In ancient Greece, poetry wasn't something you read or wrote because you had a lot of time on your hands. Poetry was a part of your daily routine. You'd attend poetry readings to hear the latest poet sing his new verse. Maybe you went to a sporting event and right alongside of the physical events, there were poets in deep competition trying to outread each other in very serious matches. Some poets made a living writing poetry, and some just wrote to express themselves. Others were hired to write poems as a sort of instruction to teach children about stuff or warriors how to fight. Imagine going to school and your teachers would sing your lessons to you!

To put it into technical terms, there was:

ORAL COMPOSITION- poets would read to the public and make up their lyrics right on the spot.

ORAL PUBLICATION- poets would read to a public poems they felt were worth hearing. A poetry performance.

ORAL TRANSMISSION- poetry spoken with the purpose of having people memorize it.

OK, now that we got that straight, let's find out about some poets!

As I said before, poets back then came from all walks of life. Their were women poets as well as guy poets, old men poets and kid poets. There were so many that I'm going to try to give you a broad example from a few that were considered the cream of the crop.

ARCHILOCHUS-

He lived in the early 7th century B.C. He's considered the father of European satire. Satire is comedy intended to poke fun at somebody or something. Legend has it that when his engagement was broken off by the bride-to-be's father, Archilochus wrote a satirical poem so mean, the woman and her father hung themselves.

Many a trick the wise fox knows;
But the Hedgehog has one, worth a lot of those.

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