Poetry, Verse, and Folklore

Before men ever wrote in clay they cast their words in verse and line, rythymbound in poets' minds, defying time and age. ~Dave Beard

I was really impressed to discover that there are distinguishing elements of poetry, verse, and folklore. The fact that there are opinions on what poetry is as opposed to verse, got me to thinking about whether my favorite poet, Shel Silverstein, wrote poetry or verse. I would never know, really, but what I do know is that he incorporated a lot of humorous lines in his poems, so maybe he wrote a combination of both. As for folklore, I never realized that there are various categories of it, such as narrative and song and dance. I always assumed folklore to mean only legends. I guess I just proved how ignorant I am about this literary genre.

In any case, I'm becoming more knowledgeable about the different genres that I've read about so far, and I must admit that they make for interesting and informative reading. As a teacher and future reading specialist, I must be familiar with them so as to make appropriate choices of resources when addressing the needs and wants of the students.

image: http://www.arranalexander.co.uk/comic-and-curious-verse-ladybird-book-poetry-series-851-first-edition-gloss-hardback-1983-1375-p.asp

quote: http://www.quotegarden.com/poetry.html