Literatura: Province of Poetry

If the soul is a box, then poetry is the key; that can intimately articulate its essence across the seasons; in my opinion, at least.

But if you require a concrete definition, it would be, “a literary composition in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity using distinctive style and rhythm.” Rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and intonation are a few of the key elements of writing a poem. As for genres; narratives, epics, elegies, and satirical poems are just a small number of examples you can use to identify which kind of poems are of your preference.

So today, we will stroll down the most significant towns in the Province of Poetry. You will find that the most aesthetic of Literatura’s citizens resides here.

Let’s begin!

Town of Sonnet

This place was founded during the Holy Roman Empire. They express their form of art in pairs of fours (quatrains) and pairs of threes (tercets); and flow in a rather symmetrical rhyme scheme. They tap their feet in an “ABABABAB CDCDCD” beat. Learn this samba well or they might take offense. They are the Sicilians, after all. As time went by, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, German, British, Irish, Welsh, Polish, Czech, Slovenian, Russian, American, and Indian communities flocked in and adopted this form of art. If you decide to purchase a home here, there is a chance you might bump into Shakespeare or Dante.

Town of Limerick

The people of this little town are a chucklesome bunch. They take rhythm quite seriously, though. When they write their poetry, they write it short; only five lines, but they always make sure to have at least seven to ten syllables on their first, second, and fifth lines. However, their third and fourth lines have only five to seven syllables. Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson have been spotted here sometimes.

Town of Villanelle

Villanelle; sometimes called Villanesque, has nothing to do with villains, so fret not about venturing in. The residents here are mostly shepherds and farmers; who are rather fond of the number; nineteen. Their form of expression is as long as only nineteen lines with five tercets and a closing quatrain. They tend to repeat the same line twice (refrains); mostly the first and third lines of the first stanza. The repetition of the same line varies throughout the rest of the following stanzas up until the last stanza, where the same line is repeated twice just like in the first stanza. Villanelles are fixed-verse poems; their pattern follows a template.

Town of Ballad

If music and dancing are your cups of tea, then you will like this community. They do not have any hard-and-fast rules on the structure of their poetry; though they show a preference for quatrains. Some say they originate from the French. Others speculate Scandinavians. Either way, their form flows like a narrative. If you have heard of Beowulf, then you have an example.

Town of Ode

The folks in this town are like their neighbors in Ballad, except they are far more dramatic; performing their poems lyrically in song, with or without musical instruments. Their poems are mostly about serious subjects; primarily exalting an event or person, relatively with emotion. You cannot expect any less from the Greeks. Townsfolk here are divided into three factions: the strophes, the antistrophes, and the epodes. The strophes generally conduct the first part of every ode. The antistrophes carry out the “return” part of the ode; in the opposite reaction to the strophes, as the name suggests. The epodes complete the ode in a choral finale; like a histrionic opera, I suppose. The Arabic version of an ode is called a qasida. They are quite a big morsel for your mind to swallow.

Town of Ghazal

You will find this town mostly habituated by Arab, Persian, Turkish, Bengali, Urdu, and Gujarat poets; like the well-known Rumi. Their style of poetry consists of between five to fifteen rhyming couplets with a refrain at the finishing point of the second line. The residentiaries around here are hopeless romantics and spiritualists at heart; as such, so are their poems. The words they weave are of amorous nature in a spiritual context; such as exhibiting the beauty of unconditional love, or even the pain of losing a cherished one. I personally, thoroughly savor the other-worldly haze I fall under when reading ghazals.

Town of Haiku

If you have a taste for short-and-sweet contrivances, then I guess you would fancy the Japanese Haiku; which is written in just three phrases formed by seventeen phonetic syllables with a kireji (like a caesura) and a kigo (a word or phrase indicating one of the four seasons). Later on, the English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Estonian, Armenian, Arabs, and Indians took on the style and wrote haikus in their own languages.

Town of Shi

As the name implies, Shi is a town of Chinese poets; who are significant for two types of poems: the Gushi and the Jintishi. The Gushi are traditional and classical poems written in ancient times; around the second century CE. They are written in a formal style with consistent lengths for each line; with relatively five to seven syllables or characters. Rhythm and caesuras (which are pauses at the end of a verse to signify the beginning of another) are important components in these poems. The Jintishi are what you could consider “new-style poetry;” similar to the Gushi, but with an addition of a few formal rules to the structure of the poems.

Thus, we conclude our tour for the day. I hope it was enjoyable to you as it was informative. Tomorrow, we shall explore the Province of Prose.

Till then, sayonara!

~Wolfy