Ars Poetica By Archibald Macleish

Language is a remarkable thing. It can convey every thought, feeling, and emotion with perfect accuracy. Almost exclusively, language has taken awkward, unfit animals out of nature and made them rulers over the earth and many of its elements. When used well, it has the power to change an individual's view of the world, make someone believe they have seen something they have not, and even more astonishingly, look inside one's self and see what exists. If language is mixed with the tempo of music, something new arises; poetry is born. When words and ideas are set to a beat, they can far more subtly convey concepts that would otherwise need to be explicitly stated and the poem can be appreciated more as a whole,

An enormous amount of imagery and specific language choices have been used by Dawe within the poem. The

In general, in Elizabeth Alexander poem, she states: “Poetry, I tell my students, /is idiosyncratic. Poetry” (1-2). Poetry is kind of like an individual. As an individual, poetry is an emotional state. Poetry is not always flowery, sometimes there are sadness and frustration. In Elizabeth Alexander poem, “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe,” she is explaining with enthusiasm that poetry is not love, happiness, and joy:

The poem is written in free verse, offers no type of rhyme scheme, and in one long stanza. This contributes to

Poetry is often regarded the genre of the elite, but just as often champions are oppressed. Discuss with a detailed reference to two or more poems.

The tone of the poem changes as the poem progresses. The poem begins with energetic language like “full of heroic tales” and “by a mere swing to his shoulder”. The composer also uses hyperboles like “My father began as a god” and “lifted me to heaven”. The use of this positive language indicates to the responder that the composer is longing for those days – he is nostalgic. It also highlights the perspective of a typical child. The language used in the middle of the poem is highly critical of his father: “A foolish small old man”. This highlights the perspective of a typical teenager and signifies that they have generally conflicting views. The language used in the last section of the poem is more loving and emotional than the rest: “...revealing virtues such as honesty, generosity, integrity”. This draws attention to a mature adult’s perspective.

The poem is structured in a way which follows the proper metre for a sonnet, however, it is unusual in a sense that it is free verse and has no rhyme scheme. The sentences are broken to fit the iambic pentameter. This creates pauses, and a choppiness in the flow

George Szirtes article “Formal Wear: Notes on Rhyme, Meter, Stanza, and Pattern” from the Poetry Foundation opens with opinions which focus on limitations of poetic form. As a counter to these common arguments, Szirtes claims, “Verse is not decoration: it is structural. It is a forming principle and words at depth” ("Formal Wear: Notes” 2). He then develops an argument explaining, “the constraints of form are spurs of the imagination: that they are in fact the chief producers of imagination” ("Formal Wear: Notes” 2). Taking these ideas into consideration Szirtes incorporates the idea of language explaining how language connects to memory and imagination which come together to form poetic images. Additionally, when poets use form it develops

Free verse is not just prose written with irregular line endings. Free verse is poetry without regular patterns of rhyme, rhythm or meter. Note: free verse has rhythm and meter. The pattern, however, is irregular. Rhythm is often created through the use of other poetic devices, including repetition, alliteration, and other sound devices. Although it is "free" of metrical restrictions, it is still patterned and unified by the conventional poetic devices of repetition, assonance, and alliteration. The article "the", ordinarily disregarded, begins seven of the eleven lines and establishes a pattern that is seen on the page and heard when the poem is given voice. Alliteration lends ear-pleasing melody in

Poetry has a role in society, not only to serve as part of the aesthetics or of the arts. It also gives us a view of what the society is in the context of when it was written and what the author is trying to express through words. The words as a tool in poetry may seem ordinary when used in ordinary circumstance. Yet, these words can hold more emotion and thought, however brief it was presented.

In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by

The poems broader theme is that you can’t always have what you want in life because the tone of longing in

To begin thinking about this poem, we should stop and try to imagine the background of the poem. A tone could include mysterious, since the meaning is not seen right away, but it could also be thoughtful because he allows us to think in a different way. We know there is a main character which could be the author, but are not given his name. The setting is at a house where the first snowfall is mixing with the flowers left from the summertime. The time-period is not given to us in the poem, so we are unsure of that. Finally, when thinking about why MacNeice wrote this poem we can see there is a connection between the weather he is seeing outside and the world around us.

The use of visual imagery in each poem immensely contributed to conveying the theme. In the poem

The Structure, style and poetic techniques of a poem contribute greatly to the development of the central idea of a poem. Three poems with central ideas that stood out to me were ‘The Darkling Thrush’ by Thomas Hardy, ‘Days’ by Philip Larkin, and ‘Remembrance’ by Emily Brontë. The central idea of each of these poems revolve around the idea of time and change. Firstly, I will discuss how in ‘The Darkling Thrush’ the simple and traditional structure, the bleak yet straightforward style and techniques such as vivid imagery and capitalisation combine to develop the central idea of change. The same can be said for the simple structure and style used in ‘Days’ which combine with poetic techniques such as metaphors to develop Larkin’s argument against time and change. Finally I will discuss how the idea of time is developed through techniques such as vivid imagery and symbolism in ‘Remembrance’ along with changing styles and a slow, consistent rhythm.