Essay - Poetry: What is It? if I Feel Physically as if...

Poetry: What is it?

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry," wrote Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson was a poet whose poetic l*****nguage, metaphors, and structure challenged many of the conventions of her era. Her poems were short, pithy observations that were intensely personal ***** revealing. However, th***** ideal of the poet writing in isolation was particularly popular during ***** Romantic period, so *****'s innovations did not come out of nowhere—rather, the diverse ways of conceptualizing poetry during Dickinson's and other literary epochs show how hard it is to create a singular definition for this important literary term.

The question ***** 'what is *****' seems to vary from age to age, culture to culture. In many ancient cultures such as Greece and Rome, epic poetry *****ld the story of a people. It used heightened langu***** and verse to give an added significance to heroic and national exploits, ***** also ***** make it easier for individuals to remember ***** oral traditions ***** their ancestors, and pass on these great memories. A similar use of rhyme and meter ***** deployed in ballads and other traditional poetic forms. Poetry's advantage ***** heightening language but ***** revealing character as well as creating plots and dram***** is shown in the *****ater, ***** as the Greek, Roman, and Elizabethian *****ater.

***** the best definition ***** ***** is not that it uses certain *****, such as sonnets, or contains a specific metric*****l style, such as iambic pentameter, but that is language where the conscious and deliberate use of language matters just as much as the plot, character, or the point of the sentence structure. Poetry has been seen as the voice of a collective, as in ancient times, ***** ***** ***** *****dividual writing against society, as with the Engl*****h ********** Keats, Byron, and Shelley, and the American Romantic poet Emily Dickinson. Some poets today use no form. Others create new forms, or infuse old f*****ms with new subjects. But the choice to embrace or eschew form, rhyme, and ***** use of metaphor, similes, plot, or images is always the focus of