tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85222796044483120472024-03-13T14:12:58.612-07:00Poetry resourcesJohn Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-40149424924108807672010-06-12T23:55:00.000-07:002010-06-12T23:57:02.652-07:00Lullaby for AndrewGo to sleep my baby<br />close your little eyes<br />round your bed a hundred colours<br />point towards surprise.<br /><br />Darling Andrew, smiling,<br />take a little rest,<br />before tomorrow’s reckoning<br />of chaos at its best.<br /><br />Mess and muddle, mayhem,<br />a smile beyond the glum;<br />intensity, intensity,<br />sleep now, let it come….John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-90449698099891050892010-02-28T00:34:00.001-08:002010-02-28T00:38:30.646-08:00How to write a sonnet<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Sonnets are fourteen lined poems, traditionally split into stanzas of 8 lines and then of 6 lines. The rhyme scheme may vary, depending on your taste. Traditional sonnets would have clear end-rhymes and be written in iambic pentameter, although modern poetry has moved away from a strictness of form. Also, traditionally, sonnets would be written about love or philosophy – but that seems no longer the case, modern poets write sonnets about anything!</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The key to a classical sonnet is the ‘turn’; which occurs at, or around, the point where the two stanzas separate and the idea is that the exploration, or argument, in the first eight lines should ‘turn’ or be viewed differently – or at least from a different angle – in the second stanza. This has the effect of creating a polarity, or ambiguity, for the reader and their internal resolution of such tension can generate an ‘aha’ moment which is subjective, pleasurable and creative.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The ‘turn’ is often signaled linguistically by the word ‘but’ or ‘and’, ‘however’ etc. although, if you read a few sonnets you will find that poets use a plethora of subtle, and not-so-subtle ways of embedding a signal for the turn within language. Here is a sonnet I wrote about my son -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>with a very unsubtle turn!!!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">The real Down’s question<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">Hiding’s not possible when he decides</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">to talk to you; to ask a question like<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">‘have you a beard?’:- and everything falls still,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">or ‘Are you mad?’:- and you pause in the void,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">or ‘are you bovvered?’:- and silence abounds<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">catching your breath because spotlights are on<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">and you might say the wrong thing:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">bearded, or bovvered or mad – Well??<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">And it’s ridiculous how quickly you blush</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">just because it’s not so easy to answer<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">routinely. Beyond the question<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">lies a sly question, a poke<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">bringing you live to connection, ‘can you connect?’<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">and there’s a boy laughing and doing his work.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-67982764957870745932010-02-24T22:29:00.000-08:002010-02-24T22:37:25.246-08:00How to write a ballad<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:ArialMT;font-size:13.0pt;color:#333333;">A </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;color:#333333;">ballad is a traditional story – poem, often written in 4 line stanzas with lines 1 and 3 having 4 beats and lines 2 and 4 having 3 beats. In this kind of meter, and with some traditional line-end rhyming, the ballad has a kind of singing quality. In olden times, they were used to pass news or yarns around from place to place.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: -webkit-xxx-large;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;">Opening to Mr Bleaney – by Philip Larkin<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: -webkit-xxx-large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;">'This was Mr Bleaney's room. He stayed<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;">The whole time he was at the Bodies, till<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;">They moved him.' Flowered curtains, thin and frayed,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;">Fall to within five inches of the sill,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:6;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:19px;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;">Whose window shows a strip of building land,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;">Tussocky, littered. 'Mr Bleaney took<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;">My bit of garden properly in hand.'<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;">Bed, upright chair, sixty-watt bulb, no hook ….<span style="color:#333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: -webkit-xxx-large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size:19px;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;color:#333333;">A ballad can be funny, whimsical, ironic, bawdy, drunken. Ideally, it needs to be a rich, lifelike, compelling read. Other pointers are;<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;color:#333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;line-height:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Symbol;font-size:14.0pt;color:#333333;">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;color:#333333;">have a plot<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;line-height:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Symbol;font-size:14.0pt;color:#333333;">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;color:#333333;">have characters<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;line-height:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Symbol;font-size:14.0pt;color:#333333;">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;color:#333333;">include dialogue<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list 36.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Symbol;font-size:14.0pt;">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;color:#333333;">contain some sort of drama </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-56415769948234170142010-02-23T12:44:00.000-08:002010-02-23T12:45:59.489-08:00How to write Haiku<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: medium; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><p><br /></p><p><b>What to write about?</b></p><p>Haiku-poems can describe almost anything, but you seldom find themes which are too complicated for normal recognition and understanding. Some of the most thrilling Haiku-poems describe daily situations in a way that gives the reader a brand new experience of a well-known situation.</p><p><b>The metrical pattern of Haiku</b></p><p>Haiku-poems consist of respectively 5, 7 and 5 syllables in three units. In japanese, this convention is a must, but in english, which has variation in the length of syllables, this can sometimes be difficult.</p><p><b>The technique of cutting.</b></p><p>The cutting divides the Haiku into two parts, with a certain imaginative distance between the two sections, but the two sections must remain, to a degree, independent of each other. Both sections enrich the understanding of the other.</p><p>To make this cutting in english, either the first or the second line ends normally with a colon, long dash or ellipsis.</p><p><b>The seasonal theme.</b></p><p>Each Haiku contains a <i>kigo</i>, a season word, which indicate in which season the Haiku is set. For example, cherry blossoms indicate spring, snow indicate winter, and mosquitoes indicate summer, but the season word isn't always that obvious.</p><p><br /></p></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-79783464469091669712010-02-14T02:36:00.000-08:002010-02-14T02:42:35.740-08:00CINQUAIN<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; color: rgb(132, 105, 85); "><h2><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; ">The traditional cinquain is based on a syllable count.</span></h2>line 1 - 2 syllables<br />line 2 - 4 syllables<br />line 3 - 6 syllables<br />line 4 - 8 syllables<br />line 5 - 2 syllables<p></p><p>The modern cinquain is based on a word count of words of a certain type.</p><p>line 1 - one word (noun) a title or name of the subject<br />line 2 - two words (adjectives) describing the title<br />line 3 - three words (verbs) describing an action related to the title<br />line 4 - four words describing a feeling about the title, a complete sentence<br />line 5 - one word referring back to the title of the poem</p><p>Here's an example</p><p><br /></p><p><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">Morning</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">brightly still<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">heating, stirring, rising;<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">one cauldron is today's<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:149.0pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">spirit.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-82243027836923985872010-02-09T12:03:00.001-08:002010-02-09T12:03:56.008-08:00Writing a Sonnet<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; "><h1 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 1.67em; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; ">Learn to write a sonnet in iambic pentameter, just like Shakespeare did. Discover the rhythm and rhyme scheme of the quatrains and couplets that make up a Shakespearean sonnet.</span></h1><p class="Remember" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; ">Here are the rules:</p><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">It must consist of 14 lines.</li></ul><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">It must be written in iambic pentameter (duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH).</li></ul><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">It must be written in one of various standard rhyme schemes.</li></ul><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; ">If you're writing the most familiar kind of sonnet, the Shakespearean, the rhyme scheme is this:</p><p class="article-list" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; ">A <br />B <br />A <br />B <br />C <br />D <br />C <br />D <br />E <br />F <br />E <br />F <br />G <br />G</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; ">Every A rhymes with every A, every B rhymes with every B, and so forth. You'll notice this type of sonnet consists of three quatrains (that is, four consecutive lines of verse that make up a stanza or division of lines in a poem) and one couplet (two consecutive rhyming lines of verse).</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; ">Ah, but there's more to a sonnet than just the structure of it. A sonnet is also an argument — it builds up a certain way. And how it builds up is related to its metaphors and how it moves from one metaphor to the next. In a Shakespearean sonnet, the argument builds up like this:</p><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">First quatrain: An exposition of the main theme and main metaphor.</li></ul><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">Second quatrain: Theme and metaphor extended or complicated; often, some imaginative example is given.</li></ul><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">Third quatrain: Peripeteia (a twist or conflict), often introduced by a "but" (very often leading off the ninth line).</li></ul><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">Couplet: Summarizes and leaves the reader with a new, concluding image.</li></ul><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; ">One of Shakespeare's best-known sonnets, Sonnet 18, follows this pattern:</p><p class="article-list" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; ">Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? <br />Thou art more lovely and more temperate. <br />Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, <br />And summer's lease hath all too short a date. <br />Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, <br />And often is his gold complexion dimmed; <br />And every fair from fair sometime declines, <br />By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed; <br />But thy <a href="http://eu.dummies.com/how-to/content/writing-a-sonnet.html#" class="kLink" target="undefined" id="KonaLink1" style="text-decoration: underline !important; color: blue !important; border-bottom-style: none !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: verdana; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-top-color: transparent !important; border-right-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: transparent !important; border-left-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: initial !important; background-attachment: initial !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; text-transform: none !important; display: inline !important; font-variant: normal; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; position: static; background-position: initial initial !important; "><span style="color: blue !important; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; color:blue;"><span class="kLink" style="border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-top-color: initial !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-left-color: initial !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-right-color: initial !important; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: initial; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; color: blue !important; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; background-position: initial initial; ">eternal</span></span></a> summer shall not fade, <br />Nor lose <a href="http://eu.dummies.com/how-to/content/writing-a-sonnet.html#" class="kLink" target="undefined" id="KonaLink0" style="text-decoration: underline !important; color: blue !important; border-bottom-style: none !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: verdana; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-top-color: transparent !important; border-right-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: transparent !important; border-left-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: initial !important; background-attachment: initial !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; text-transform: none !important; display: inline !important; font-variant: normal; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; position: static; background-position: initial initial !important; "><span style="color: blue !important; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; color:blue;"><span class="kLink" style="border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-top-color: initial !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-left-color: initial !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-right-color: initial !important; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: initial; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; color: blue !important; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; background-position: initial initial; ">possession</span></span></a> of that fair thou owest, <br />Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, <br />When in eternal lines to time thou growest.<br /> So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,<br /> So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.</p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; ">The argument of Sonnet 18 goes like this:</p><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">First quatrain: Shakespeare establishes the theme of comparing "thou" (or "you") to a summer's day, and why to do so is a bad idea. The metaphor is made by comparing his beloved to summer itself.</li></ul><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">Second quatrain: Shakespeare extends the theme, explaining why even the sun, supposed to be so great, gets obscured sometimes, and why everything that's beautiful decays from beauty sooner or later. He has shifted the metaphor: In the first quatrain, it was "summer" in general, and now he's comparing the sun and "every fair," every beautiful thing, to his beloved.</li></ul><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">Third quatrain: Here the argument takes a big left turn with the familiar "But." Shakespeare says that the main reason he won't compare his beloved to summer is that summer dies — but she won't. He refers to the first two quatrains — her "eternal summer" won't fade, and she won't "lose possession" of the "fair" (the beauty) she possesses. So he keeps the metaphors going, but in a different direction. And for good measure, he throws in a negative version of all the sunshine in this poem — the "shade" of death, which, evidently, his beloved won't have to worry about.</li></ul><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">Couplet: How is his beloved going to escape death? In Shakespeare's <a href="http://eu.dummies.com/how-to/content/writing-a-sonnet.html#" class="kLink" target="undefined" id="KonaLink2" style="text-decoration: underline !important; color: blue !important; border-bottom-style: none !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: verdana; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-top-color: transparent !important; border-right-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: transparent !important; border-left-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: initial !important; background-attachment: initial !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; text-transform: none !important; display: inline !important; font-variant: normal; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; position: static; background-position: initial initial !important; "><span style="color: blue !important; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; color:blue;"><span class="kLink" style="border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-top-color: initial !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-left-color: initial !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-right-color: initial !important; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: initial; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; color: blue !important; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; background-position: initial initial; ">poetry</span></span></a>, which will keep her alive as long as people breathe or see. This bold statement gives closure to the whole argument — it's a surprise.</li></ul><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; ">And so far, Shakespeare's sonnet has done what he promised it would! See how tightly this sonnet is written, how complex yet well organized it is? Try writing a sonnet of your own.</p><p class="Remember" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; ">Poets are attracted by the grace, concentration, and, yes, the sheer difficulty of sonnets. You may never write another sonnet in your life, but this exercise is more than just busywork. It does all the following:</p><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">Shows you how much you can pack into a short form.</li></ul><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">Gives you practice with rhyme, meter, structure, metaphor, and argument.</li></ul><ul style="margin-top: 20px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 40px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; ">Connects you with one of the oldest traditions in English poetry — one still vital today.</li></ul><br /><br /><span>Read more: <a href="http://eu.dummies.com/how-to/content/writing-a-sonnet.html#ixzz0f4ScYmYk" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(31, 99, 138); ">http://eu.dummies.com/how-to/content/writing-a-sonnet.html#ixzz0f4ScYmYk</a></span></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-40261834268855144292010-02-07T11:06:00.000-08:002010-02-07T11:11:31.058-08:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><table width="651"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="552"><form method="POST" action="http://ettcweb.lr.k12.nj.us/forms/_vti_bin/shtml.dll/verbverse.htm" onsubmit="" action="--WEBBOT-SELF--"></form></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2"><h1><span style="font-size: 18pt; font-family:Times New Roman;">Write an Instant Verb Verse Poem</span></h1></td></tr><tr valign="top"><td width="61"><b><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;">Directions:</span></b></td><td width="552"><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">For this three line instant poetry activity, first think about something you do. Then brainstorm six verbs that go with that action. Then just fill them in the blanks below to make your instant verb verse.<br /> </span></td></tr><tr valign="top"><td width="61"><h4><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;">Method</span></h4></td><td width="552"><p><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;">Line 1: </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">Verb One Verb Two Verb Three</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;"><br /> </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; "><input type="text" name="T1" size="17"></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;"> </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; "><input type="text" name="T2" size="17"></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;"> </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; "><input type="text" name="T3" size="17"></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;"><br />Line 2: </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">Verb Four Verb Five Verb Six</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;"><br /> </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; "><input type="text" name="T4" size="17"></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;"> </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; "><input type="text" name="T5" size="17"></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;"> </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; "><input type="text" name="T6" size="17"></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;"><br />Line 3: Write a </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">sentence <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, fantasy; font-size: medium; "><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">here that shows how you feel about this activity</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family:Times New Roman;"> </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; "></span></span></p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Grande';font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></span></div><input type="text" name="T7" size="59"></span><p></p><p><span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Grande';font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', fantasy;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">YOU HAVE A POEM, Here's one.....</span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', -webkit-fantasy;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', -webkit-fantasy;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', -webkit-fantasy;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">WRITING A POEM</span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', -webkit-fantasy;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">choose, flicker, click,</span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', -webkit-fantasy;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">look, puzzle, edit</span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Lucida Grande', -webkit-fantasy;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;">it's almost complete.</span></span></p></td></tr></tbody></table></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-45438226171146946082010-02-04T01:22:00.000-08:002010-02-04T01:23:42.930-08:00Alliteration<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(75, 75, 75); "><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; ">The sound in poetry plays a vital role which gives it musical rhythms and therefore poems are recited with genuine interest. Alliteration is such quality that gives beauty to the poetry. There are alliteration famous poems that really appeal to the lovers of literature.</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; "><b>What Makes it Alliteration?</b></p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; ">Well, it is nothing but a recurrent repetition of a speech sound presented in a sequence of close by words. It's generally applied to consonants when the recurring sound starts a word or stressed syllable within a word. In the opening line of "Piers Plowman" by William Langland, every four stressed syllables are alliterative by nature:</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; ">"In a somer seson, when soft was the sonne..."</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; "><b>Examples of Alliteration in Later English Poetry:</b></p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; ">In the later English poetry, the application of alliteration was meant for achieving stylistic effects and to reinforce and intensify the meaning. For instance; the repetition of the sound /s/, /th/, and /w/ consonants in the following Shakespeare's Sonnet 30:</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; ">"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought<br />I summon up remembrance of things past"</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; ">There are special speech sounds, called assonance and consonance, repeated in alliteration. Assonance means the repetition of similar type of words (particularly in stresses syllables) in a sequence of close by words. For instance; the recurrent /i:/ is repeated in the opening lines of Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn":</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; ">"Thou still unravished bride of quietness,<br />Thou foster child of silence and slow time..."</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; ">Consonance means the repetition of a sequence of more than two consonants but a slight change in the prevailing vowel for instance; lean-alone, live-love etc. Moreover, it can be seen in W. H. Auden's following poem:</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; ">"O Where are you going?" said reader to rider...<br />"Out of this house" - said rider to reader,<br />"Yours never will" - said farer to fearer,<br />"They're looking for you" said hearer to horror..."</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; ">This device of alliteration in poetry provides rhythm and rhyme.</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; "><br /></p><p style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 10px; ">By <a href="http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Rakesh_Ramubhai_Patel" id="togglebio" style="color: rgb(25, 0, 255); text-decoration: underline; ">Rakesh Ramubhai Patel</a> <img src="http://img.ezinearticles.com/spriting/trans.gif" class="sprite s_platinum_star" alt="Platinum Quality Author" title="Platinum Author" style="background-image: url(http://img.ezinearticles.com/spriting/ea-main.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; height: 10px; width: 10px; background-position: -266px -97px; " /></span></p></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-11718369291510641572010-01-31T03:35:00.000-08:002010-01-31T03:36:19.459-08:00What’s the big deal about verbs anyway?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, helvetica, trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19px; "><h3 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.25em; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 2em; font-weight: normal; font-family: georgia, garamond, bookman, 'times new roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 102, 170); line-height: 1.5em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: verdana, helvetica, trebuchet, 'Trebuchet MS', arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19px; ">I cannot stress enough how important verbs are in a poem. Here’s an example of excellent verb use in a well-known poem:</span></h3><blockquote style="clear: both; background-color: rgb(204, 221, 255); border-top-color: rgb(0, 153, 204); border-right-color: rgb(0, 153, 204); border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 204); border-left-color: rgb(0, 153, 204); border-top-width: 1px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 9px; padding-top: 1em; padding-right: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 1em; "><h4 style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0.25em; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.5em; font-weight: normal; font-family: georgia, garamond, bookman, 'times new roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 102, 170); "><em>from</em> Ariel</h4><pre style="font: normal normal normal 100%/normal verdana, arial, helvetica, tahoma, sans-serif; ">Black sweet blood mouthfuls, Shadows. Something else Hauls me through air—— Thighs, hair; Flakes from my heels. White Godiva, I unpeel—— Dead hands, dead stringencies. And now I Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas. The child’s cry Melts in the wall. And I Am the arrow, The dew that flies, Suicidal, at one with the drive Into the red Eye, the cauldron of morning. Sylvia Plath </pre></blockquote><p>This poem uses verbs <em>very</em> effectively. “Something else / <strong>hauls</strong> me through air.” “Thighs, hair; / <strong>Flakes</strong> from my heels.” “I unpeel” “I /<strong>Foam</strong> to wheat.” “The child’s cry / <strong>Melts</strong> in the wall.” [my emphasis]</p><p>The resulting effect of using <em>active</em> verbs in a poem is that your reader will be able to <em>experience</em> the action of the poem in their head, rather than just hear <em>about</em> it. So many poor poems are reported. “This happened. That happened. Something else is happening.”</p><p>The reason using “being verbs,” adverbs, and adjectives to depict the images in your poetry is ineffective is that it unnecessarily removes the reader from the experience of the poem. When a poem is <em>reported</em>rather than <em>enacted</em> the poet serves as an intermediary between the poem and the reader.</p><p>Think about it this way: would you rather look at a beautiful sunset or have someone describe one to you?</p><p>This will be covered in greater detail in an upcoming installment (this phrase is becoming a mantra of this series).</p><p>For the remainder of this article we’re going to assume you’ve completed a poem and want to make a first-pass at improving it.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Jough Dempsey</b> is a poet & critic and the webmaster of <a href="http://www.poetryx.com/" title="PoetryX.com" style="text-decoration: underline; ">Poetry X</a></p></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-60665643103500493142010-01-30T00:35:00.000-08:002010-01-30T00:43:37.692-08:00Do's and Don'ts from Ezra Pound- Poetry should be written at least as well as prose.<div><br /><div>- Language is an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Go in fear of abstraction</div><div><br /></div><div>- Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Don't use such an expression as 'dim lands of <i>peace</i>'. It dulls the image. It mixes an abstraction with the concrete. It comes from the writer's not realising that the natural object is always the <i>adequate</i> symbol.</div><div><br /></div><div>- A narrative is all right as long as the narrator sticks to words as simple as dog, horse, sunset.</div></div>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-77528452072301656182010-01-28T04:18:00.000-08:002010-01-28T04:19:36.076-08:00How to Write a Poem<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); line-height: 15px; "><div class="article_inner" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 27px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 23px; "><h1 class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 8px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 2.25em; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(74, 60, 49); "><br /></h1><p id="originators" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.2em; font-size: 0.85em; color: rgb(81, 66, 57); ">originated by:<span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); "><a href="http://www.wikihow.com/User:Lucy-Lake" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; ">Lucy Lake</a>, <a href="http://www.wikihow.com/User:Estel" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; ">Nathan Wong</a>, <a href="http://www.wikihow.com/User:Tderouin" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; ">Travis Derouin</a>, <a href="http://www.wikihow.com/User:Tviren" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; ">Tom Viren</a></span></p></div><div class="article_inner" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 27px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 23px; "><div class="thumb tright" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 1em; clear: right; float: right; 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background-position: -20px -10px; "></div><div class="corner bottom_left" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; position: absolute; width: 10px; height: 10px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/corners.png); bottom: 0px; left: 0px; background-position: -10px -20px; "></div><div class="corner bottom_right" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; position: absolute; width: 10px; height: 10px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/corners.png); bottom: 0px; right: 0px; background-position: -20px -20px; "></div></div><a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Image:Writingg_191.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; "><img src="http://pad3.wikihow.com/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png" width="16" height="16" alt="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; " /></a></div><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.2em; ">Writing a poem is all about observing the world within you or around you. You can <a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Write" title="Write" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; ">write</a> about anything from <a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Love" title="Love" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; ">love</a> to the rusty gate at the old farm. As long as you are enjoying it or finding it releases something from inside you, you're on the right track.<a name="Steps" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; "></a></p></div><h2 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: -20px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 40px; color: rgb(74, 60, 49); font-size: 1.45em; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/section_head_bg.png); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; line-height: 42px; height: 53px; width: 647px; clear: both; position: relative; background-position: 0% 0%; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Steps</span></h2><div id="steps" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><ol class="steps_list_2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; list-style-type: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 20px; padding-right: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 80px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">1</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Read and listen to <strong class="selflink" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">poetry</strong></b>.</b> Whether someone who has never seen a <strong class="selflink" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">sonnet</strong> nor heard <strong class="selflink" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">haiku</strong> can truly be a poet is an open question. It is almost certain, though, that any poet who has been published or who has garnered any following enhanced their skills by reading or listening to good poetry, even if they later scoffed at conventional notions of what was "good." "Good" poems fall into three categories: those that are recognized as classics, those that seem to be popular, and those that you personally like. Poems typically being short, there is no reason not to explore plenty of both.<div class="adunit adunitp0" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); "><div id="adunit1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.2em; font-size: 1em; "><a href="https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact=abg_afc&url=http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Poem&hl=en&client=ca-pub-9543332082073187&adU=www.iUniverse.com&adT=Publish+Your+Poetry+Today&gl=GB" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(176, 176, 176); text-decoration: none; ">Ads by Google</a></p><div class="ad1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><h4 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; font-size: 1em; "><a href="http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=l&ai=B6pJwKYBhS6rDEtv--AbIy-nVBpjNqKgBvM_tyQzAjbcBwNdLEAEYASCYv48FOABQpIWkD2C7vq6D0AqgAZzxvf8DsgEPd3d3Lndpa2lob3cuY29tugEKMjUweDI1MF9hc8gBAdoBI2h0dHA6Ly93d3cud2lraWhvdy5jb20vV3JpdGUtYS1Qb2VtgAIByAKqgrsBqAMB6AO1BPUDAAAAhA&num=1&ggladgrp=14146869208307090126&gglcreat=8845590318288914548&sig=AGiWqtwVmx9Rel5Py_3RchFEOvfglYWW2A&client=ca-pub-9543332082073187&adurl=http://www.iuniverse.com/guidetopublishing_Genova.aspx%3FCat%3DPPC%26Source%3DGOOGLE%26Key%3Dcnt%2Bpub%2B2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; font-size: 1em; ">Publish Your Poetry Today</a></h4> Publish & sell your book world-wide in stores & online. Free Guide!<br /><a href="http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=l&ai=B6pJwKYBhS6rDEtv--AbIy-nVBpjNqKgBvM_tyQzAjbcBwNdLEAEYASCYv48FOABQpIWkD2C7vq6D0AqgAZzxvf8DsgEPd3d3Lndpa2lob3cuY29tugEKMjUweDI1MF9hc8gBAdoBI2h0dHA6Ly93d3cud2lraWhvdy5jb20vV3JpdGUtYS1Qb2VtgAIByAKqgrsBqAMB6AO1BPUDAAAAhA&num=1&ggladgrp=14146869208307090126&gglcreat=8845590318288914548&sig=AGiWqtwVmx9Rel5Py_3RchFEOvfglYWW2A&client=ca-pub-9543332082073187&adurl=http://www.iuniverse.com/guidetopublishing_Genova.aspx%3FCat%3DPPC%26Source%3DGOOGLE%26Key%3Dcnt%2Bpub%2B2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(176, 176, 176); text-decoration: none; ">www.iUniverse.com</a></div></div></div><div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 20px; padding-right: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 80px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">2</div><div class="thumb tright" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 1em; clear: right; float: right; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-top-color: white; border-right-color: white; border-bottom-color: white; border-left-color: white; width: 182px; border-top-width: 0.5em; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0.8em; border-left-width: 1.4em; font-size: 0.9em; "><div class="rounders" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.8em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; position: relative; width: 180px; height: 219px; "><a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Image:Longfellow_Village_Blacksmith_%28manuscript_1%29.jpg" class="image" title="Original manuscript of Longfellow's "The Village Blacksmith." The revisions on the page give us an idea of how the poem evolved." style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; "><img alt="Original manuscript of Longfellow's "The Village Blacksmith." The revisions on the page give us an idea of how the poem evolved." src="http://pad3.wikihow.com/images/thumb/7/73/Longfellow_Village_Blacksmith_%28manuscript_1%29.jpg/180px-Longfellow_Village_Blacksmith_%28manuscript_1%29.jpg" width="180" height="219" border="0" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; " /></a><div class="corner top_left" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; position: absolute; width: 10px; height: 10px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/corners.png); top: 0px; left: 0px; background-position: -10px -10px; "></div><div class="corner top_right" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; position: absolute; width: 10px; height: 10px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/corners.png); top: 0px; right: 0px; background-position: -20px -10px; "></div><div class="corner bottom_left" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; position: absolute; width: 10px; height: 10px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/corners.png); bottom: 0px; left: 0px; background-position: -10px -20px; "></div><div class="corner bottom_right" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; position: absolute; width: 10px; height: 10px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/corners.png); bottom: 0px; right: 0px; background-position: -20px -20px; "></div></div><a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Image:Longfellow_Village_Blacksmith_%28manuscript_1%29.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; "><img src="http://pad3.wikihow.com/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png" width="16" height="16" alt="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; " /></a> <span class="caption" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Original manuscript of Longfellow's "The Village Blacksmith." The revisions on the page give us an idea of how the poem evolved.</span></div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Find a spark.</b></b> A poem may be born as a snippet of verse, maybe just a line or two that seems to come out of nowhere. That's what's usually called inspiration, and once you have that beginning you simply need to flesh it out, to build the rest of the poem around it.<br /><br />At other times you may want to write about a specific thing or idea. If this is the case, do a little planning. Write down all the words and phrases that come to mind when you think of that idea. Allow yourself to put <i style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">all</i> your ideas into words.<br /><br />It may sound difficult, but do not be afraid to voice your exact feelings. Emotions are what make poems, and if you lie about your emotions it can be easily sensed in the poem. Write them down as quickly as possible, and when you're done, go through the list and look for connections or certain items that get your creative juices flowing.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 20px; padding-right: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 80px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">3</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Think about what you want to achieve with your poem</b>.</b> Perhaps you want to write a poem to express your <strong class="selflink" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">love</strong> for your boyfriend or girlfriend; perhaps you want to commemorate a tragic event; or maybe you just want to get an "A" in your poetry class. Think about why you are writing your poem and who your intended audience is, and then proceed in your writing accordingly.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 20px; padding-right: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 80px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">4</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Decide what poetry style suits your subject</b>.</b> There are a great many different poetic styles. <sup id="_ref-0" class="reference" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; vertical-align: 0px; position: relative; bottom: 1ex; "><a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Poem#_note-0" title="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; ">[1]</a></sup>. If you see "Winter icicles / plummeting like Enron stock..." perhaps you've got a haiku in your head. As a poet, you have a wide variety of set forms to choose from: <a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Limericks" title="Write Limericks" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; ">limericks</a>, sonnets,<a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Villanelle" title="Write a Villanelle" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(1, 118, 159); text-decoration: none; ">villanelles</a> ... the list goes on and on. You may also choose to abandon form altogether and write your poem in free verse. While the choice may not always be as obvious as the example above, the best form for the poem will usually manifest itself during your writing.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 20px; padding-right: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 80px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">5</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Try to fit into a particular scene you want to write about</b>.</b> For example, if you want to write about nature, try to visit a park or a small forest nearby. The natural scenery will make you write a few lines, though they may not be perfect.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li class="steps_li final_li" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 20px; padding-right: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 80px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">6</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Listen to your poem.</b></b> While many people today have been exposed to poetry only in written form, poetry was predominantly an aural art for thousands of years, and the sound of a poem is still important. As you write and edit your poem, read it aloud and listen to how it sounds. <div class="listbody" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><ol style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 1em; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; ">This is where poems can become songs. It is easier to find a tune for regular meter, so maybe you want to cut words out or put some in to get the same number of syllables in each line. Memorize it. If you believe it, then maybe someone else will learn it and love it before it is a song.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li></ol><div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">7</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Write down your thoughts</b> as they come to you.</b> Don't edit as you write, or do edit as you write - the choice is yours. However, you should try both methods at least a couple times to see what works best for you.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">8</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Choose the right words</b>.</b> It's been said that if a novel is "words in the best order," then a poem is "the <i style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">best</i> words in the best order." Think of the words you use as building blocks of different sizes and shapes. Some words will fit together perfectly, and some won't. You want to keep working at your poem until you have built a strong structure of words. Use only those words that are necessary, those that enhance the meaning of the poem. Choose your words carefully. The differences between similar sounding words or synonyms can lead to interesting word play.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">9</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Use concrete imagery and vivid descriptions</b>.</b><br /><br /><ul style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 23px; list-style-position: outside; list-style-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/bullet_wh.gif); list-style-type: none; clear: both; "><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; ">Love, hate, happiness: these are all abstract concepts. Many, maybe all, poems are, deep down, about emotions and other abstractions, but it's hard to build a strong poem using only abstractions - it's just not interesting. The key, then, is to replace or enhance abstractions with concrete images, things that you can appreciate with your senses: a rose, a shark, or a crackling fire, for example. The concept of the <i style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">objective correlative</i> may be useful. An objective correlative is an object, several objects, or a series of events (all concrete things) that evoke the emotion or idea of the poem.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; ">Really powerful poetry not only uses concrete images; it also describes them vividly. Show your readers and listeners what you're talking about--help them to experience the imagery of the poem. Put in some "sensory" handles. These are words that describe the things that you hear, see, taste, touch, and smell, so that the reader can identify with their own experience. Give some examples rather than purely mental/intellectual descriptions. For example: "He made a loud sound" versus "He made a loud sound like a hippo eating 100 stale pecan pies with metal teeth".<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li></ul><div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">10</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Use poetic devices</b> to enhance your poem's beauty and meaning.</b> The most well known poetic device is rhyme. Rhyme can add suspense to your lines, enhance your meaning, or make the poem more cohesive. It can also make it prettier. Don't overuse rhyme. It's a crime. In fact you don't have to use rhyme at all. Other poetic devices include meter, metaphor, assonance, alliteration, and repetition. If you don't know what these are, you may want to look in a poetry book or search the internet. Poetic devices can make a poem or, if they bring too much attention to themselves, they can ruin it.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">11</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Save your most powerful message</b> or insight for the end of your poem.</b> The last line is to a poem what a punch line is to a joke--something that evokes an emotional response. Give the reader something to think about, something to dwell on after reading your poem. Resist the urge to explain it; let the reader become engaged with the poem in developing an understanding of your experience or message.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-color: rgb(191, 191, 191); border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">12</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Edit your poem</b>.</b> When the basic poem is written, set it aside for awhile and then read the poem out loud to yourself. Go through it and balance the choice of words with the rhythm. Take out unnecessary words and replace imagery that isn't working. Some people edit a poem all at once, while others come back to it again and again over time. Don't be afraid to rewrite if some part of the poem is not working. Sometimes you just can't fix something that essentially doesn't work.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div></li><li class="steps_li final_li" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; line-height: 1.2em; clear: both; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; "><div class="step_num" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: -50px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; background-image: url(http://pad.wikihow.com/skins/WikiHow/images/step_dot.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; text-align: center; width: 31px; height: 31px; line-height: 31px; font-size: 1.45em; color: rgb(255, 255, 255); float: left; clear: right; background-position: 0% 0%; ">13</div><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><b style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Get opinions.</b></b> It can be hard to critique your own work, so after you've done an initial edit, try to get some friends or a poetry group (there are plenty online) to look at your poem for you. You may not like all their suggestions, and you don't have to take any of them, but you might find some insight that will make your poem better. Feedback is good. Pass your poem around, and ask your friends to critique your work. Tell them to be honest, even if it's painful. Filter their responses or ignore them altogether and edit as you see fit.<div class="clearall" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; height: 0px; line-height: 0; "></div><div class="adunit adunitp1" style="margin-top: 23px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 1px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(65, 65, 65); "><div id="adunit1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></div></div></li><div><br /></div></div></li></ol></div></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-88688243233002306212010-01-24T11:01:00.000-08:002011-10-06T09:32:18.764-07:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;font-size:12px;" ><br /><div id="author" style="padding-top: 3px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 7px; "><table class="fixedtable" style="table-layout: fixed; " border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td style="font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; "><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div id="second_ad_unit" style="margin-bottom: 10px; "><div id="gsc" class="GCentnb" style="border-top-width: 1px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-right-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-left-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; padding-top: 1px; padding-right: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px; padding-left: 1px; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 2px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 2px; "></div></div></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-10080509590960407072010-01-22T14:21:00.000-08:002010-01-22T14:22:27.126-08:00Poetry in a Nutshell<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(67, 67, 67); font-family: verdana; font-size: 12px; "><p style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; ">Poetry is more than just rhyming and prose that is in meters and verse. It is an art form. It is something that can not be judged by its cover and can not be critisized to the point where it just "sucks." Poetry is about expression. Poetry expresses the way we feel on a certain subject through imagery and other senses. It helps us deal with our daily problems, be it good or bad.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; ">The emotion which is put within the poem brings it life. A poem without emotion is not a poem at all but simply prose. Poetry is what makes us feel happy or sad, mad or gleeful, loving or broken hearted. Poetry is life on paper. It does not need to be of a certain subject or even rhyme.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; ">Poetry is poetry. It has its own mind. If it flows good if not... it needs work. The rules can be bent but not broken. Our life is our life and no one can tell us what we have been through but ourselves. We know best not some stranger reading our poems. Our poetry is our life, not what someone says.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; ">Rhyming in poetry is not always the best way to express yourself. Rhyming actually takes away many words that could have been used. If you try to rhyme it cuts your dictionary into little pieces. It doesn't need to be this way, choose flow over rhyme.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-align: left; ">As a result of this, poetry is defined as a way of putting flowing words together in meter and verse to show emotion or tell a story.</p></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-88224059548785371232010-01-12T01:20:00.000-08:002010-01-12T01:22:24.743-08:00The Art of Poetry Writing<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(73, 73, 73); line-height: 19px; "><p class="ArticleText" style="background-color: inherit; text-align: justify; color: rgb(73, 73, 73); margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 4px; "></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Book Antiqua', Helvetica, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:6;color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(73, 73, 73); ">Poetry can be described in so many ways, but one general concept people have about poetry is, it stems from an emotion, an inspiration, or from a particular event in the poets life. Poetry is an art form that uses metaphors to express a certain thought or story.</span></b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>While telling the tale as it is can be easier understood, poetry is not into expressing one definite meaning, but rather into making the reader think and determine for themselves what the writer may be trying to put forth. The artistic use of words to represent something is else is common in a lot of poetry writing styles and is viewed as the norm by most poetry writers. Poetry, however, is basically indefinable and this may be due to the multiple writing styles available to the art.<br /><br />People who write poetry for the first time usually write from the top of their heads. This means, once inspiration hits them, they write down whatever they felt during that inspired moment in the simplest possible words that they could use. While this does not make for good poetry writing, this could be very well the base for a good poem.<br /><br />Like all books and other reading material, poetry can only improve with rereading and some rewriting. Some of your emotions from that inspired moment may have been expressed accurately enough for you, however, to help it transcend into art, some careful scrutiny and deliberation may be needed to further complete your work of art.<br /><br />While certain words may be accurate enough for the writer in terms of expressing the emotion they are trying to convey, this, however, does not ensure that the poem is good.<br /><br />Here is where metaphors come into play. You can use certain comparisons to how you feel by pairing them off with things and happenings around you. For example, if you are feeling sad, you do not just write in your poem that you are feeling sad or there is sadness in you.<br /><br />Try to find a phrase that can encompass what you feel without being too direct so as to leave the rest of the thinking to the imagination of your reader. A good comparison to the word sad would be dark or darkness. Another possible word you can use would be deep or depth.<br /><br />These two word choices may not be totally negative or describe the word sad if taken all by itself, but combined with a few other words, you can artistically portray the feeling of sadness in your poem.<br /><br />Not all poems are expressions of sadness and negativity, however, despite there being quite a number of them being created and having been created. This is not surprising since sorrow is a very strong emotion and writing can be quite an outlet for this feeling. Anger, as well, has found an outlet in putting pen to paper, along with confusion and even hate. More positive feelings are also common fodder for the poet, with the astounding number of love poetry that is available making this apparent. Other stronger emotions often used for poetry include happiness, and, well, the other predecessors and by-products of happiness.<br /><br />Whatever the inspiration a person has for writing a poem or poems, poetry is indeed a literary art form that is, as indefinable as it is, something that a lot of us can do well, with a lot of feeling and some practice.<br /><br />One of the rather useful tools to better yourself at poetry writing is your basic thesaurus. It offers you quite a few choices in terms of word selection to further express what you feel in your writing.<p></p><p class="ArticleText" style="background-color: inherit; text-align: justify; color: rgb(73, 73, 73); margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 4px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px; ">Autor: <b><a href="http://www.articlecircle.com/profile/pitorian-1719.html" style="background-color: inherit; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 128); ">pitorian</a></b> </span></p></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-7055040472457260402010-01-11T05:21:00.000-08:002010-01-11T05:22:10.713-08:00Rhyme and Meter in Poetry<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; "><div align="center"><h1 align="left" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Meter in poetry is basically the rhythmic structure of a verse. There are recurring patterns of stressed (assented, or long) and unstressed (unaccented or short) syllables. There are six basic types of meter in poetry most commonly used. They are the following: Iambic, Trochaic, Anapestic, Dactylic, Spondee, and Pyrrhic.</span></h1></div><div align="left"><h4 align="left">Iambic Meter:</h4><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">The foot of the verse starts with an unaccented and ends with an accented stressed syllable.</p><h4 align="left">Trochaic Meter:</h4><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">It is the opposite of Iambic meter form in that it begins with an accented stressed then follows with an unaccented syllable.</p><h4 align="left">Anapestic Meter:</h4><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">The foot of the verse has two unaccented syllable and then followed by one accented syllables.</p><h4 align="left">Dactylic:</h4><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">The foot of the verse has one accented syllable which is followed by two unaccented syllables.</p><h4 align="left">Spondee Meter:</h4><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">The foot of the poem includes two accented stressed syllables.</p><h4 align="left">Pyrrhic Meter:</h4><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">A foot of a poem includes two unaccented syllables to help vary the use of rhythm.</p><h4 align="left">Rhyme in Poetry</h4><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">The basic meaning of rhyme is two words that sound alike. Rhyming in poetry is the most recognized and conventional tool in poetry. Rhyme helps fuse a poem. Today, conventional poetry aren’t as strictly determined as they were during the English Renaissance or in 18th century literature. Rhyme can help indicate a poetic theme and help to structure a subject that would otherwise seem disorganized. Meter plays a large role in this with rhyme.</p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; ">There is internal rhyme within a line of poetry and then the more commonly known form is end rhyme which occurs at the end of the line and at the end of another line within the stanza of the poem.</p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br /></span></span></div></div></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-21782959747081535592010-01-09T23:57:00.001-08:002010-01-09T23:58:45.529-08:00Adjectives are overrated<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(64, 64, 64); "><h1 style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; width: 464px; padding-top: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-left: 3px; color: rgb(64, 64, 64); background-image: url(http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/img/h1.gif); background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(242, 204, 162); background-position: initial initial; "><br /></h1><div id="content_box" style="margin-top: 0px; font-size: 12px; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); width: 464px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 4px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 3px; background-position: initial initial; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; ">Using adjectives can be impressive because it shows off the writer's vocabulary, but that's about it. The creativity lies hidden, and vocabulary is just something you can learn... creativity is lived and found within you. Creativity is what makes something artistic; it makes the poet a poet. But obviously, the logic and form shouldn't be set aside.<br /><br />The writer who uses too many adjectives is a lazy and mediocre writer. In the sole reason that instead of them creating the image they wanted to present, the reader does it for himself or herself.<br /><br />I suggest (but no one is obligated to follow) the further use of metaphors. Adjectives won't get you nearly as far as metaphors.<br /><br />Please consider the following comparisons.<br /><br />When a person in love with adjectives writes about silence, these lines may appear:<br /><br />"Your vast absence of words has ultimately reached the concluding edge of forever"<br />- pretty good line. The person is stating that the huge quantity of silence the person has given him is about to reach the end of forever.<br /><br />But Jeffrey McDaniel has a different kind of approach towards silence.<br /><br />"I've been ignored by prettier women than you,<br />but none who carried the heavy pitchers of silence<br />so far, without spilling a drop."<br />- He used more words but he used them inevitably. And the image he created behind the metaphor was intense.<br /><br />Nouns also make good substitutes for adjectives. How would you describe our kind being harmful to nature and the environment?<br /><br />"selfish beings burning nature's heart... blah blah"<br /><br />But if you think hard enough for a noun that could describe your thought, it wouldn't be so hard.<br /><br />"Plastic species roam the land,<br />to rot and spread the virus."<br /><br />Plastic (noun) is a material that is harmful to the environment and used without abandon by humans. It also rots and may cause cancer once burnt.<br /><br />There are a lot of ways you can spice up your writing with the lesser use of adjectives and a creative use of its substitutes.<br /><br />"I remember how your eyes harassed me"<br />- any reader can fill up the emotion in this line. But if you deliver it differently, it can be more specific:<br /><br />"I remember your eyes: fifty attack dogs on a single leash"<br />- feel the tension?<br /><br />The test here is that if we want to broaden the intensity and affectivity of our writings, we must set aside the use of words to describe a feeling, set aside the use of verbs to announce an action, and just let our metaphors, similes, etc... saturate our work with imagination and stimulation.<br /><br />It's a good exercise. Try it. :)<br /></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; "></p><h1 style="font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal; width: 464px; padding-top: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-left: 3px; color: rgb(64, 64, 64); background-image: url(http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/img/h1.gif); background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(242, 204, 162); ">by <a href="http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/author.html?id=300201" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 102); text-decoration: underline; ">The Tasteless</a></h1><p></p></div></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-17935548411330187462010-01-09T04:56:00.000-08:002010-01-09T04:57:30.065-08:00Inspiring the Poet in You<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:6;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;"><b><br /></b></span></span> by: <b class="author" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal; ">Anusuya Veth</b><table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" border="0" align="right"><tbody><tr><td style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; "><div style="position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; visibility: hidden; "><img src="http://ignitad.com/AdServer/Served.aspx?&ref=http%3A//www.google.com/cse%3Fcx%3Dpartner-pub-2630580098714716%253A50rxfniafa8%26cof%3DFORID%253A10%26ie%3DISO-8859-1%26q%3Dpoetry+tips%26sa%3DSearch%26siteurl%3Dwww.articlecity.com%252F%26ad%3Dw9%26num%3D10%26rurl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.articlecity.com%252Fgoogle_search.shtml%253Fcx%253Dpartner-pub-2630580&uri=www.articlecity.com&r=0.08682126877829432&ars=688" alt="i" width="0" height="0" /></div></td></tr><tr><td align="center" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; "><br /><a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php" onmouseover="return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')" onmouseout="addthis_close()" onclick="return addthis_sendto()" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 153); text-decoration: none; "><img src="http://s9.addthis.com/button1-share.gif" width="125" height="16" border="0" alt="" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">Poems. Just the mention of them makes me smile. Why? Simple. I delight in writing and reading poetry.</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">Some tend to think that to be a poet is not easy and that it must be those deep thinkers who can write poems.</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">Actually all of us can be poets if we have creativity. After all poems are creations of our minds and our experiences.</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">If you are still clueless and you think that you can never write a single poem, below are some inspiring tips to awake the poet in you:</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">1. Read</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">Read other poets work and observe how they write. You don't have to read heavy stuff as there are also writers who write simple and easy-to-understand poems. Start with simple ones to get into the flow of poetry.</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">2. Poetry Class</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">Is there any poetry writing classes in your university or any other institutions? It will be a good idea to join the class and learn about the basics of writing poetry as most beginners start this way.</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">3. Talk with Poets</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">Is there anybody whom you know is a poet? Speak to them and ask them how did they start writing poems. They will be glad to share with you their experiences. By doing this you will be getting valuable information from an expert and you can learn from their experiences.</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">4. Write</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">If you don't try you will never know so the next best thing to do is to pen a poem yourself. It could be long or short but start working on the poems. You could also keep a journal for your poems.</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">5. Contests</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">There are many poetry contests both in magazines & in portals. Take part and submit your poems. Once again this step is to encourage and motivate yourself to write poems.</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">6. Get Feedback</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">After writing the poems get a friend or better still a poet to give you feedback on your work. Ask them if they like it and if they don't ask them why. By doing this you will be able to know how well your poems are able to communicate with others.</p><p style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; ">Like I said writing poems is a form of communication. It all depends on the writer and his or her emotions and thoughts. But one key thing which pushes all us poets is the passion for writing them. So get creative and start penning those hidden poems!</p></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-91570526296683367422010-01-07T23:47:00.000-08:002010-01-07T23:49:13.766-08:00Poetry Tips<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 19px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><a href="http://www.articlesbase.com/poetry-articles/poetry-tips-for-beginners-1580513.html#" class="kLink" target="undefined" id="KonaLink0" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; text-decoration: underline !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0); border-bottom-style: none !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: verdana; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-top-color: transparent !important; border-right-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: transparent !important; border-left-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: initial !important; background-attachment: initial !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; text-transform: none !important; display: inline !important; font-variant: normal; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; position: static; background-position: initial initial !important; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; color:#009900;"><span class="kLink" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-top-color: initial !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-left-color: initial !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-right-color: initial !important; border-bottom-width: 3px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: initial; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; background-position: initial initial; ">Poetry</span></span><span id="preLoadWrap0" class="preLoadWrap" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; position: relative; "></span></a> is one of the most unique and expressive forms of writing. Unlike most writing, <a href="http://www.articlesbase.com/poetry-articles/poetry-tips-for-beginners-1580513.html#" class="kLink" target="undefined" id="KonaLink1" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; text-decoration: underline !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: none !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: verdana; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-top-color: transparent !important; border-right-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: transparent !important; border-left-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: initial !important; background-attachment: initial !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; text-transform: none !important; display: inline !important; font-variant: normal; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; position: static; background-position: initial initial !important; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; color:#009900;"><span class="kLink" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-top-color: initial !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-left-color: initial !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-right-color: initial !important; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 0); color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; background-position: initial initial; ">poets</span></span><span id="preLoadWrap1" class="preLoadWrap" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; position: relative; "></span></a> aren’t bound by a plethora of restrictions. <a href="http://www.articlesbase.com/poetry-articles/poetry-tips-for-beginners-1580513.html#" class="kLink" target="undefined" id="KonaLink2" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; text-decoration: underline !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: none !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: verdana; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-top-color: transparent !important; border-right-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: transparent !important; border-left-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: initial !important; background-attachment: initial !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; text-transform: none !important; display: inline !important; font-variant: normal; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; position: static; background-position: initial initial !important; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; color:#009900;"><span class="kLink" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-top-color: initial !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-left-color: initial !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-right-color: initial !important; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 0); color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; background-position: initial initial; ">Poetry</span></span><span id="preLoadWrap2" class="preLoadWrap" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; position: relative; "></span></a> can be about anything and anyone can write it. With a little practice, you can be proud of your poetry so grab that pencil and paper and follow my tips.</p><ol style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; width: inherit; list-style-type: decimal; list-style-position: inside; list-style-image: initial; "><li style="margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">First you’ve got to come up with an idea. If you want your <a href="http://www.articlesbase.com/poetry-articles/poetry-tips-for-beginners-1580513.html#" class="kLink" target="undefined" id="KonaLink3" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; text-decoration: underline !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: none !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: verdana; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-top-color: transparent !important; border-right-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: transparent !important; border-left-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: initial !important; background-attachment: initial !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; text-transform: none !important; display: inline !important; font-variant: normal; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; position: static; background-position: initial initial !important; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; color:#009900;"><span class="kLink" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-top-color: initial !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-left-color: initial !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-right-color: initial !important; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: initial; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; background-position: initial initial; ">poem</span></span></a> to be meaningful, its helpful to know where you’re going with it beforehand. All inspiration is created equal when it comes to poetry, so anything that moves you, whether it’s the look of a pile of rusty<a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/article_exit_link');" href="http://www.streetbeatcustoms.com/" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 102, 204); ">automotive parts</a> or an abstract emotion, it’s worthy of a poem.</li><li style="margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Next start brainstorming your ideas. Just start writing unconsciously without inhibition if you can. Your feelings and thoughts will just flow out and hopefully you’ll find something you deem worthwhile.