Writing 05 - Write a Poem
The English language has thrown up such remarkable personalities as William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Alfred Tennyson, Emily Dickenson and John Milton. The writings of these persons are such that they capture the imagination of the reader for the sheer felicity with which they use words. They are all
poets.
Writing comes in many forms including
prose, poetry, fiction and
non-fiction, but poetry has a special place amongst them. Poetry is a particular form of literature that uses words in several different ways to dramatically put forth a point of view. Poets make use of all elements of the language and often forego some aspects of grammar without ever taking away the meaning of what they want to convey. Poetry is different from prose in the sense that a poem has more rhythm, is very orderly and makes use of rhyming words very effectively to convey a message more forcefully.
Just as prose has elements that need to conform to conventions, poems also have their own elements which are quite sacrosanct. You would have heard words such as lines and stanzas, which are similar to sentences and paragraphs in prose. Poems are classified in many ways and include sonnets, couplets, limericks, ballads, epics, elegies and free verse.
Poets make use of a variety of elements of the English language in their poems. Metaphors, similes, idioms and onomatopoeic words are used often in poems and the greatest of poets, such as William Shakespeare and William Wordsworth, used them very effectively in their works. Most of the oldest poems, that include the epics, were in oral form and were not written down until centuries later.
The main advantage of poems is that the message to be conveyed is beautifully put across in a rhythmic and rhyming way so as to firmly entrench itself in the reader’s or listener’s mind. All of us remember our nursery rhymes quite vividly precisely because of their rhyme and rhythm. The quiz that follows exposes you to some basic rudiments of poems.
"The sky weeps"
or
"The wind howled".
Personification is a literary tool often employed by poets in their poetry