Why Is Poetry Important to Our Community?

Essay – Why is poetry important to our community?
Poetry is defined as a work of literacy at which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. Poetry existed from a very long time ago and was used for many purposes – to express the poet’s feelings, to record historical phenomenon and many more. Poetry was written and read by all kinds of people that weren’t necessary poets, but salesmen, lawyers, famers, doctors, scientists and many more. It was said that poetry was not only made for pleasure, but for something that is very important for an individual’s existence that gives them their unique values.
The communities today are affected significantly by poetry. The passion at which people are filled with enabled them to read and understand poems. Engineering, medicine, science, law and businesses were necessary to sustain life but poetry, beauty, love and romance was what people lived for. The poems educate people about things that only humans were able do. Today, people are exposed many different forms of poetry including the original poems, books and songs. Many songs that were released were based on poems. Poetry is one of the few things in the world that is capable of moving a person’s heart by using emotions and sending important messages. At times, the message in the poems can be easy to understand, or the opposite. Poems contain empathy and spiritual sustenance as it holds important messages that help people understand themselves as well as the society.
Many poets have successfully attempted to get important messages through to people. One of these poems would be ‘A thing of Beauty’ by John Keats. The poem is about love and shows that ‘true beauty’ is different from what people would think. The poem states that ‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness’, meaning that the thing of beauty is something that is permanent and cannot be destroyed by time and space. The poem states that the ‘thing of beauty’ is a ray of light that helps people go through hardships and problems (‘Of noble natures, of the gloomy days… Some shape of beauty moves away the pall from our dark spirits’.). The ‘thing of beauty’ is revealed when the poem states ‘Such the sun, the moon, trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon’. Keats tells the reader that the thing of beauty is the sun, moon and the trees and that people can find happiness in it. This poem shows that people should not look at an object that is only temporarily beautiful, but to look at the ‘true beauty’ –the nature.
Some poets wrote poetry that was a response of another story or poem. One of these poem is ‘The lady of Shalott’ by Alfred Tennyson. The poem is the extended metaphorical response of the story of Elaine and Sir Lancelot. Tennyson uses the first four stanzas of the poem to describe the pastoral settings of the poem. ‘And by the moon the reaper weary, piling sheaves in uplands airy, Listening, whispers, “Tis the fairy Lady of shallot.” ’From these stanza readers are able to know that the Lady of Shalott lives in an island castle that is located in the river that flows to a village called Camelot. However, the Lady of Shalott is very little known to the locals in Camelot. In stanzas five to eight, Tennyson describes the curse that is upon Lady of Shalott and how she can only look at the reflections of Camelot by her mirror as she will be cast upon a curst when she looks at the village directly. ‘She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott’. The reflected images of Camelott is described as the ‘shadows of the world’, showing that the reflections are a poor substitute for seeing things directly. Stanza nine to twelve is used to describe Sir Lancelot, who was seen by Lady Shalott when he rode by. ‘All in the blue unclouded weather, thick-jewell’d shone the saddle leather, the helmet and the helmet feather burn’d like one burning flame together, as he rode to camelot’. It is shown that the Lady of Shalott has fallen in love with him. Tennyson uses the last seven stanzas to describe the effects of the curse when the Lady of Shalott looks at Camelot directly. ‘Out flew the web and floated wide- The mirror crack’d from side to side; “The curse is upon me,” cried The Lady of Shalott’. Seeing that the curse is upon her, the Lady of Shalott leaves her tower and writes her name on her boat. The boat floats down to Camelot, but the Lady of Shalott is dead before arriving at the palace. People gather to see her, and among those is Sir Lancelot who thinks she is lovely. ‘ “Who is this? And what is here?” And in the lighted palace near died the sound of royal cheer; And they crossed themselves for fear, all the knights of Camelot; But Lancelot mused a little space he said, “She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.” ‘. Tennyson tells the reader that many people think that they are in a curse as they search for their love and that many people watch other people’s happiness through their pain. However, Tennyson also tells that the real curse begins from the moment when people find their real love.
Some poems have historical content or are based on a historical phenomenon. An example of such is ‘The Tyger’ by William Black. ‘What immortal hand or eye could frame they fearful symmetry?’ The poem starts off with the speaker asking a tiger what kind of divine being could have created it. Each stanza contains more questions, at which all of them refines the first one. During the poem, the speaker starts to wonder how the creator continued his job of making the tiger once the horrible heart ‘began to beat’. ‘The Tyger’ has a strong semblance to the British industrialisation. The poem was a sister poem to ‘The Little Lamb’ as ‘The Tyger’ was the contrast to it and showed both sides of God, meaning that William Black used different religious connotations. Unlike the original spelling of the ‘tiger’, Black instead uses the word ‘tyger’, which symbolised of how the British revolution was like – Tennyson successfully represents the tiger’s ferocity as to what people of Britain went through during the British industrialisation.
Poems are an extremely important part of the community, and is very crucial to every human being, as it is a way to show the emotions, to educate and most importantly, to move the hearts of people. Without poems, the communities today wouldn’t have been as ‘living’ as how it is, today.