</li><li style="margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Once you’ve brainstormed ideas, its time to start organizing your thoughts. You can stick to traditional forms of poetry or you can write in free verse. If you aren’t sure which style is right for you, try out several different ones. Eventually one will stick out as the most natural to you.</li><li style="margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">When organizing your poem, make sure to take both meter and rhythm into account. Meter is the pattern in your poem and rhythm is how your poem should sound when it’s spoken. Both are incredibly important and should be taken into consideration when writing your poem.</li><li style="margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Use imagery in your poem. This will appeal to the reader’s senses and it will give your poem more depth. You should also try to use symbolism and metaphor in your poem. This will make for a more interesting poem.</li><li style="margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Let others read and critique your poetry. This may be scary at first, but allow for some constructive criticism. It will make your work stronger and you will grow as a poet.</li><li style="margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></li></ol></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-39000498893813565322010-01-07T01:23:00.000-08:002010-01-07T01:24:36.499-08:00Free or Formal<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; color: rgb(73, 73, 73); line-height: 19px; "><p class="ArticleText" style="background-color: inherit; text-align: justify; color: rgb(73, 73, 73); margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 4px; margin-bottom: 4px; margin-left: 4px; ">Poems can be constructed in either <span id="IL_AD2" class="IL_AD" style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; text-decoration: underline !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: repeat !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding-bottom: 1px; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; font-size: 12px !important; background-position: 0% 50%; ">free verse</span> or formal verse. Most poets today write free versewhich is open to pattern and is recognized as nonconforming and rhyme less verse. Metrical verse relies on stanza length combined with meter or rhyme patterns distinct to itself. There are several traditional commonly-known forms of <span id="IL_AD6" class="IL_AD" style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; text-decoration: underline !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: repeat !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding-bottom: 1px; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; font-size: 12px !important; background-position: 0% 50%; ">poetry</span>.<br /><br />Haiku, a form of Japanese descent, consists of three lines of five, seven, and five syllables respectively, and traditionally deals with nature subjects.<br /><br />A sonnet, whether of English or Italian rhyming scheme, is a single- or two-stanza lyric poem containing fourteen lines written in iambic pentameter. Shakespeare's love sonnets are well-known.<br /><br />Most journals of literary note do not embrace traditional rhyme and form poetry, preferring the more commonly used free verse which is not bound by any rules of meter and rhyme. Unless you're the Earl of Rochester or Alexander Pope, it would be best to stick with the unconventional verse. Here are some traditional types ofpoetry and free forms:<br /><br />Sestina - The sestina is a six 6-line stanzas followed by a 3-line stanza. There is a predetermined pattern in that the same six words are repeated at the end of lines throughout the poem. The last word in the last line of one stanza becomes the last word of the first <span id="IL_AD5" class="IL_AD" style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; text-decoration: underline !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: repeat !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding-bottom: 1px; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; font-size: 12px !important; background-position: 0% 50%; ">line in the</span> next stanza. Then rounding it off with the final 3-line stanza, all six end words appear. You may want to read some of Sylvia Plath's sestinas to familiarize yourself with this form.<br /><br />Two forms that are closely related to each other are the villanelle and the pantoum. The villanelle, a nineteen-line poem, is made up of five 3-line stanzas and one 4-line stanza (or quatrain) at the end of the poem. Alternating between the ends of each tercet (3-line stanza) there are two refrains that eventually end up forming the last two lines of the quatrain. Dylan Thomas's "<span id="IL_AD1" class="IL_AD" style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; text-decoration: underline !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: repeat !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding-bottom: 1px; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; font-size: 12px !important; background-position: 0% 50%; ">Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night</span>" is an example of a villanelle. The pantoum is comprised totally of quatrains. In each stanza the second and fourth lines are repeated in the first and third lines of the following stanza, until the final stanza where the first line is the poem's first and the second line is the poem's third line. "Evening Harmony" by Charles Baudelaire is an example of a pantoum.<br /><br />Free verse does come in various forms, the most common being driven by cadence in which common language rhythm is substituted for regular metrical pattern, which can be seen in the works of Walt Whitman and the <span id="IL_AD3" class="IL_AD" style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; text-decoration: underline !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: repeat !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding-bottom: 1px; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; font-size: 12px !important; background-position: 0% 50%; ">King James Bible version</span>of The Psalms and The Song of Solomon.<br /><br />A second type of free verse is free iambic verse which was used by such poets as T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden.<br /><br />A third form is the free verse proper, the most used form, where the inconsistency is at the center of the poem. There is no set metrical rhyme or patterns of meter and rhythm. Unlike traditional verse, free form is not constrained by the rules regulating syllables in stanzas.<br /><br />There is often confusion as to what is meant by visual poetry. If you have written a very descriptive poem about a whale, it may be a wonderful free verse poem, but not visual. If you have written the same poem and the presentation of the piece is in the shape of a whale, you have written a visual poem.<br /><br />If you'd like further information about poetry terms, take a look at John Drury's "The Poetry Dictionary." It defines key terms that should be in the vocabulary of every poet. Above all, keep writing! Poetry provides a wonderful outlet for observation, exploration, and healing.</p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-43002359217846721912010-01-04T23:49:00.000-08:002010-01-07T01:20:20.014-08:00Haiku writingHaiku is a type of short poem, which originated in Japan during the 17th century. What set it apart from other types of poetry was that it began as kind of game among the merchants and lower class citizens. True to its origins, Haiku developed characteristics that are quite different from the elegant court and love poetry of its times. It is spontaneous, crisp, and used images that were quite ordinary.<br /><br />The aim of Haiku as with any other type of poetry is to express as much as possible in as little words as possible. But in Haiku this primary rule is followed to the extreme. Usually, a haiku is just three lines long, with 17 syllables. For brevity sake, articles, pronouns and other grammar words are often removed from a haiku.<br /><br />So how do you write a Haiku? The key to Haiku is to catch the fleeting idea. The best Haiku comes to our mind quite unexpectedly. It might be a trivial incident. An image from nature will be sufficient. The cat arching its body after a sleep, a dog wagging its tail, an ant talking with another ant, a butterfly fixed to a flower, etc, will be enough. Usually, a season word like rain summer, wind or anything that relate to climate and weather is ideal for a Haiku.<br /><br />See that the image is concrete and they do not directly allude to abstract concepts like afterlife, final judgment etc. A good rule of thumb is to see if someone can enjoy your Haiku without having an insight into your philosophy. Another important thing to remember is that your poem should contain only one or two images. Too many images can confuse the reader. But the real fun in a haiku is to conceal such cosmological truths in simple looking verses that talks about trivial things. Matsuo Basho, a seventeenth century Japanese hermit excelled in this. His most famous poem goes like this:<br /><br />The old pond—<br /><br />a frog jumps in,<br /><br />sound of water.<br /><br />In the nineteenth century, poets like Ezra Pound and other imagist poets were attracted to Haiku and adapted it to fit the English Language. His famous poem “<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">"In The Station of the Metro</span>” is an example for this:<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; ">The apparition of these faces in the crowd;<br />petals on a wet, black bough</span><br /><br />With the examples given above, you can start writing your own haiku poem. So what are you waiting for?John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-38775036138170078572010-01-04T00:07:00.000-08:002010-01-04T00:09:31.033-08:00The Art of Poetry Writing<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:100%;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 19px;"><div id="post-body" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: auto; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; float: left; "><div class="KonaBody" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Poetry can be described in so many ways, but one general concept people have about poetry is, it stems from an emotion, an inspiration, or from a particular event in the poets life. Poetry is an art form that uses metaphors to express a certain thought or story.<br /><br />While telling the tale as it is can be easier understood, poetry is not into expressing one definite meaning, but rather into making the reader think and determine for themselves what the writer may be trying to put forth. The artistic use of words to represent something is else is common in a lot of poetry writing styles and is viewed as the norm by most poetry writers. Poetry, however, is basically indefinable and this may be due to the multiple writing styles available to the art.<br /><br />People who write poetry for the first time usually write from the top of their heads. This means, once inspiration hits them, they write down whatever they felt during that inspired moment in the simplest possible words that they could use. While this does not make for good poetry writing, this could be very well the base for a good poem. <br /><br />Like all <a href="http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/the-art-of-poetry-writing-112366.html#" class="kLink" target="undefined" id="KonaLink0" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 0px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; text-decoration: underline !important; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; border-bottom-style: none !important; cursor: pointer; font-family: verdana; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-top-color: transparent !important; border-right-color: transparent !important; border-bottom-color: transparent !important; border-left-color: transparent !important; background-image: none !important; background-repeat: initial !important; background-attachment: initial !important; -webkit-background-clip: initial !important; -webkit-background-origin: initial !important; background-color: transparent !important; text-transform: none !important; display: inline !important; font-variant: normal; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; position: static; background-position: initial initial !important; "><span style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; color:#009900;"><span class="kLink" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px !important; padding-right: 0px !important; padding-bottom: 1px !important; padding-left: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-top-color: initial !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-left-color: initial !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; border-right-color: initial !important; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 153, 0); color: rgb(0, 153, 0) !important; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; font-size: 12px; position: static; background-position: initial initial; ">books</span></span></a> and other reading material, poetry can only improve with rereading and some rewriting. Some of your emotions from that inspired moment may have been expressed accurately enough for you, however, to help it transcend into art, some careful scrutiny and deliberation may be needed to further complete your work of art. <br /><br />While certain words may be accurate enough for the writer in terms of expressing the emotion they are trying to convey, this, however, does not ensure that the poem is good.<br /><br />Here is where metaphors come into play. You can use certain comparisons to how you feel by pairing them off with things and happenings around you. For example, if you are feeling sad, you do not just write in your poem that you are feeling sad or there is sadness in you. <br /><br />Try to find a phrase that can encompass what you feel without being too direct so as to leave the rest of the thinking to the imagination of your reader. A good comparison to the word sad would be dark or darkness. Another possible word you can use would be deep or depth. <br /><br />These two word choices may not be totally negative or describe the word sad if taken all by itself, but combined with a few other words, you can artistically portray the feeling of sadness in your poem. <br /><br />Not all poems are expressions of sadness and negativity, however, despite there being quite a number of them being created and having been created. This is not surprising since sorrow is a very strong emotion and writing can be quite an outlet for this feeling. Anger, as well, has found an outlet in putting pen to paper, along with confusion and even hate. More positive feelings are also common fodder for the poet, with the astounding number of love poetry that is available making this apparent. Other stronger emotions often used for poetry include happiness, and, well, the other predecessors and by-products of happiness.<br /><br />Whatever the inspiration a person has for writing a poem or poems, poetry is indeed a literary art form that is, as indefinable as it is, something that a lot of us can do well, with a lot of feeling and some practice. <br /><br />One of the rather useful tools to better yourself at poetry writing is your basic thesaurus. It offers you quite a few choices in terms of word selection to further express what you feel in your writing.