Poetry is one of the world’s oldest and most adaptable art forms. A poem can be spoken, sung, read, or performed. It can take the form of a nursery rhyme, an epic, a ghazal, a tanka, a limerick, a film, or even a dance. English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge defined poetry as “the best words in the best order.” Certainly, the greatest poets—from Dante to Sappho, from Rabindranath Tagore to Gwendolyn Brooks, from Li Bai to Coleridge himself—kept to this seemingly simple but highly difficult rule. But great poets are hardly a thing of the past. The poets in this ...(100 of 1196 words) Access the full article Help support true facts by becoming a member. Subscribe today!