Where did poetry originate from?

Question

I have heard that the first poems were found in the area that is now Iran and Afghanistan.

Answer 1

Poetry is used to aid memory and predates written language

Answer 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry

(:

Answer 3

I'm sure that the place you mention is known at the cradle of mankind...in other words, that is where humans first walked the earth.  So, poetry began where articulate man originated

Answer 4

I do know that the greeks, romans and jews all had poems and prose back in Old Testament writing periods, Psalms is written as such.

I am not sure how or where it actually started, however.

Answer 5

Poetry was started when the human mind first felt feelings, so pretty much since the beginning of mankind.

Answer 6

Cavemen

My name is Dave

and I live in a cave

Answer 7

Without doubt, the origin of poetry is as old as mankind. So we must resort to the oldest civilizations known to us which are the Hindu and the Chinese. Within the reach of documented history I  believe it's the Hindu culture that we can rely on to find the first poems and the phenomenon of poetry in general.

Answer 8

No-one really knows, since poetry has been with us as long as we can tell. There is no human race or language without poetry.

The best guess is that it started with music - repetitive rhythm (even if only drumming without melody) suggests measured speech. Other aural devices (repeated sounds in rhyme or alliteration, stress as well as note-length etc.) might have followed naturally.

As recently as the ancient Greeks or Romans, poetry was normally sung. 'Ode' is Greek for song/poem as is 'carmen' in Latin: the verse and song were not easily separable. Similarly, classical Chinese poems were always sung, not recited. In Elizabethan England lyric poetry was still routinely set to music, though by then music was not an inevitable part of the form.

The connection continues. For many, the only daily contact they have with poetry is through song lyrics. The quality (of both words and music) has declined sharply since Dowland and John Donne, but the connection is still apparent.

Hope this helps.