April is National Poetry Month
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April 1 marks the first day of National Poetry Month in the United States, a celebration of this unique form of literature. Each week, Behind the Headlines will feature the art of poetry or a famous poet.
Throughout history, poetry has been used for many purposes. People have used poetry in religious rituals, to praise and celebrate remarkable individuals, and to express intense emotions, from love to rage. Various social groups have also used poetry to record events and stories. Such poems include lessons that are important for the group to remember and pass down from generation to generation.
The basic feature of poetic language is rhythm. Rhythm is the repetition of sounds in a particular pattern. All human beings enjoy rhythm. Children may clap their hands or rock their bodies to match the rhythm of nursery rhymes, with the rhythm helping the words stick in their memory. Adults may detect more subtle patterns in poems and find that such patterns deepen their response to the meanings and emotions conveyed by the words.
Poetry began in prehistoric times, as an oral (spoken) tradition. After the development of writing, poetry gradually became an important written art. In all languages throughout history, human beings have created poems, remembered them, recited them, and found deep meaning in them. There are times in life when every human being wants to say exactly the right thing in exactly the right words. That is what poets try to do. For people who do not write poetry, it can be a moving discovery to find a poem that expresses feelings or experiences for which they cannot find the words.
Poetry has come to seem strange to many people. Yet, we still discover poetry in many places in our world. Popular songs feature such poetic innovations as regular meter and rhyme. Nursery rhymes and children’s verse remain popular. At important events in life—a wedding or a funeral, for example—people may recite poetry to express their feelings and to mark the significance of the event.
People still turn to poetry to express romantic feelings, whether reciting well-known poems or writing their own. Poems remain not only among the most enjoyable uses of language but the most precise and significant as well. In some cultures, poetry remains highly valued, and many people have memorized numbers of poems.
Not every poem is well-written or memorable. But among the countless poems that have been written throughout the ages, every individual will find at least some that strike a deep and resonant chord.
