Kelly Jean Payer, age 10, of Portland, Maine, for her question:
WHEN DID POETRY FIRST ORIGINATE?
There are two main types of poetry: lyric and narrative. Some suggest a third type of poetry may be called dramatic. Lyric poems are usually short and have songlike quality. Personal reactions are usually expressed. In narrative poetry a rather long story is usually told. Dramatic poems are like the narrative type although the story is usually told through the speeches of characters.
Poetry is one of the oldest branches of literature, and it is also one of the most important. From ancient times people have enjoyed songs as they played or worked. And there always seemed to be some who could recite stories of heroes and gods. They were poets.
Various systems of verse writing have developed because of the variations in culture and language. The ancient Greeks developed quantitative meters to formalize the rhythm of their language. The early Anglo Saxons started each line of their poems with words beginning with the same consonant sounds while the medieval French poets counted syllables.
No one knows where the poetry of nursery rhymes originated. They are many hundreds of years old.
Poetry of the classic tradition came from the ancient Greeks. They originated many forms including the epic, ode, elegy, idyl and epigram. The Latin poets based their work largely on Greek forms.
The romantic tradition comes from the poetry in the Romance languages which spread from France to England during the Middle Ages. Minstrels recited poems and troubadours sang them.
The realistic tradition has become important only since the 1800s. It breaks with classical forms and the romantic spirit. Realism is treated candidly as are the inward thoughts and feelings of personal life.
Poetry is language used in a special way. Its words form patterns of verse, of sounds and of thought that appeal strongly to the imagination. Perhaps the words at the end of some lines will rhyme with other ending words,, or perhaps there will be no rhymes.
Poetry is language that seems to have been put down on paper under pressure. The meaning of a single word may trigger a hidden thought, letting the entire poem almost explode in your imagination.
Many scholars have said that a person who is interested in life and in people will also be interested in poetry and enjoy reading some from time to time. Have you tried reading some?
Sample a Japanese haiku, for example. These short verses have three lines, no rhymes and a total of just 17 syllables:
Snail, my little man,
Slowly ah, very slowly ¬Climb up Mount Fuji: