The poetry It is a literary genre that is characterized by expressing a feeling, an idea or a story through the language used in an aesthetic way. It can be written in verse or prose, and usually uses literary resources to gain expressiveness or beauty. For example:
the haven of air
under the echo branch.
the backwater of water
under a frond of lights.
the haven of your mouth
under the thickness of kisses
Federico García Lorca, “Variation”
Many poems are written based on very specific rules of meter and rhythm. In the most classical poetry, rhymes are usually used, that is, the repetition of the final sounds of words starting from the last accented vowel in two or more verses. In turn, the verses are usually grouped into stanzas.
Some ancient cultures created their own particular poetic styles, usually with poems written in verse and with fixed meter and rhyme (for example, sonnets). However, from the avant-garde of the early 20th century, free verse (that is, without pre-established rhyme or metrics) began to be used and continues to be very frequent in modern poetry. For example:
The poem is, yes, a combination of words,
but their harmony does not depend
-only-
of the nature of sound and timbres
nor of the empty space that it displaces,
it depends, too,
of the nostalgia of infinity that awakens
and the kind of disclosure it suggests.
Cristina Peri Rossi, General Linguistics, poem XXII
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to take into account: Traditionally, it has been called poetry to each of the genres in which literary works are classified. Thus, they are distinguished:
- Lyric poetry. Expresses the feelings or emotions of the poet, and its usual form is the poem.
- epic poetry. It narrates legendary events, such as the deeds of heroes, from an external point of view and that is intended to be objective.
- dramatic poetry. It narrates a story or a conflict through the dialogical interaction of characters, and its purpose is the representation in front of the public.
Today the term is used poetry to refer specifically to lyric poetry.
characteristics of poetry
Poetry usually presents the following characteristics:
- It is the expression of the poet’s subjectivity, which is manifested through a lyrical self, that is, the voice of the poem.
- It can be written in verse or prose.
- It usually has rhythm and often also rhymes.
- The poetic function of language predominates, that is, the one that focuses on the form of the message and is used to produce an aesthetic effect.
- You can address any topic that is worthy of the poet’s attention.
- He usually uses connotative language, that is, words in their figurative sense.
- You can use certain poetic licenses with regard to syntax and grammar, that is, alterations with respect to the traditional norm.
- It usually presents various literary devices and rhetorical figures, including metaphors, comparisons or similes, anaphoras, metonyms, alliteration, hyperboles, personifications.
- It is one of the genres with the most creative freedom, since it can be adapted almost completely to the expressive needs of the poet.
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Careful: Many times the terms poetry Y poem They are used synonymously, although they do not strictly mean the same thing. The noun poetry refers to both the literary genre and poetic compositions, while the term poem it only designates the texts. To avoid misunderstandings, it is recommended to use poetry only to designate the gender and poem for poetic texts.
examples of poetry
- “The six strings”, by Federico García Lorca
Guitar
makes dreams cry
the sob of souls
losses
escapes from his mouth
round.
And like the tarantula,
knit a big star
to catch sighs,
that float in your black
wooden cistern.
- “Bottle to the Sea”, by Mario Benedetti
I put these six verses in my bottle to the sea
with the secret design that one day
I came to an almost deserted beach
and a child finds her and uncovers her
and instead of verses I extracted pebbles
and help and alerts and snails.
- “The Fatal”, by Rubén Darío
Happy the tree, which is barely sensitive,
and more the hard stone because that one no longer feels,
because there is no pain greater than the pain of being alive,
nor greater sorrow than conscious life.
Being and knowing nothing, and being aimlessly,
and the fear of having been and a future terror…
And the certain fear of being dead tomorrow,
and suffer for life and for the shadow and for
what we don’t know and barely suspect,
and the meat that tempts with its fresh clusters,
and the grave that awaits with its funereal bouquets,
and not knowing where we are going,
nor where we come from!…
- “Aspect”, by Alfonsina Storni
I live within four mathematical walls
aligned to meter they surround me apathetic
little souls that don’t even know one iota
of this bluish fever that nourishes my chimera.
I use a false skin that I scratch it in gray.
Raven that under its wing keeps a lily flower.
My fierce and grim beak makes me laugh
that I myself believe pure farce and hindrance.
- “The Moon” by Jorge Luis Borges
To Maria Kodama
There is so much loneliness in that gold.
The moon at night is not the moon
which the first Adam saw. the long centuries
they have filled it with human vigilance
of old crying Look at her. It is your mirror.
- “Shoes” by Charles Bukowski
(Translation by Rafael Díaz Borbón)
when you are young
a pair
of shoes
feminine
high heels
motionless
lonely
in the closet
can turn on
your bones;
when you are old
are only
a pair of shoes
without
no one
in them
Y
also.
- “To the Night Star” by William Blake
(Translation by Laura di Verso)
You, blonde angel of the night,
now, as the sun rests on the mountains, ignite
your shining love tea! Put on the radiant crown
and smile at our nightbed!
