What is poetry

Poetry is the artistic revelation of one’s inner true feelings through rhyme and is used to let others know how you feel and to also evoke their emotional response.

Personally, what determines and does not determine a poem for me is how it is put together. Especially referring to the stanzas and how it is put together lyrically; meaning if it is rhyming. To me a poem should not be written as a story and should be short and sweet and to the point.

Two poets of interest to me are W.B. Yeats and William Blake

William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1865, the son of a well-known Irish painter, John Butler Yeats. He spent his childhood in County Sligo, where his parents were raised, and in London. He returned to Dublin at the age of fifteen to continue his education and study painting, but quickly discovered he preferred poetry. Yeats became involved with the Celtic Revival, a movement against the cultural influences of English rule in Ireland during the Victorian period, which sought to promote the spirit of Ireland's native heritage. Appointed a senator of the Irish Free State in 1922, he is remembered as an important cultural leader, as a major playwright, he was one of the founders of the famous Abbey Theatre in Dublin, and as one of the very greatest poets, in any language of the century. W. B. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923 and died in 1939 at the age of 73.

Never give all the heart
by W. B. Yeats

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.


William Blake was born in London on November 28, 1757, to James, a hosier, and Catherine Blake. From early childhood, Blake spoke of having visions—at four he saw God "put his head to the window"; around age nine, while walking through the countryside, he saw a tree filled with angels. Although his parents tried to discourage him from "lying," they did observe that he was different from his peers and did not force him to attend conventional school. He learned to read and write at home. In 1782, he married an illiterate woman named Catherine Boucher. Blake taught her to read and to write, and also instructed her in draftsmanship. Later, she helped him print the illuminated poetry for which he is remembered today. Blake was a nonconformist who associated with some of the leading radical thinkers of his day, such as Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft. Blake believed that his poetry could be read and understood by common people, but he was determined not to sacrifice his vision in order to become popular. Blake's final years, spent in great poverty, were cheered by the admiring friendship of a group of younger artists who called themselves "the Ancients."



A Poison Tree

by William Blake
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,--

And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

These poems are an example of what poetry is to me because it has stanzas, it rhymes, and it has a greater meaning behind the words. These two poems are the types of poems that keep me interested to read because it talks about everyday life and refers to how I am feeling at the time.