Poetry resources

Lullaby for Andrew

2010-06-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

Go to sleep my baby
close your little eyes
round your bed a hundred colours
point towards surprise.

Darling Andrew, smiling,
take a little rest,
before tomorrow’s reckoning
of chaos at its best.

Mess and muddle, mayhem,
a smile beyond the glum;
intensity, intensity,
sleep now, let it come….

How to write a sonnet

2010-02-28T00:34:00.001-08:00

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!

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.

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 - with a very unsubtle turn!!!

The real Down’s question

Hiding’s not possible when he decides

to talk to you; to ask a question like

‘have you a beard?’:- and everything falls still,

or ‘Are you mad?’:- and you pause in the void,

or ‘are you bovvered?’:- and silence abounds

catching your breath because spotlights are on

and you might say the wrong thing:

bearded, or bovvered or mad – Well??

And it’s ridiculous how quickly you blush

just because it’s not so easy to answer

routinely. Beyond the question

lies a sly question, a poke

bringing you live to connection, ‘can you connect?’

and there’s a boy laughing and doing his work.

How to write a ballad

2010-02-24T22:29:00.000-08:00

A 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.

Opening to Mr Bleaney – by Philip Larkin

'This was Mr Bleaney's room. He stayed

The whole time he was at the Bodies, till

They moved him.' Flowered curtains, thin and frayed,

Fall to within five inches of the sill,

Whose window shows a strip of building land,

Tussocky, littered. 'Mr Bleaney took

My bit of garden properly in hand.'

Bed, upright chair, sixty-watt bulb, no hook ….

A ballad can be funny, whimsical, ironic, bawdy, drunken. Ideally, it needs to be a rich, lifelike, compelling read. Other pointers are;

· have a plot

· have characters

· include dialogue

· contain some sort of drama

How to write Haiku

2010-02-23T12:44:00.000-08:00

What to write about?

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.

The metrical pattern of Haiku

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.

The technique of cutting.

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.

To make this cutting in english, either the first or the second line ends normally with a colon, long dash or ellipsis.

The seasonal theme.

Each Haiku contains a kigo, 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.

CINQUAIN

2010-02-14T02:36:00.000-08:00

The traditional cinquain is based on a syllable count.

line 1 - 2 syllables
line 2 - 4 syllables
line 3 - 6 syllables
line 4 - 8 syllables
line 5 - 2 syllables

The modern cinquain is based on a word count of words of a certain type.

line 1 - one word (noun) a title or name of the subject
line 2 - two words (adjectives) describing the title
line 3 - three words (verbs) describing an action related to the title
line 4 - four words describing a feeling about the title, a complete sentence
line 5 - one word referring back to the title of the poem

Here's an example

Morning

brightly still

heating, stirring, rising;

one cauldron is today's

spirit.

Writing a Sonnet

2010-02-09T12:03:00.001-08:00

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.

Here are the rules:

It must consist of 14 lines.

It must be written in iambic pentameter (duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH-duh-DUH).

It must be written in one of various standard rhyme schemes.

If you're writing the most familiar kind of sonnet, the Shakespearean, the rhyme scheme is this:

A
B
A
B
C
D
C
D
E
F
E
F
G
G

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).

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:

First quatrain: An exposition of the main theme and main metaphor.

Second quatrain: Theme and metaphor extended or complicated; often, some imaginative example is given.

Third quatrain: Peripeteia (a twist or conflict), often introduced by a "but" (very often leading off the ninth line).

Couplet: Summarizes and leaves the reader with a new, concluding image.

One of Shakespeare's best-known sonnets, Sonnet 18, follows this pattern:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The argument of Sonnet 18 goes like this:

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.

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.

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.

Couplet: How is his beloved going to escape death? In Shakespeare's poetry, 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.

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.

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:

Shows you how much you can pack into a short form.

Gives you practice with rhyme, meter, structure, metaphor, and argument.

Connects you with one of the oldest traditions in English poetry — one still vital today.

2010-02-07T11:06:00.000-08:00


Write an Instant Verb Verse Poem
Directions:	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.
Method	Line 1: Verb One Verb Two Verb Three Line 2: Verb Four Verb Five Verb Six Line 3: Write a sentence here that shows how you feel about this activity YOU HAVE A POEM, Here's one..... WRITING A POEM choose, flicker, click, look, puzzle, edit it's almost complete.

Alliteration

2010-02-04T01:22:00.000-08:00

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.

