Poetry

Question And Answer

What is poetry?

According to David Starkey (Author of Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief) poetry can be defined as concentrated, vivid, rhythmic, and musical language. Though, there are subcategories within the poetical genre; Free verse, Lyric poems, Ode, Haiku, Prose poems and the list goes on! Free verse poems do not use metrical writing and do not obey as many rules. For instance, a free verse poems does not have to have a certain number of stressed or unstressed syllables. While prose poems strongly resemble ordinary writing as they are typically formatted like a paragraph but differ in their use of figurative language and metrics. The word poetry means "to create". 

Why does poetry evoke emotions?

 Most individuals strongly tie poetry to one word: emotions. The act of writing poetry is the creation of an open space, where the writer is forced to come to terms with personal truths that exist inside them. Why? The simple answer is that reading and writing poetry evokes multiple senses (i.e. imagery appeals to sight, rhyme or meter appeals to sound, figurative language appeal to various senses). 

How can poetry be a tool in therapy and healing?

Whether one is reading or writing poetry, the act of channeling harbored emotions through rhyme, figurative language and imagery, is found to be an effective method of coping with physical and emotional stressors. There is also a sector of psychology called Art Therapy, which focuses on utilizing creative expression (such as painting, writing, dancing) to help the individual heal emotionally. 

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