Poetry Definitions

Very few poets and critics have agreed with one another. The meaning has changed and evolved over
time.
Poetry is a way of borrowing from other styles of writing (Rosen, 1997).
Poetry should be a personal encounter with a poets words that touches you in such a way to bring
you back again and again for more you cant get enough! (, 0000).
Oxford (0000) the art/work of a poet. The formal characteristics of poetry: composition in
verse/metrical language. Patterning poetry has a pattern based on its sound.
Poetry is a cultural form where placing of the words is driven by sound as well as sense/meaning.
English poetry, free verse excepted, has a regularity of rhythm/metre.
A specialised form of language, of which all has rhythm. Poetry has a discernible rhythmic regularity.
Wordsworth (0000) poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; proceeding from the
soul of man, communicating its creative energies to the images of the external world.
T.S. Eliot (0000) poetry is not a turning loose of the emotion, it is an escape from emotion, not the
expression of personality but an escape from personality.
Arnold (0000) genuine poetry is conceived and composed in the soul
Dryden (1665) mould our thoughts into easy and significant words.
Poetry is shaped by its listeners, critics and audiences. New poets should find theirs. Valuable are
informed and receptive readers who can offer useful advice and criticisms. Feedback from more
disinterested sources of more practical value.

Poetry Definitions
Hughes (1967) imagine what you are writing about: look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn
yourself into it. The words look after themselves.
Longley (2010) poetry is personal.
Poetry is primarily a medium for the exploration of personal and emotional issues and feelings.
Poetry is the most concentrated form of verbal expression
Pound (0000) poetry is condensed language charged with a surplus of meaning. Fundamental
distinction between poems that can be read and those that cannot
Poetry deploys an appropriate/significant form, a form which endorses, heightens,
undermines/otherwise exists in a dynamic tension with its content.
A powerful, concentrated use of all the resources of language.
Unless poetry helps you become a sensitive reader and unless you become a creative reader, not
studying poetry at all
Harvey (1998) real poetry is classic; rubbish poetry is smutty, condescending.
Duffy (2011) poems are a form of texting.