Poetry Appreciation

In this blog post, I will be talking about one of my favourite hobbies, writing and appreciating poetry.

Ever since I was in Primary 4, I developed a flair and passion for writing. It was after tons and tons of novels I read, plays I watched that completely changed my style of writing. My parents also helped tremendously as they constantly brought me to the library and bookstores. Gradually I not only devoured books like a hungry vampire, I started trying out different writing style. I also developed interest in poetry.

At the tender age of ten, I misinterpreted the true meaning of poetry. I thought that Poems were nothing but short sentences with a repeated rhyme scheme every 2 lines. Through the different stages of my life from then to now, I have changed my perception of poetry. My exposure to language arts over the last 1 – 2 years further enhanced my appreciation and love for poetry.

What then is poetry?

Poetry is an imaginative awareness of experience expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language choices so as to evoke an emotional response. It is a form of literary art where language is used for its aesthetic, evocative qualities. Some defined poetry as a fundamental creative art using language. In poetry, certain forms and conventions are used to suggest alternative meanings in words, or to evoke emotional or sensual responses. Poetic devices ranging from assonance, alliteration, rhythm, metaphor, similes etc are used to achieve the desired emotions of the poet and often resulted in multiple interpretations by the readers.

Poets are also influenced by their diverse culture, language and particular genres. For example Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen served during the World War 1 and their experience played a vital role in their poetries. They brought out the emotions, anger, frustration, brutality and cruelness of war that no other poets are more suited to write.

So, I feel that poetry is a very beautiful art where one can be liberal to express one’s feelings and emotions through the use of words. I am sure that life experiences also played a very critical role in one’s work. This is apparent when I browsed through poems I wrote when I was in primary school. Those poems have a hint of playfulness and simplicity and are child like. They reflected my environment and experience then.

Poetry writing is a great ‘get away’ for me. Whenever I am stressed, all I need is a pen and paper and unknowingly I will be penning my thoughts in phrases. I hope to continue to explore and appreciate poetry. I hope to combine my love for music with poetry and hopefully, I can come up with some unique poems. I have a compilation of poems that I have written so far, and who knows I may publish a Max’s Poem book in future.