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The Chinese poem by Emperor Gaozong.

A poem on a gravestone in an English churchyard

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns or lyrics.

Poetry, and discussions of it, have a long history. Early attempts to define poetry, such as Aristotle's Poetics, focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy. Later attempts concentrated on features such as repetition and rhyme, and emphasised the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from prose. From the mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more loosely defined as a fundamental creative act using language.

Poetry often uses particular forms and conventions to expand the literal meaning of the words, or to evoke emotional or sensual responses. Devices such as assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. Poetry's use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony and other stylistic elements of poetic diction often leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations. Similarly, metaphor and simile create a resonance between otherwise disparate images—a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived. Kindred forms of resonance may exist, between individual verses, in their patterns of rhyme or rhythm.

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Credit: by Mariano

Cave paintings Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for Cave of the Hands) in Argentina. The paintings of hands date from between 13,000 and 9,300 years ago.

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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (January 29 [O.S. January 17] 1860 – July 15 [O.S. July 2] 1904) (Russian: Анто́н Па́влович Че́хов, Russian pronunciation: [ɐnˈton ˈpavləvʲɪtɕ ˈtɕɛxəf]) was a Russian short-story writer and playwright, considered to be one of the greatest short story writers in world literature. His playwriting career produced four classics: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard; and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Chekhov practised as a doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife," he once said, "and literature is my mistress."

Chekhov renounced the theatre after the disastrous reception of The Seagull in 1896; but the play was revived to acclaim by Konstantin Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Uncle Vanya and premiered Chekhov’s last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. These four works present a special challenge to the acting ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a "theatre of mood" and a "submerged life in the text."

Chekhov had at first written stories only for the money, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story. His originality consists in an early use of the stream-of-consciousness technique, later adopted by Virginia Woolf and other modernists, combined with a disavowal of the moral finality of traditional story structure. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.

Did you know...

• ... that Frank Lloyd Wright said of the Millard House (pictured) that he "would rather have built this little house than St. Peter's in Rome"?
• ... that Henny Moan acted in the Oscar-nominated Ni liv, later named the best film in the history of Norwegian cinema?
• ... that Voltaire's 1730 poem about Joan of Arc, The Maid of Orleans, was banned in most of Europe?
• ... that Leon "Pee Wee" Whittaker, an African American trombonist from the Mississippi River delta country, played at least five instruments in a 74-year musical career?
• ... that Canadian Olympic bronze medalist Thomas Hall cites J. R. R. Tolkien as a key influence and re-reads The Lord of the Rings trilogy every year?
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