For those who believe that poetry is nothing more than literature that glorifies a poet’s sentiments and emotions, there is a wide array of difference between the two. Poetry can mean much more than just words. The definition of poetry is one that is often misunderstood by people who consider themselves poets. Poetry means much more than “a collection of letters,” “a word-for-word chronicle of events in time.” Poetry can be much more than a compilation of literary works, far more than anything that any given individual ever writes.
Poetry means much more than what we’ve been taught “pornographic” or “written for money.” Poetry is the very best gift we can give ourselves through our emotions and experiences. If we can connect to poetry by heart, it will always bring us closer to that person. If we continue reading poems everyday, it will continue to strengthen and enrich us with our own personal experiences.
As you probably know, all good poetry comes from tragedy, misfortune, or grief. The ability to write poetry that connects to personal tragedy and misfortune is one that can only come from the depths of a human soul and a lot of pain. But some poetry doesn’t come from such dark places at all. In fact, there are many poems that share the happiness and joy with all the people who read them. These types of poems are called “hopeful” poetry because they connect to something in the world that is positive and inspiring.
In the field of poetry, the term “doom and gloom” is used to describe poems that depict a person’s life as being filled with misfortune. This type of poetry has been around for years but its use has been specifically linked to the war field. Many writers like William Shakespeare have used this expression when describing how tragic a war’s end can be. Even though poetry does often depict sad thoughts, writers who are more into the optimistic side of the written word often use the expression to describe how spring is just around the corner.
“JC” is another term for a sad poem. This term is often used to describe poems that deal with death, illness, and mourning. Writers who are not as into the literature have used the expression “JC” to describe contemporary literature that is usually considered uplifting. This type of literature includes things like celebrity poems. Many authors like David Bowie, James Joyce, and Charles Dickens have used the expression to describe their own work.
One more type of poem that can be defined as “doom and gloom” is “Sophie’s World.” This type of poetry is written about Sophocles’ play about the Trojan War. It tells the story of a young woman who is very upset over her parents’ divorce and decides that she will get even with her enemies one by one. She does this by composing a number of plays about them. The most famous of these, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” was later made into a movie. The play is still running in theaters today.
Poetry can also describe poems that express hope. An example of this would be “Goodbye My Love.” The poem says that lovers who part for good now…read that carefully… goodbye love is always. In the last two verses of the last stanza, the poet is telling his lover that he thinks they will see each other again in the future…they should definitely be together again and have many happy years ahead of them. Again, the poem states that good verse should never die.
Poetry can be described as a sharpened weapon. The poets use this weapon to express their thoughts and emotions. In order to make great poetry, poets must have a sharpened wit, be open to new ideas, and develop their poetic skills into a true art form. The poems within a poetry anthology are a testament to some of the greatest poets of all time.
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
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“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
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“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
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“Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel
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“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
― Victor hugo
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“The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
― Robert Frost
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“We love the things we love for what they are.”
― Robert Frost
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“I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”
― E.E. Cummings
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“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
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“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”
― Plato
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Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver
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“If you’re reading this…
Congratulations, you’re alive.
If that’s not something to smile about,
then I don’t know what is.”
― Chad Sugg, Monsters Under Your Head
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams
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“Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
― Leonardo da Vinci
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“To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”
― e.e. cummings
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“Resist much, obey little.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
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“Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.”
― E. E. Cummings
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“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”
― Robert Frost
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“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions
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“Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire,
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.”
― Robert Frost
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“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
― Mary Oliver
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“Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.”
― Kahlil Gibran
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“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
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“I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.”
― Pablo Neruda
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“If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If youre a pretender com sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!”
― Shel Silverstein
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“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”
― Walt Whitman
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“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my eyes and all is born again.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
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“Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
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“She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood.
She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
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Let our scars fall in love.
“Let our scars fall in love.”
― Galway Kinnell