ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

OPOJAZ

Okay kiddo, so imagine you are reading a book and you come across a sentence that is really hard to understand. Well, some grown-up writers in Russia thought the same thing about some sentences in poems they were reading. That's why in the 1920s they created a group called "Opojaz" (which stands for "Society for the Study of Poetic Language") to help break down and analyze these tricky poems.

Now, let's say you draw a picture of a cat. You could use different colors, lines, and shapes to show different things about the cat, like its fur or its ears. Well, these Opojaz writers decided to look at poems the same way. They studied things like the words the author used, how they were arranged, and what emotions they might be conveying. Basically, they were trying to figure out what made a poem a poem.

By doing this analyzing, the Opojaz group was able to come up with some cool ideas about how to write poetry in a new way. They said that poets should focus on using language to create emotions and experiences, rather than just telling straightforward stories. So, they helped change the way people thought about poetry and inspired lots of new artists and writers.

Overall, Opojaz was a group of grown-up writers in Russia who formed a society to help analyze and understand tricky poems by breaking down the language used in them. They believed that poetry should focus on creating emotions and experiences, rather than just telling simple stories. And their ideas helped change the way people write and think about poetry today.