Smile at our loves and while you run the
blue curtains of heaven, sow your silver dew
over all the flowers that close their sweet eyes
to the opportune dream. May your western wind sleep in
the lake. Say the silence with the brilliance of your eyes
and wash the dust with silver. Quick, very quick,
you quit; and then the wolf barks furiously everywhere
and the lion shoots fire from his eyes in the dark jungle.
The wool of our flocks is covered with
your sacred dew; protect them with your favor.
- “The Last Innocence”, by Alejandra Pizarnik
leave
in body and soul
depart.
leave
get rid of stares
oppressive stones
that sleep in the throat.
I have to leave
no more inertia under the sun
no more stunned blood
no more queue to die.
I have to leave
But lash out, traveler!
- “The game we are in”, by Juan Gelman
If they gave me a choice, I would choose
this health of knowing that we are very sick,
This joy of walking so unhappy.
If they gave me a choice, I would choose
this innocence of not being innocent,
this purity in which I walk for impure.
If they gave me a choice, I would choose
this love with which I hate,
this hope that eats desperate loaves.
Here it is, gentlemen.
that I play death.
- “Look”, by Rafael Cadenas
I see another route, the route of the moment, the route of attention, awake, incisive, Sagittarius! Viscera Peak, Extreme Diamond, Falcon, Lightning Path, Thousand Eyes Path, Magnificence Path, Sun-Going Line Path, Lightning Reflection surveillanceof lightning nowof lightning thisroyal route with its legion of living fruits whose finish is that place everywhere and nowhere.
- “Front the sea”, by Octavio Paz
1
Does the wave have no shape?
In an instant it sculpts
and in another it crumbles
in which it emerges, round.
Its movement is its form.
2
the waves recede
hips, backs, necks?
but the waves return
breasts, mouths, foams?
3
The sea dies of thirst.
It writhes, with no one,
in its bedrock.
He dies of thirst for air.
- “Poetry”, by Eugenio Montejo
Poetry crosses the earth alone,
support your voice in the pain of the world
and nothing asks
not even words.
He arrives from afar and without time, he never warns;
He has the key to the door.
Entering always stop to watch us.
Then he opens his hand and gives us
a flower or a pebble, something secret,
but so intense that the heart flutters
too fast. And we woke up.
- “Sometimes it seems to me…”, by Roberto Juarroz
sometimes it seems to me
that we are in the center
from the party
however
in the center of the party
no one.
In the center of the party
there is the void
But in the center of the void
there is another party
- “Silence” by Pablo Neruda
I grew up inside a tree
I would have a lot to say
but I learned so much silence
I have a lot to keep quiet
and that is known growing up
with no other joy than to grow,
without more passion than the substance,
with no more action than innocence,
and inside the golden time
until the height calls
to turn it orange.
- “Letters to a stranger”, by Nicanor Parra
When the years go by, when they go by
the years and the air have dug a pit
between your soul and mine; when the years pass
and I’m just a man who loved,
a being that stopped for an instant in front of your lips,
a poor man tired of walking through the gardens,
where will you be? Where
you will be, oh daughter of my kisses!
- “After the war”, by Jotamario Arbeláez
One day
after the war
if there is war
if after the war there is a day
I will take you in my arms
one day after the war
if there is war
if after the war there is a day
if after the war I have arms
and I will make love to you
one day after the war
if there is war
if after the war there is a day
if after the war there is love
And if there is something to make love with.
- “Naked Body”, by José Lezama Lima
Naked body in the boat.
Fish sleeps next to the naked
that escaped from the body pours
a new silver dot.
Between the grove and the point
static barca exhales.
The breeze trembles on my neck
and the bird evaporated.
The magnet between the leaves
weaves a double crown.
just a fallen branch
unharmed the boat chooses
the tree that remembers
dream of a serpent in the shadow.
- “Cage”, Juan Solá
that pain in your chest
are your broken bars.
If you loved the bird so much
why were you his cage?
- “Two homelands”, by José Martí
I have two homelands: Cuba and the night.
Or are they one? not well removed
her majesty the sun, with long veils
and a carnation in hand, silent
Cuba which sad widow appears to me.
I know what that bloody carnation is
that trembles in his hand! he is empty
my chest is shattered and empty
where the heart was It’s time
to start dying. the night is good
to say goodbye. the light hinders
and the human word. The universe
speaks better than the man.
which flag
that invites to battle, the red flame
of the candle flames. The Windows
I open, already tight in me. molting, breaking
the leaves of the carnation, like a cloud
that clouds the sky, Cuba, widow, pass…
- “The same matter continues”, by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Feliciano adores me and I hate him;
Lisardo hates me and I adore him;
for whom I don’t feel like being ungrateful, I cry,
and to the one who cries tenderly, I don’t feel like it:
to whoever degrades me the most, I offer my soul;
to those who offer me victims, I dishonor;
I despise the one who enriches my decorum
and to the one who makes contempt I enrich;
if with my offense I retaliate against one,
the other reprimands me offended
and by suffering anyway I come;
well both…