What Makes it Alliteration?

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:

"In a somer seson, when soft was the sonne..."

Examples of Alliteration in Later English Poetry:

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:

"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past"

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":

"Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of silence and slow time..."

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:

"O Where are you going?" said reader to rider...
"Out of this house" - said rider to reader,
"Yours never will" - said farer to fearer,
"They're looking for you" said hearer to horror..."

This device of alliteration in poetry provides rhythm and rhyme.

By Rakesh Ramubhai Patel

What’s the big deal about verbs anyway?

2010-01-31T03:35:00.000-08:00

I cannot stress enough how important verbs are in a poem. Here’s an example of excellent verb use in a well-known poem:

from Ariel

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

This poem uses verbs very effectively. “Something else / hauls me through air.” “Thighs, hair; / Flakes from my heels.” “I unpeel” “I /Foam to wheat.” “The child’s cry / Melts in the wall.” [my emphasis]

The resulting effect of using active verbs in a poem is that your reader will be able to experience the action of the poem in their head, rather than just hear about it. So many poor poems are reported. “This happened. That happened. Something else is happening.”

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 reportedrather than enacted the poet serves as an intermediary between the poem and the reader.

Think about it this way: would you rather look at a beautiful sunset or have someone describe one to you?

This will be covered in greater detail in an upcoming installment (this phrase is becoming a mantra of this series).

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.

Jough Dempsey is a poet & critic and the webmaster of Poetry X

Do's and Don'ts from Ezra Pound

2010-01-30T00:35:00.000-08:00

- Poetry should be written at least as well as prose.

- Language is an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.

- Go in fear of abstraction

- Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something.

- Don't use such an expression as 'dim lands of peace'. 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 adequate symbol.

- A narrative is all right as long as the narrator sticks to words as simple as dog, horse, sunset.

How to Write a Poem

2010-01-28T04:18:00.000-08:00

originated by:Lucy Lake, Nathan Wong, Travis Derouin, Tom Viren

Writing a poem is all about observing the world within you or around you. You can write about anything from love 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.

Steps

1
Read and listen to poetry. Whether someone who has never seen a sonnet nor heard haiku 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.
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2
Original manuscript of Longfellow's "The Village Blacksmith." The revisions on the page give us an idea of how the poem evolved.
Find a spark. 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.

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 all your ideas into words.

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.
3
Think about what you want to achieve with your poem. Perhaps you want to write a poem to express your love 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.
4
Decide what poetry style suits your subject. There are a great many different poetic styles. ^[1]. 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: limericks, sonnets,villanelles ... 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.
5
Try to fit into a particular scene you want to write about. 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.
6
Listen to your poem. 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.
1. 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.
7
Write down your thoughts as they come to you. 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.
8
Choose the right words. It's been said that if a novel is "words in the best order," then a poem is "the best 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.
9
Use concrete imagery and vivid descriptions.
- 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 objective correlative 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.
- 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".
10
Use poetic devices to enhance your poem's beauty and meaning. 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.
11
Save your most powerful message or insight for the end of your poem. 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.
12
Edit your poem. 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.
13
Get opinions. 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.

2010-01-24T11:01:00.000-08:00

Poetry in a Nutshell

2010-01-22T14:21:00.000-08:00

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Art of Poetry Writing

2010-01-12T01:20:00.000-08:00

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Autor: pitorian

Rhyme and Meter in Poetry

2010-01-11T05:21:00.000-08:00

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.

Iambic Meter:

The foot of the verse starts with an unaccented and ends with an accented stressed syllable.

Trochaic Meter:

It is the opposite of Iambic meter form in that it begins with an accented stressed then follows with an unaccented syllable.

Anapestic Meter:

The foot of the verse has two unaccented syllable and then followed by one accented syllables.

Dactylic:

The foot of the verse has one accented syllable which is followed by two unaccented syllables.

Spondee Meter:

The foot of the poem includes two accented stressed syllables.

Pyrrhic Meter:

A foot of a poem includes two unaccented syllables to help vary the use of rhythm.

Rhyme in Poetry

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.

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.

Adjectives are overrated

2010-01-09T23:57:00.001-08:00

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.

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.

I suggest (but no one is obligated to follow) the further use of metaphors. Adjectives won't get you nearly as far as metaphors.

Please consider the following comparisons.

When a person in love with adjectives writes about silence, these lines may appear:

"Your vast absence of words has ultimately reached the concluding edge of forever"
- 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.

