Welcome to the Poetry Portal
![The first lines of the Iliad](https://web.archive.org/web/20240515063229im_/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://web.archive.org/web/20240515063229im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/%E8%A9%A9-bigseal.svg/200px-%E8%A9%A9-bigseal.svg.png)
Poetry (a term derived from the Greek word poiesis, "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle.
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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![Dante shown holding a copy of the Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above, in a fresco by Domenico di Michelino](https://web.archive.org/web/20240515063229im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Michelino_DanteAndHisPoem.jpg/200px-Michelino_DanteAndHisPoem.jpg)
On the surface, the poem describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven; but at a deeper level, it represents, allegorically, the soul's journey towards God. At this deeper level, Dante draws on medieval Christian theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Consequently, the Divine Comedy has been called "the Summa in verse". (Full article...)
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Poetry WikiProject
![Charles Baudelaire](https://web.archive.org/web/20240515063229im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Gustave_Courbet_033.jpg/100px-Gustave_Courbet_033.jpg)
Selected biography
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20240515063229im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Kuzma_Petrov-Vodkin._Portrait_of_Anna_Akhmatova._1922.jpg/120px-Kuzma_Petrov-Vodkin._Portrait_of_Anna_Akhmatova._1922.jpg)
Akhmatova's work ranges from short lyric poems to intricately structured cycles, such as Requiem (1935–40), her tragic masterpiece about the Stalinist terror. Her style, characterised by its economy and emotional restraint, was strikingly original and distinctive to her contemporaries. The strong and clear leading female voice struck a new chord in Russian poetry. Her writing can be said to fall into two periods – the early work (1912–25) and her later work (from around 1936 until her death), divided by a decade of reduced literary output. Her work was condemned and censored by Stalinist authorities and she is notable for choosing not to emigrate, and remaining in Russia, acting as witness to the atrocities around her. Her perennial themes include meditations on time and memory, and the difficulties of living and writing in the shadow of Stalinism. (Full article...)
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![](https://web.archive.org/web/20240515063229im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg/47px-Nuvola_apps_filetypes.svg.png)
- ... that the poem "Ovid in the Third Reich" has been described as "a classic reaction" to the Eichmann trial, despite being published before the trial was held?
- ... that the 1980 bibliography The Old French Tristan Poems was praised for indexing the fragments of Tristan, a 12th-century poem?
- ... that the poet Habibi was adopted by Aq Qoyunlu ruler Ya'qub Beg as a child after he was found shepherding?
- ... that author, poet and Arabian horse breeder Wilfrid Scawen Blunt chose to be buried without a coffin at his house, Newbuildings Place?
- ... that scholarly study of the poetry of Kishvari, one of the most important Azerbaijani poets of the 15th and 16th centuries, only started in 1928?
- ... that creating visual art led Maya Pindyck to write poetry?
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Beyond Seas by Sohrab Sepehri |
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I shall build a boat |
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