MoonInk Launch Poetry Pages Blog

Today MoonInk have launched their Poetry Pages Blog which will cover interesting thoughts and news about poetry.

Poetry as an art form predates written text.

The earliest poetry is believed to have been recited or sung as a way of remembering oral history, genealogy, and law. 

Poetry is often closely related to musical traditions and the earliest poetry exists in the form of hymns and other types of song such as chants. 

Poetry is a verbal art. Many of the poems surviving from the ancient world are recorded prayers, stories about religious and historical accounts, love songs, and fiction. 

Many historians suggest that early writing shows clear traces of older oral traditions, including the use of repeated phrases as building blocks in larger poetic units. A rhythmic and repetitious form would make a long story easier to remember and retell. 

Poetry appears among the earliest records of most literate cultures, with poetic fragments found on early monoliths and runestones.

The development of modern poetry is generally seen as having started at the beginning of the 20th century and extends into the 21st century.

The use of verse to transmit cultural information continues today. 

Some writers believe poetry has its origins in song. Most of the characteristics that distinguish it from rhythm or rhyme appear to have come about from efforts to fit words to musical forms. 

In the European tradition the earliest surviving poems, identify themselves as poems to be recited or chanted to a musical accompaniment rather than as pure song. 

The introduction of writing fixed the content of a poem to the version that happened to be written down and survive. Written composition meant poets began to compose for an absent reader and the invention of printing accelerated these trends. 

Visit www.moonink.co.uk to read some Tanka poetry.