Skip to Main Content

Mullins, Rebecca ENG161 Introduction to Literature: Poetry

To understand it:  No Word Meaningless

Out of all the different types of literature, poetry has the greatest chance to

  • have an editor listed as a contributor (arrangement in the works)
  • place punctuation which is equally as important as text
  • depend on physical spacing to understand the poem, for example:

A copy of ee cummings poetry, where the use of parentheses change how the voice sounds as you recite the poem.

  • may need a spoken word cadence to completely represent a work

Poems can be hundreds of words or tens of thousands of words, and they can either be from the same author or from different groups (thematic).

A cover art for Black Boan: 25 Years of the Affilachian poets. Next to stark black text is a gray femur on its side.      The cover of poet Amanda Gorman's book Call Us What We Carry. The book cover resembles endlessly crashing ocean waves. The author and title is superimposed over it.