Poem

A Poem is a text document that uses aesthetics and rhythmic qualities of language.

• Context:
  • It can (typically) be composed of Poetic Lines.
  • It can range from being a Short Poem to being a Long Poem.
  • It can range from being a Narrative Poem to being a Lyrical Poem.
  • It can be generated by a Poet or a Poem Generation System.
  • …
• Example(s):
  • an Epic Poem, such as Epic of Gilgamesh, The Iliad, and Dante's Divine Comedy (1320))
  • (Rielke, 1902).
  • a Greek Poem, Latin Poem, Persian Poem, Urdu Poem, Cantonese Poem.
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • a Theatrical Play.
  • a Song.
• See: Story, Literature, Metre (Poetry), Prose.

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References

2014

• (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry Retrieved:2014-9-10.
  • Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language — such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre — to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning. Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early poems evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Sanskrit Vedas, Zoroastrian Gathas, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ancient attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on features such as repetition, verse form and rhyme, and emphasized the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from more objectively informative, prosaic forms of writing. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more generally regarded as a fundamental creative act employing language. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, or to evoke emotive responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly figures of speech such as metaphor, simile and metonymy create a resonance between otherwise disparate images — a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm. Some poetry types are specific to particular cultures and genres and respond to characteristics of the language in which the poet writes. Readers accustomed to identifying poetry with Dante, Goethe, Mickiewicz and Rumi may think of it as written in lines based on rhyme and regular meter; there are, however, traditions, such as Biblical poetry, that use other means to create rhythm and euphony. Much modern poetry reflects a critique of poetic tradition, playing with and testing, among other things, the principle of euphony itself, sometimes altogether forgoing rhyme or set rhythm. In today's increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles and techniques from diverse cultures and languages.

1902

• (Rielke, 1902) ⇒ Rainer Maria Rilke. (1902). “Abend (Evening)"

Der Abend wechselt langsam die Gewänder,
die ihm ein Rand von alten Bäumen hält;
du schaust: und von dir scheiden sich die Länder,
ein himmelfahrendes und eins, das fällt;

und lassen dich, zu keinem ganz gehörend,
nicht ganz so dunkel wie das Haus, das schweigt,
nicht ganz so sicher Ewiges beschwörend
wie das, was Stern wird jede Nacht und steigt -

und lassen dir (unsäglich zu entwirrn)
dein Leben bang und riesenhaft und reifend,
so daß es, bald begrenzt und bald begreifend,
abwechselnd Stein in dir wird und Gestirn.

Slowly the evening changes its garments
held for it by a rim of ancient trees;
you gaze: and the landscape divides and leaves you,
one sinking and one rising toward the sky. 

And you are left, to neither quite belonging,
not quite so dark as the house sunk in silence,
nor quite so surely pledged unto eternity
as that which grows to star and climbs the night. 

To you is left (unspeakably confused)
your life, gigantic, ripening, full of fears,
so that it, now hemmed in, now grasping all,
is changed in you by turns to stone and stars.

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