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...)
Selected article
![The original Gawain manuscript](Https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/96/Sir_Gawain_first_page_670x990.jpg/120px-Sir_Gawain_first_page_670x990.jpg)
It describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who challenges any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him with his blow, at which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head and reminds Gawain of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving Lady Bertilak, the lady of the Green Knight's castle.
The poem survives in a single manuscript, the Cotton Nero A.x., which also includes three religious narrative poems: Pearl, Purity and Patience. All are thought to have been written by the same unknown author, dubbed the "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain Poet", since all four are written in a North West Midland dialect of Middle English. (Full article...)
Selected image
![](Https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Walt_Whitman_-_George_Collins_Cox.jpg/350px-Walt_Whitman_-_George_Collins_Cox.jpg)
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/f/fa/Walt_Whitman_-_George_Collins_Cox.jpg/120px-Walt_Whitman_-_George_Collins_Cox.jpg)
Born in Huntington on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and—in addition to publishing his poetry—was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle. (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 newspapers in Brazil printed cake recipes and 16th-century poetry to cover material censored by the military dictatorship?
- ... that the Blemyomachia is an epic poem describing a historical clash between the Roman Empire and the Blemmyes in the Nile valley?
- ... that Benjamin Britten composed Canticle I: My beloved is mine and I am his for the tenor voice of Peter Pears, using poetry from A Divine Rapture by Francis Quarles?
- ... that John Mercer Johnson, a Father of Canadian Confederation, entertained the public and members of the London Conference of 1866 with poetry readings and ice-skating performances?
- ... that Leon Schidlowsky wrote the Misa sine nomine in memory of Víctor Jara for speaker, choirs, organ and percussion, juxtaposing mass texts with contemporary poetry and Torah verses?
- ... that Rabia Balkhi is the first known Persian woman poet?
Selected poem
Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare |
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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? |
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