Poetry is the oldest of the arts. Long before there were written words, there were poems—spoken, sung, and remembered. It may even be one of the things that made us human according to historians way smarter than myself. The human brain just seems wired for rhythm, pattern, and story. Those ancient receptors feed the imagination and stir the emotions. In that way, poetry didn’t just reflect culture—it helped *create* it. So, what exactly *is* poetry? Im not sure I want to open that debate here, but wonder how can something so ancient still feel so immediate? Let me offer ten observations that might help us see what makes poetry different from any other form of language. First, poetry is universal. You can go anywhere on the planet, in any century, and find it id speculate it may be—because there is no society without poetry. It is a language of the human soul, expressed in infinite tongues. Second, it’s our oldest art form. Before brushes, before clay, poetry used the body itself —the voice, the ear, the heartbeat. Movement, and community. Ancient peoples shaped their words to be remembered, because they had no other way to keep their stories alive. Third, poetry was born an oral art. It was speech made musical—organized through rhythm and repetition so that memory could hold it. You could say poetry was the very first memory technology. Fourth, poetry is performative. In pre-literate cultures, it lived in rhythm and motion—sung, chanted, and danced. It wasn’t meant to sit on a page; it was meant to live in the air. Fifth, poetry is mnemonic. Rhyme and meter weren’t just about beauty—they were survival tools. When people recited their myths, their laws, their wisdom, they did it in verse because verse could be remembered word-for-word, generation after generation. Sixth, poetry is evocative. It doesn’t instruct by argument but by enchantment. The music of its words lowers our defenses, stirs the imagination, and opens doors in the memory we didn’t know were there. Seventh, poetry is formal. The very shape and rhythm of a poem signal that this is *special* speech—set apart from everyday talk. Even when we read free verse, its visual and rhythmic choices still announce: this language asks for your attention. Eighth, poetry is sacred. In its earliest forms, it was used to speak to the divine—to praise, to mourn, to invoke, to remember. Poets were priests and priestesses, shamans and prophets. Even now, poets like Whitman or Blake seek vision and revelation through the line and the breath. Ninth, poetry is magical. Long before science, people believed words could change the world, and in a way, they still can. A love poem is a spell to move the beloved’s heart. An elegy calls the dead back into memory. Even a satire can shrink its target down to human size. Poetry transforms perception—that’s its power and its charm. And lastly—tenth—poetry civilizes. From Orpheus in Greek myth to the epics of Homer, to the Psalms, the Quran, the Vedas, the book of Kings—civilizations have risen around poetic memory. Nations find themselves through their poets. A tribe becomes a people when it begins to sing its story. So what, then, is poetry? Simply put, poetry is a special way of speaking that invites a special way of listening. It is an art of language that carries meaning not only in what is said but in *how* it sounds, how it moves, and how it makes us feel. ... In the end, poetry exists to delight, to instruct, to console, and to commemorate. It wakes us up—to life, to loss, to wonder, to each other. That, I believe, is the enduring purpose of poetry: to change, in small but meaningful ways, the way we live. https://bit.ly/CafeSyD Community https://bit.ly/SyD-POD Podcast https://bit.ly/SyD-TV YouTube
