English Dictionary
Definition of “poetry”
poetry (ˈpəʊɪtrɪ
)
Definitions
noun
- literature in metrical form; verse
- the art or craft of writing verse
- poetic qualities, spirit, or feeling in anything
- anything resembling poetry in rhythm, beauty, etc
Word Origin
C14: from Medieval Latin poētria, from Latin poētapoet
Quotations
"Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense"
Isaac Barrow"Poetry is what gets lost in translation"
Robert Frost"Poetry is a search for ways of communication; it must be conducted with openness, flexibility, and a constant readiness to listen"
Fleur Adcock"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity"
William Wordsworth"Poetry is at bottom a criticism of life"
Matthew Arnold"Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry"
Gustave Flaubert"Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat"
Robert Frost"As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines"
Lord Macaulay"Poetry (is) a speaking picture, with this end; to teach and delight"
Sir Philip Sidney"Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes"
Joseph Roux"Prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in their best order"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge"Imaginary gardens with real toads in them"
Marianne Moore"Poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history"
Aristotle"Prose is when all the lines except the last go on to the end. Poetry is when some of them fall short of it"
Jeremy Bentham"I am two fools, I know,For loving, and for saying soIn whining poetry"
John Donne"Poetry's a mere drug, Sir"
George Farquhar"I'd as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down"
Robert Frost"If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all"
John Keats"Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo"
Don Marquis"rhyme being... but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame metre"
John Milton"Most people ignore most poetrybecausemost poetry ignores most people"
Adrian Mitchell"All that is not prose is verse; and all that is not verse is prose"
Molière"My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity"
Wilfred Owen"it is not poetry, but prose run mad"
Alexander Pope
Translations
- British English:
poetry
Poems, considered as a form of literature, are referred to as poetry.He wrote a great deal of poetry.ˈpəʊɪtrɪ NOUN He wrote a great deal of poetry.
- Spanish:
poesía
nf
- French:
poésie
nf
- German:
Lyrik
nf
- Chinese: 诗篇 n
- Arabic: شِعْر n
- Portuguese: poesia nf
- Russian: поэзия nf
- Croatian: poezija nf
- Czech: poezie nf
- Danish: poesi nutr
- Dutch: poëzie nf
- Finnish: runous n
- Greek: ποίηση nf
- Italian: poesia nf
- Japanese: 詩歌 n
- Korean: 시 n
- Norwegian: poesi nm
- Polish: poezja nf
- Brazilian Portuguese: poesia nf
- European Spanish:
poesía
nf
- Swedish: poesi nutr
- Thai: บทกวี n
- Turkish: şiir n
- Vietnamese: thơ ca n
Usage examples
The route went past Keats ' House, and I always loved to see the tree under which he wrote poetry.
Anita Anderson, SOMEBODY (2002)To mark this occasion, the garden will be open between 5 and 7.30pm on Thursday ( poetry and music start at 6pm).
Country Life (2004)He won a Harkness Fellowship, and went to Harvard to study poetry analysis.
Irish Times (2002)He also plans to publish a book of essays and a new collection of poetry over the next year.
Glasgow Herald (2001)Islam forbids alcohol but not hashish, which medieval Arabic poets celebrated in their poetry.
Dorothy Rowe, BEYOND FEAR (2002)
