Poetry is merely an art of expression. In simple words poetry is a literary work in which special emphasis is put on feelings or emotions and ideas by the use of various literary devices such as rhythm, metaphors etc. Poems mostly depend upon their effect on imagery, word association, and the musical qualities of the language used. The usage of all these effects to create meaning is what marks poetry.
Every individual has their own unique perspective of regarding poetry. Famous authors such as Emily Dickinson once said, “If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry”. Others such as Robert Frost defined poetry as “what gets lost in translation”.
One of the most apparent characteristic of poetry is the use of words or diction. Poets are extremely selective of the words they choose to convey their emotions or feelings. Furthermore they may also use devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm to achieve musical or ‘magical’ effects. The use of other literary devices such as symbolism, irony leaves the poem prone to multiple interpretations.
Poetry is clearly not modern literature. As a matter of fact, poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. The earliest poems originated from folk songs, such as the Chinese Shijing, or from the need to recite oral epics, such as the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Odyssey and the Iliad. Since then poetry has been attributed various definitions; Aristotle’s Poetics focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song, and comedy. Later, features such as repetition, verse form and rhyme were given greater importance. However the contemporary poetry, from the mid-20th century, has sometimes been more generally labeled as an essential creative act using language.
Much of modern British and American poetry is to an extent a critique of poetic tradition as they deliberately do not use rhythms in their poems. In today’s globalized world poets often derive styles, techniques and forms from different cultures and languages.