</p></div></div><div class="clearer" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: both; "></div><div class="author-bio" style="margin-top: 10px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; border-top-style: solid; border-right-style: solid; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(214, 214, 214); border-right-color: rgb(214, 214, 214); border-bottom-color: rgb(214, 214, 214); border-left-color: rgb(214, 214, 214); "><div class="image" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 9px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; float: left; "><img src="http://images.articlesbase.com/author_blue.gif" class="author-img" alt="Chris Kennelly" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; " /></div><div class="text" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Chris Kennelly is a writer for directory submission services at <a rel="nofollow" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/article_exit_link');" href="http://www.talkinmince.com/" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 102, 204); ">Article Directory</a></p></div></div></span></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-2525043580748703362010-01-03T03:18:00.000-08:002010-01-03T03:19:54.945-08:00How to write poetry<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, helvetica, arial; font-size: small; "><span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica;font-size:85%;">Poetry writing, publish poetry, poets, writing, haiku poems, free verse, lyrical poems, poetry types and styles If you want to write poetry, take a look around you. There are plenty of ideas all around you. I would suggest you go through the park for a stroll with pen and paper. Pay attention and try to write down things you have observed like; the trees, the leaves, the people walking around, the color of the sky, things that spark your imagination.<p>One of the best ways to get ideas to write poetry is by the observation of others. Write down some of the conversation you hear, what they are wearing, lovers holding hands or lovers in a quarrel. The ideas are to pay attention and take as much notes as you can. You will not be writing your poetry at this time.</p><p>You can browse through old pictures that can spark a blissful moment n your life or a not so blissful moment if your life. You can also go through magazine to come up with idea about the photos. Same thing can be said for listening to music. Certain type of music when you close your eyes can take you to a whole new place that can open the flood gate of your imagination and allowed the words to just flow on the paper.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Now that you have find ways to become creative to write poetry, one would have to decide what types of poetry I should write. If you are not sure of the style of poetry writing, http://www.ipublishabook.com/How-To-Write-Poetry.html will list them to give you a better understanding.</p><p>Haiku: Haiku comes in many different styles. A haiku can be three lines long with five syllables on the first line, seven syllables on the second line and five syllables on the third line. Haiku's are not the easiest poetry to write.</p><p>Narrative Poems: One of my favorite ways to write poetry is to write narrative poems. These stories should be short with a beginning, middle and conclusion. Lyric Poems: Lyric poems sound very similar to songs. The lyrics are put together in a rhyming patterns..</p><p>A Sonnet: Sonnets are lyrical songs. Sonnets are long and dramatic, tell a story. Free Verse: Free verses do not have to rhyme. They can be short or long with any style you want.</p><p>Writing poetry and publish poetry can be fun. The styles http://www.ipublishabook.com/How-To-Write-Poetry.html has listed are only some basic forms of poetry. Decide what subject that interests you. Write a first draft and then go away from the poetry for a while and come back with clear eyes so it can have the proper feel and love. Have fun writing poetry.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></span><p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica;font-size:85%;"></span></p><p>My name is Mel and here at http://www.ipublishabook.com you will get a chance to read some of my writings. I always wanted to write and publish books but never realize the challenge I would face trying to get a publisher to look at my manuscript. I went the route you always hear a writer should not go, and that was to self-publish.I enjoy writing poetry.</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica;font-size:100%;"><b>Contact the Author</b></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica;font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.ideamarketers.com/library/profile.cfm?writerid=81417">www.ipublishabook.com</a></span></p></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-64758363270949531092009-12-29T01:49:00.000-08:002009-12-29T01:50:54.604-08:00Five Reasons to Write Poetry<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, fantasy; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); line-height: 22px; "><div class="headline_area" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 2.2em; margin-left: 0px; "><h1 class="entry-title" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 2.2em; line-height: 1.364em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(53, 53, 53); font-size: 20px; line-height: 17px; font-style: italic; ">“You need nothing more to write poems than bits of string and thread and some dust from under the bed”</span></h1><h1 class="entry-title" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 2.2em; line-height: 1.364em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(53, 53, 53); font-size: 20px; line-height: 17px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; ">Marvin Bell</span></span></h1></div><div class="format_text entry-content" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.571em; "><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); "><em style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">“Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition.”</em><br /><strong style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Eli Khamarov</strong></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); "><em style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">“Appreciating poetry is probably like appreciating anything else. It means having the generosity to let a thing be what it is, the patience to know it, a sense of the mystery in all living things, and a joy in new experience.”</em><br /><strong style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">M.C. Richards</strong></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">You have a flash of insight, a metaphor for understanding electricity as water, a parallel to existence or just an inside reflection on what is wrong/right with the world. I’ve sat at this lake before the waterfall waiting for hours for more to follow, but that’s it and I start thinking about something else or worse, nothing at all, and then I forget what helped put the world in perspective.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">Like journal writing, poetry can help record those thoughts and special insights in helping forge your feelings into a perspective so that you can start coming to terms with it, rather than having it subvert back to the inertia that carried the feeling or idea to consciousness to begin with. This can help you come to terms with the idea/feeling itself, to move forward with your growth as living human being. How? you ask?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><strong style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">1. It builds your brain.</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">The power of the metaphor, simile, parallel… figurative language is not only a good way to put things into perspective, but metaphors are easier to remember than a complex set of interactions. This is a way to grasp deeper meaning from perhaps a very mundane, or complex identity. It builds an understandable identity with which to contrast that is easier to grapple and engage in, in the process building pathways in your brain that would have been stopped cold otherwise. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">And poetry exercises this muscle by encouraging figurative language providing a sounding ground for your ideas, feelings, reminiscences by putting them into a concrete perspective.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><strong style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">2. It’s therapeutic.</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">A dialog of one is still a dialog, and like journal writing provides an amiable outlet to vent our feelings. Not only that but we end up with something that is tangible and durable product of the struggle while coming to terms with it. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">It is something we can show off, or keep around for a rainy day to either entertain ourselves, work on, or reminisce what you were thinking that day when you wrote it. It’s a little snapshot of your soul and what you were thinking when writing it. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">This can grow into something new as you revise and/or write more as a poem can be never really finished. Thus it has the possibility of being exhaustless, while providing a forum for expression & understanding.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><strong style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">3. That tool you’ve developed is versatile.</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">Once you get the hang of writing poetry, there’s almost nothing you can’t do with it. It is an alternative form of communication. If you don’t believe me just look at all the greeting cards out there with this wit or wisdom scrolled up in Gothic lettering on every subject. It is a font of the English language, it’s just up to you what you want to put it up to. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">I’ve written poems to magazines urging articles, I’ve used them to barter services and better grades in classes, I’ve written them to girlfriends. I’ve gotten people to laugh. They can be as complex or simple as you want to make them into, and I’ve found any place that required a logical argument, could always be appended with a poem in favor/or against something as well to clarify the position/picture, because after all, it’s just communication if on a more deeper level.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><strong style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">4. It encourages deeper intrapersonal relationships.</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">As you write, not only do ideas bloom, but you do also. Your vocabulary gets broader, your understanding about relationships between ideas grows and how this affects you and the world comes closer together. My biggest problem in dealing with people was not knowing whom I was, somewhere between egoless and consumer. Writing poetry enables the I in Identity, from which you can clearly communicate the you to the you in someone else.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">People aren’t always going to be able to understand you, but writing poetry gives you an opportunity for personal space in which to critically think while expressing yourself to others in a coherent picture. Doesn’t mean you’ll come off all-knowing and wise, but that you’ll be given an opportunity to effectively communicate at your own pace which can come at a premium in this busy world.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><strong style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">5. You are opening yourself up to a wealth of human knowledge</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">By writing, you are doing the legwork in understanding other poets. There are as many ways to read poetry as there are people, but when you start thinking in a language are you more easily able to understand another in that language. There are thousands of poets and each of them write to different aim. Figurative language, prosody, sonics, description, narrative are all a language unto themselves and some will come easier for you to write than others, as well as understand. Poetry is a forum for exchange, not a universal language.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">Writing poetry strengthens your reasoning and in so doing, your<em style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">comprehension </em>in just what that author means when he claims, all was mimsy in the borogroves. Best of all, it’s a free exchange of ideas.. there are thousands of websites and forums on the web and each have groups of people to interact and engage, both dead and alive, across the centuries from ancient Rome to the current Poet Laureate of the United States.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#353535;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.571em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 13pt; "><em style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span lang="EN-GB" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(53, 53, 53); ">Vic Vosen is a writer, reader, and slam participant currently bonded in slavery as a mudlogger to the petroleoum industry from his education costs. He posts on Usenet forums, a <a href="http://anvilheat.blogspot.com/" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(35, 97, 161); text-decoration: underline; ">blog</a>, and various poetry web forums in his exploration and development of metaphor and sound.</span></em></p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#353535;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 17px;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div></div></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-35921457632661425642009-12-28T00:27:00.000-08:002009-12-28T00:29:35.988-08:00Making a poem<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Times;font-size:medium;"><p align="center" style="line-height: 24px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Times New Roman', Times, fantasy;color:#999999;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: normal;font-size:x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Times, fantasy;color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 24px;font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Writing poetry is as easy as singing, well, actually bathroom singing. Anyone can do it and those that know the lessons and rules can excel. Poetry writing has to its vantage, the lenity of using the rules of language. Grammar and spelling for instance can be used or even misused, as against what the high school English teacher proclaimed (Grammar is the heart beat of language, miss one, end up dead!)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Poetry writing surges a sense of peace and fulfillment. It is of course “a spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility” as William Wordsworth aptly said. Though there lives a poet in every human, many don’t attempt the effort for the fear of being mocked at or not knowing how to express oneself.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">With the very rudimentary tips you will regret having wasted so much time not writing poems. In most cases you might find yourself saying “Yeah I know that”. Still I am jotting them down because the simplest are the ones that elude at ease. Not all or even none of these guidelines might be applicable to all the poems, for poetry writing is all about being an outlaw of language rules.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">I hope you find these tips useful and good luck for exploring the new dimension.