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Classic Poetry vs Modern Poetry

Madhattress

By Madhattress,
in Poetry and Drama

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lunababymoonchild Permanent Resident

lunababymoonchild

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3 hours ago, Madhattress said:

Which one do you prefer and why?

I personally love reading the classics of poetry, because they are beautifully created and melodiously crafted. They display the feelings and sentiments to perfection...

What about you?


 

Hello and welcome. I like all types of poetry, for me it depends on the poem. That said I do like and admire John Cooper Clarke who is a performance poet. 
 

Is there a particular poet or poem the you prefer ? Please feel free to join in the poetry thread (Poetic Wanderings)

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jfp Permanent Resident

jfp

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A few thoughts on this:

 

• "Classic Poetry vs Modern Poetry"? These are not clear-cut categories. Where is the dividing-line? Modern English, like Modern History, begins with the Renaissance, and thus with Shakespeare (and others of his era, of course).

• Different periods in the history of poetry have different conventions, which are constantly questioned and/or adapted later on.

• Poetry is not necessarily written in verse: in other words, it is not always identifiable thanks to an underlying rhythm, or the use of rhyme.

• There are prose poems: prose can be highly poetic.

• There are "poems" which to all intents and purposes read like prose, and are consequently not poems at all.

• Prose, in the hands of a writer such as Virginia Woolf, most strikingly in her novel The Waves, can be extremely poetic.

• Literature in general is characterised by an awareness of the aesthetic possibilities of language, and these are particularly conspicuous in poetry.

• Etymologically, "poetry" is "creativity".

• How Poetry Works by Phil Roberts is probably the most accessible introduction to English poetry ever published, and a minor masterpiece in its field.

• The fact that the original edition of this book was by "Philip Davies Roberts" is testimony to the author's linguistic sensitivity...

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