like in, say, a novel. All this gives poetry a distinctive and recognisable look on the page.
● It often has some underlying form holding things together – while this isn’t always true (in some free verse, for example) a lot of poetry conforms to a prescribed structure such as in a sonnet, a haiku etc.
● It uses imagery – if the poet is worth his or her salt, they’ll endeavour to create images in the reader’s mind using lots of sensory details and figurative language.
● It has a certain musicality – we could be forgiven for thinking that poetry’s natural incarnation is the written word and its habitat the page, but the printed word is not where poetry’s origins lie. The earliest poems were composed orally and committed to memory. We can still see the importance the sound of language plays when we read poems out loud. We can see it too in the attention paid to musical devices that are incorporated into the poem. Devices such as alliteration, assonance, and rhyme, for example. We will look at many of these later in this article.


THE PURPOSE OF POETRY: WHAT IS POETRY FOR?
Of all the forms professional writers can take, it is the professional poet who most often finds themself struggling to make ends meet financially. Poetry can be difficult to understand and require a lot of effort on the part of the reader. Students can be forgiven for wondering what exactly is the point of this difficult to write and difficult to read a genre that is apparently used to torture the less literary-minded during their school years.
It may be a hard sell to some of our more reluctant students, but there is a point behind all this word-smithery.
Poetry’s purpose is essential to help us understand the world around us. It endeavours to show us things anew that we may have previously taken for granted. It offers us new perspectives on the familiar.
Poetry’s purpose is to enable us to see the world with fresh eyes again, like those of a child. In doing this, it helps us understand our world in a deeper way.