Good Poetry

In my last post I talked briefly about poetry and some of its good qualities, however I think there was a lot I left out when discussing it. So, I'm going to revisit that and talk about some of the better qualities of poetry and what these qualities do for a poet. So, what is, in my definition, good poetry?

Good poetry is a creative piece that presents an idea in a unique way in which it makes the reader think or feel emotionally connected.

What does all that mean? Well, lets go through that bit by bit. 'A creative piece,' simply means that it is written in a way that isn't prose and that uses devices to capture the attention of the reader: these could be things like rhythm, rhyme, word play, etc. You can make some really interesting presentations of ideas through different paragraphing and spacing, and, with most everything related with poetry, the more original it is, the better.

'That presents and idea in a unique way.' This, more or less, is the point of your poem. Don't get me wrong, poems can be extremely fun and visually appealing, however every poem should have some sort of idea or moral they're trying to get across to the reader. This idea doesn't have to be immediately clear, in fact many great poems are quite ambiguous, but they should be decipherable with time and thought, just like many good stories. Again, I can't stress this enough, the more original and unique your idea and how you present it, generally the better the poetry is considered.

'Makes the reader think or feel emotionally connected.' This pertains pretty closely to the previous point about getting your idea across to the reader. The only difference here is that it's trying to describe the quality of the idea rather than the presentation of the idea. Whatever you're trying to get across, it should be effective in making the reader: question previous things about his or her perceptions; feel emotionally understanding of your idea; or simply learn something new about the world or his or her self. You guessed it; the more original the idea and the more effectively it achieves these things, the better.

Hopefully reading this gives you a slightly better understanding of your poetry as well as poetry in general. Until next time guys, peace.

-Ink