poetic

artistic license

1. Intentional violations of or deviations from traditional forms, standards, or syntax by a writer in order to achieve a particular effect. Don't get hung up on adhering too strictly to iambic pentameter—you can use a bit of artistic license if it means preserving the meaning and rhythm you want. Any two-bit poet can string together a jumble of words and call it artistic license.
2. Minor changes to or misrepresentations of facts or history in the name of art or for the sake of an agenda. People complain about minor inaccuracies in historical dramas, but honestly they wouldn't be able to make the movies marketable without using a little artistic license.
See also: artistic, license

poetic justice

A punishment or unfavorable outcome that is particularly appropriate or ironic. The CEO of the cigarette manufacturer, who has long denied the health risks associated with smoking, just died of lung cancer—now isn't that poetic justice?
See also: justice, poetic

poetic license

1. Intentional violations of or deviations from traditional forms, standards, or syntax by a writer in order to achieve a particular effect. Don't get hung up on adhering too strictly to iambic pentameter—you can use a bit of poetic license if it means preserving the meaning and rhythm you want. Any two-bit poet can string together a jumble of words and call it poetic license.
2. Minor changes to or misrepresentations of facts or history in the name of art or for the sake of an agenda. People complain about minor inaccuracies in historical dramas, but honestly they wouldn't be able to make the movies marketable without using a little poetic license.
See also: license, poetic

wax poetic

To speak about some topic in a poetic manner, often exaggeratedly or verbosely so. The entertainer has a habit of waxing poetic during interviews, which delights some people and infuriates others. Dan always loves to wax poetic about his vacation to Peru.
See also: poetic, wax
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

poetic justice

appropriate, ideal, or ironic punishment. It was poetic justice that Jane won the race after Mary tried to get her banned from the race. The car thieves tried to steal a car with no gas. That's poetic justice.
See also: justice, poetic

poetic license

liberties or license of the type taken by artists, especially poets, to violate patterns of rhyme, harmony, structure, etc. I couldn't tell whether he kept making spelling mistakes or if it was just poetic license.
See also: license, poetic

wax poetic

Fig. to speak poetically. I hope you will pardon me if I wax poetic for a moment when I say that your lovely hands drift across the piano keys like swans on a lake.
See also: poetic, wax
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

poetic justice

An outcome in which virtue is rewarded and evil punished, often in an especially appropriate or ironic manner. For example, It was poetic justice for the known thief to go to jail for the one crime he didn't commit . [Early 1700s]
See also: justice, poetic

poetic license

Also, artistic license. The liberty taken by a writer or artist in deviating from conventional form or fact to achieve an effect. For example, I've never seen grass or a tree of that color; but that's artistic license. [Late 1700s]
See also: license, poetic
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

poetic justice

Poetic justice is when bad things happen to someone who deserves it. Perhaps his illness was some kind of poetic justice for having deceived so many for so long. Note: Occasionally people use poetic justice to describe something good that happens to someone who deserves it. If one can resolve several problems at once — ours as well as yours — it has a certain poetic justice.
See also: justice, poetic
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

poetic justice

the fact of experiencing a fitting or deserved retribution for your actions.
This phrase is from Alexander Pope's satire The Dunciad: ‘Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale’.
See also: justice, poetic
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

artistic/poetic ˈlicence

(often ironic) the freedom of artists or writers to change facts in order to make a story, painting, etc. more interesting or beautiful: In the book, a fair amount of artistic licence has been taken with the timing of historical events so that they fit with the story. I allowed myself a little poetic licence in describing the table as an antique.
Licence in this idiom means ‘freedom to do or say whatever you want’.
See also: artistic, licence, poetic

poetic ˈjustice

a punishment or reward that is deserved: If you ask me it’s poetic justice. He tried to get you fired, and now he’s lost his job himself.
See also: justice, poetic
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • artistic
  • artistic license
  • artistic/poetic licence
  • poetic license
  • stronk
  • without fail
  • enthrall
  • enthrall (one) with (something)
  • enthrall with
  • until the last dog is hung
References in periodicals archive
This is acutely the case for the Poetics, which shares intertextuality with a number of the Greek literary "classics," but which also provides data--if sometimes only tantalizingly, evanescently so--relevant to ancient cultural phenomena of central importance to modern interests.
Updating Aristotle: A New Norton Critical Edition of the Poetics
The Poetic expressions in the public space under discussion here, do not wish to be hostages to an enlightened rationalism or a relativist postmodernism.
POETICS IN PUBLIC SPACE TOWARDS A HERMENEUTIC FRAMING OF EPHEMERAL POETIC EXPRESSIONS
The Transmutation of Love and Avant-Garde Poetics. Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alaba ma Press.
The Transmutation of Love and Avant-Garde Poetics
POETIC was founded by Dr Lia Gore at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and Dr Tanya Trippett at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Provectus Biopharmaceuticals partners with POETIC for the study the potential of PV-10 in pediatric cancer
"We're absolutely thrilled with how well Poetic License has been received and what we have been able to achieve in a relatively short space of time," says Mark Hird.
Joining forces to offer choice
A revised Cambridge dissertation, Sounding/Silence argues "that Heidegger's thinking points--tentatively--toward something like 'a poetics of limit.' ...
Smith, David Nowell. Sounding/Silence: Martin Heidegger and the Limits of Poetics
Globally renowned by savvy smartphone and tablet case enthusiasts, Poetic has quickly become the go-to source for cases that are both innovative and high-quality at the greatest value.
Poetic Cases Gets a Fresh New Look
Though Poetic Theology is not as practically or as literarily interested as the title suggests, it offers many resources.
Poetic Theology. God and the Poetics of Everyday Life
In their introduction to Wordsworth's Poetic Theory, Alexander Regier and Stefan Uhlig respond that "Wordsworth makes his contribution to our modern ways of thinking about poetry both inside his poetic writing and alongside it," and moreover that his theory "forms a decisive part of his work's claim on us" (1).
Alexander Regier and Stefan H. Uhlig, eds.: Wordsworth's Poetic Theory: Knowledge, Language, Experience
Using the power of the word to create anew the search for poetic identity the poetpersona enters a dream/ vision through which Liv gains access to a pre-verbal conception of self; it is described as a "fetus dream" (4) that keeps recurring in different ways and forms throughout the body of Plot.
Claudia Rankine's Plot: Book Review
The field of modern and contemporary poetic practice in the French language is a critical, diverse and evolving locus of artistic and theoretical creativity and interaction.
Guest editors' preface
Strands of Utopia: Spaces of Poetic Work in Twentieth-Century France.
Michael Kelly. Strands of Utopia: Spaces of Poetic Work in Twentieth-Century France
The haiku is perhaps the most succinct and versatile of all the diverse forms of poetic expression.
The Awakened One Poetics