What are poems made of?

Answer 1

The various tones conveyed by authors as well as the different perspectives and interpretations one can infer. Also, some poems are catchy and tell a brief story, others are long, and are called epic poems, but thats a whole different topic. Cheers mate!

Answer 2

I'm going to attempt to answer this question as I see it. In doing so, I'm taking for granted that anyone, to be called a poet at all, has certain qualifications. The poet knows how to rhyme, understands meter and how to construct different forms of verse, and probably has a generous vocabulary of short words (Though some excellent poems I've read have made good use of polysyllabic words; that in itself is an art). And the poet understands simile, metaphor, and other forms of figurative as well as literal speech. In other words, any real poet is like a proper mechanic: he's trained in the uses of the tools of his craft. That doesn't make a great poet any more than understanding wrenches makes a great mechanic; greatness and excellence are more than competence.

Let me give an example. I read a couple of poems out of my edition of Frost's works tonight. All of them were pleasant, but one I randomly flipped to stood out from the rest. (Frost has that effect whenever I pick a random one from the book; maybe that's the way to read his poems.)

The poem was about his seeing a mite crawling across the page he was writing on; he was about to kill it with his pen tip when he realized what it was, and seeing its response to the wet ink on the page (he must have been writing with a fountain pen) he decided it had to have an intelligence to behave so.

What really confounds me is that Frost was able to put this simple, stupid little moment into words in such a way as to give me, and probably many other readers, an entirely new view of it. It strikes me that a lot of his writings are just that way. He would pick out a moment or a place that seemed hardly worth noting, and make it noteworthy. That may be one answer: a great poet sees the implications in a moment that is per se hardly significant, and writes those implications into the moment itself.

From Dead Poets Society: "The cat sat on the mat." Well, it's boring. But what's going on with this cat? If the kid who wrote that silly little rhyme had dug deeper, I think he could have woven a great poem about a dumb cat sitting on a mat (Woven is the right word; prose is often constructed, but the best poems seem to have a weave).

There are many other ways to address this question; it's a very general question, something like "what is the best way to live?" Consequently, it's hard to be more specific than I've been.

Answer 3

Poems are made of words carefully chosen and arranged to create a specific rhythm, structure, and meaning. They often include elements such as imagery, metaphor, and symbolism to evoke emotions and communicate ideas in a condensed and creative way.

Answer 4

wat makes poetry, poetry is the words that rhyme

Answer 5

Poems are made of human thoughts. It is the spontaneous natural outflow of emotions evolving from objective observations.

Answer 6

The poet uses words to create images that elicit emotions.

Answer 7

rhyme

rhythm

prose

Answer 8

it touches the soul