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" font-weight: 700; font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:20pt;color:#808080;">RULES – STRICTLY MEANT TO BE BROKEN</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style="color:#282828;"><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;"> </span></span><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;">Poem is what you think it is</span></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Write whatever you think is poem to you. Not Shelly, not Wordsworth, not Milton. You and you alone can conceive your poem. Poem can be anything. The following was the first poem I wrote (it took me courage to quote it here)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height: 24px; margin-left: 150px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; font-size:15pt;color:#808080;">Cat on the wall</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height: 24px; margin-left: 150px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; font-size:15pt;color:#808080;">Bird on the tree</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height: 24px; margin-left: 150px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; font-size:15pt;color:#808080;">Flower on the bloom</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="left" style="line-height: 24px; margin-left: 150px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; font-size:15pt;color:#808080;">Me on the bus.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">To me its one of my best written poems, hey note the rhyme. Sense or no-sense, poetry is all about a thought related by words.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style="color:#282828;"><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;"> </span></span><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;">Self-realization through poetry</span></span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Poetry is not explaining what you know or what you want others to know. It is more of an inward journey. When you write a poem, it leads to self-realization of what you know and what you don’t. Now I am not talking anything spiritual. Writing about a cat will make you realize how much you love/hate/feel neutral about cats. It is more of a self expression to your self.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Say anything, mean anything</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Don’t bother too much with what the reader might interpret. They are of course going to take a different sense to what you write. That is in fact one of the blessings of poetry. Don’t go on explaining details, if you do, then you will end up writing prose not a poem. Let there be abrupt endings, unfinished sentences, unquoted meanings, but always organize your thoughts for yourself, not the reader.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Create a style</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">This is not mandatory, however it helps. Not that your poetry need to be confined to one type, for instance nature poets doesn’t mean you have to write all the while about trees and birds. But if you enjoy writing about nature, do it more often. Poetry is all about self-satisfaction.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Give yourself credit Mr.Poet</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Give a break, and give yourself some credit. Review every poem you write. Find out your favorite sentence or sense and treat yourself with your favorite dessert for it (don’t forge to keep track of calories along the side of the poem). Enjoy the poem, some may be masterpiece, some might be bauble. Call yourself a poet and glow in your own limelight.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Watch out</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Grammar and spelling may be taken for granted. However “ALWAYS” edit your poem. Singin’ for singing is poetic, but signin’ for singing is non-sense. Watch out for careless mistakes, both grammatical and spelling.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Don’t expect instant recognition</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Your immediate family and friends are all the fans you will have in the first sway. That is not your goal, if you want to reach far, you must stay put and write and write until you are recognized. It might even take a lifetime, but it is bound to happen, if and only if, you stick on and write more.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Stand your point</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">If you are one that enjoys refutation, then do it with sufficient pride and points. Standing your point is very important in such aspect and more important are cogent words and precise message relation. It is challenging and interesting to write such argumentative poems. Pay close attention.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Use the language weapon</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Similes, metaphors, rimes, and many such language aids are readily available to make the poem more likable and enjoyable. Use them as much and as often as you can. Irony, humor, melodrama, pity can all garnish the poem if used wisely. Don’t over do them, or don’t try hard to explain why your humor poem is humorous.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Write about everything</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">One of the best ways to realize your thoughts on something is to write about it. Certain topics may be delicate and you might not want to write them because of the nature of the issue. Still WRITE IT. If as a teen you want to overcome your curiosity on sex, write about it, nothings going worse. You will be surprised about the knowledge and maturity you have over the topic and so will you shed your fear of understanding.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Have an audience</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Letting others read your poem takes a lot of courage, especially for beginners. But that’s exactly what you have to do. You will be mocked, laughed, or even stoned. Never let that stop you. Some will find your poem invigorating. Welcome criticisms and use it to your favor. Be patient and enthusiastic, you are ought to find it contagious.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Those empty moments</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Certain moments, you sit to write a poem, only to feel every word, every idea, every thought to be taken out of your brains. Can’t find the right word, can’t find the right concept, well close your note (and eyes, might help) and think. Then write. Never say “no more to write”.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" font-weight: 700; font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Write responsibly</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Though you may be writing for fun or as a pass time, always remember that a responsibility comes with a writer. Your thoughts may be influential to a sect of audience you may never heard of, so always hold up the moral obligation as a sensible writer.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "> </p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Learn from others</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Find time to read others poems. It may not be those of literature gurus, contemporary poems might by far be enjoyable and they might even give you an insight to different style and form of poetry writing. Analyze it and take the positives of it.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Write baubles</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Write as many bad poems as you can. Make sure they end in your own trash. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite them millions of times, if need be, but never let a poem that doesn’t satisfy you leave your desk. It’s the one control you must have.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Remember your masterpieces</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">May be not all you pen are your favorite poems. Likewise, may be not all lines of a poem are of your poetic genius. Pick out the best of the rest, in your opinion and have it by heart. You could use them in causal conversations as well. You are sure to be welcomed and in turn you will feel encouraged. They will always come handy for an impressive conversation. BEWARE- don’t be that boring geek that always talks poetic.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Words Words Words</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Vocabulary is not essentially the must to write a good poem. But mastering words sure does helps in a way. Using appropriate words is always welcomed. High sounding and bombastic is not what I mean, but simple and elegant words that can convey the right meaning without having to explain in detail are often an asset. It is also a good practice to refer to dictionary for right words and their grammatical meanings.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Read your poem aloud</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">This might sound bizarre. But it helps too. You will not only enjoy the poem more, but also your confidence will increase on it. You might have the feel of how others read it in their mind and also you will spot the misplaced and misaligned sentences.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><b><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Publish, don’t hesitate</span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span style=" ;font-family:'Times New Roman';"><span style=" ;font-size:15pt;color:#282828;">Never be hesitant on whether your poetry will be accepted or not. That’s not your concern. Send it across to as many editors as possible, as many publishers you can think of. Some may be accepted, many may be discarded. That is not the end of your poetry. With the online media embracing everything under and beyond the sky, you can always find a place to fit in.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" align="justify" style="line-height: 24px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Times New Roman', fantasy;color:#282828;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: -webkit-xxx-large;">http://www.poeminmaking.com/</span></span></p></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8522279604448312047.post-23825527582113875882009-12-26T22:47:00.000-08:002009-12-26T22:49:24.299-08:00Word Choice in Poetry<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; "><h1 align="left" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; font: normal normal normal 12pt/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); letter-spacing: 4pt; height: auto; word-spacing: 3pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#001F3E;"><br /></span></h1><p align="left" style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; "><span style="color:#001F3E;"><img src="http://www.poetrymagic.co.uk/gifs/emin3.jpg" width="120" height="152" align="left" hspace="15" /></span>Can poetry employ any sort of language? An odd question, but the beginning poet will often find his diction attacked as cliché or contrived. What can be said? Are there overall principles in important elements of literature?</p><div align="center"></div><h2 align="left" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 12px; font: normal normal normal 11pt/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); word-spacing: 2pt; ">Discussion</h2><p style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; ">Diction or word choice is indeed a difficult area. We might look at the practice of successful poets, since what worked for them will presumably work for us, but the overwhelming problem is that fashions change. The concrete, vivid and unpretentious is often preferred today, but the eighteenth century excluded such words, producing manuals to good tasteas indeed did the sixteenth, though with different rules. Movements often start as a reaction to styles that have become flabby or overblown, but manifestos are not always followed through. Wordsworth, for example, championed everyday speech in his preface to<i>Lyrical Ballads</i>, but wrote the poetry in an educated tongue.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; ">You'll be concerned with current writing, but even less agreement prevails today on poetry's proper aspirations, styles or content. An innocuous word like <i>upon</i> will pass unnoticed by many editorial boards, but bring automatic rejection from others. Diction shows allegiances, and allegiances are what you must bear in mind when submitting work to magazines and competitions. Diction or word choice is a ground fought over by the contending schools of poetry, and there is no final arbiter.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; ">Some larger observations are possible, however, and they come as much from critics and philosophers as practicing poets. Etymology is important, since the Saxon, Norman or Latin root gives words their characters and dispositions. Too idiomatic an expression calls up the mundane, and is inappropriate in many instances. The poetic diction of the eighteenth century, though much derided today, was an attempt to remove contemporary and irrelevant associations of words and so release the full emphasis of their primary meanings.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; ">You will need to think things through, and not swallow all that pundits say. An abstract language is not necessarily a dead language. "Our literacy programme will make your Government more accountable, and so give back to the disadvantaged majority their ancient birthright of democracy", says the aspiring presidential candidate. "First remove screws E and G", says the workshop manual. Both are using language suited to their purposes, and your work must do the same. Distinctions between abstract and concrete tend to become hazy when etymologies are traced back, moreover, and many abstractions have their root in simple physical processes.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; ">Remember that lexicons are governed by social usage. The Elizabethans embroidered words with religious, courtly and pastoral associations. These trappings were gradually dropped, and the eighteenth century imposed a more correct and classical diction. The Romantics introduce a new inner world with <i>cold, pale, grey, home, child, morning, memory, ear, feel, hold, sleep, turn, weep</i>, etc. Later come <i>moon, stir, water, body, shadow, house.</i>The mid-nineteenth century popularized <i>dead, red, rain, stone. </i>Nineteen thirties poetry was packed with references to industrial buildings and social change. Current poetry is very idiomatic, if not deliberately uncouth .</p><div align="center"></div><h2 style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 12px; font: normal normal normal 11pt/normal Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); word-spacing: 2pt; "><span style="color:#001F3E;">Suggestions</span></h2><p style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; ">1. Vocabularies not only reflect interests and fashions, but must be broadly effective in a contemporary setting. That is the argument against poeticisms and out-of date words like <i>thee, 'tis, maiden.</i></p><p style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; ">2. Words never possess wholly transparent meanings, but in the more affective poetry their latent associations, multiple meanings, textural suggestions and rhythmic power are naturally given freer rein.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; ">3. The touchstone is always the intended audience. "Word too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet," said Johnson, and that observation remains true, as much for traditionalists writing inside a poetic tradition as for others trying to kindle poetry out of naked experience.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; ">4. Place your poems alongside others in magazines or anthologies in which you'd like to be included. If they don't fit, one reason may be your word choice.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; ">5. Perform your poems in workshops and readings. Pay attention to the reception and to comments afterwards.</p><p style="margin-top: 5px; font: normal normal normal 9pt/20px Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; ">6. If in doubt, err on the side of everyday usage, even if it means spoiling the odd line.</p><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;">from poetrymagic.co.uk</span></span></div></span>John Lavanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07782664924169570072noreply@blogger.com1