But Jeffrey McDaniel has a different kind of approach towards silence.

"I've been ignored by prettier women than you,
but none who carried the heavy pitchers of silence
so far, without spilling a drop."
- He used more words but he used them inevitably. And the image he created behind the metaphor was intense.

Nouns also make good substitutes for adjectives. How would you describe our kind being harmful to nature and the environment?

"selfish beings burning nature's heart... blah blah"

But if you think hard enough for a noun that could describe your thought, it wouldn't be so hard.

"Plastic species roam the land,
to rot and spread the virus."

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.

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.

"I remember how your eyes harassed me"
- any reader can fill up the emotion in this line. But if you deliver it differently, it can be more specific:

"I remember your eyes: fifty attack dogs on a single leash"
- feel the tension?

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.

It's a good exercise. Try it. :)

by The Tasteless

Inspiring the Poet in You

2010-01-09T04:56:00.000-08:00

by: Anusuya Veth

Poems. Just the mention of them makes me smile. Why? Simple. I delight in writing and reading poetry.

Some tend to think that to be a poet is not easy and that it must be those deep thinkers who can write poems.

Actually all of us can be poets if we have creativity. After all poems are creations of our minds and our experiences.

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:

1. Read

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.

2. Poetry Class

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.

3. Talk with Poets

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.

4. Write

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.

5. Contests

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.

6. Get Feedback

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.

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!

Poetry Tips

2010-01-07T23:47:00.000-08:00

Poetry is one of the most unique and expressive forms of writing. Unlike most writing, poets aren’t bound by a plethora of restrictions. Poetry 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.

First you’ve got to come up with an idea. If you want your poem 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 rustyautomotive parts or an abstract emotion, it’s worthy of a poem.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

Free or Formal

2010-01-07T01:23:00.000-08:00

Poems can be constructed in either free verse 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 poetry.

Haiku, a form of Japanese descent, consists of three lines of five, seven, and five syllables respectively, and traditionally deals with nature subjects.

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.

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:

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 line in the 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.

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 "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" 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.

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 King James Bible versionof The Psalms and The Song of Solomon.

A second type of free verse is free iambic verse which was used by such poets as T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden.

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.

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.

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.

Haiku writing

2010-01-04T23:49:00.000-08:00

Haiku 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.

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.

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.

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:

The old pond—

a frog jumps in,

sound of water.

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 “"In The Station of the Metro” is an example for this:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
petals on a wet, black bough

With the examples given above, you can start writing your own haiku poem. So what are you waiting for?

The Art of Poetry Writing

2010-01-04T00:07:00.000-08:00

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chris Kennelly is a writer for directory submission services at Article Directory

How to write poetry

2010-01-03T03:18:00.000-08:00

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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..

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.

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.

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.

Contact the Author
www.ipublishabook.com

Five Reasons to Write Poetry

2009-12-29T01:49:00.000-08:00

“You need nothing more to write poems than bits of string and thread and some dust from under the bed”

Marvin Bell

“Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition.”
Eli Khamarov

“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.”
M.C. Richards

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.Â 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.

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.Â This can help you come to terms with the idea/feeling itself, to move forward with your growth as living human being.Â How? you ask?

1. It builds your brain.

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.Â This is a way to grasp deeper meaning from perhaps a very mundane, or complex identity.Â 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.Â

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.

2. It’s therapeutic.

A dialog of one is still a dialog, and like journal writing provides an amiable outlet to vent our feelings.Â Not only that but we end up with something that is tangible and durable product of the struggle while coming to terms with it.Â

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.Â It’s a little snapshot of your soul and what you were thinking when writing it.Â

This can grow into something new as you revise and/or write more as a poem can be never really finished.Â Thus it has the possibility of being exhaustless, while providing a forum for expression & understanding.

3. That tool you’ve developed is versatile.

Once you get the hang of writing poetry, there’s almost nothing you can’t do with it.Â It is an alternative form of communication.Â 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.Â It is a font of the English language, it’s just up to you what you want to put it up to.Â

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.Â I’ve gotten people to laugh.Â 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.

4. It encourages deeper intrapersonal relationships.

As you write, not only do ideas bloom, but you do also.Â Your vocabulary gets broader, your understanding about relationships between ideas grows and how this affects you and the world comes closer together.Â My biggest problem in dealing with people was not knowing whom I was, somewhere between egoless and consumer.Â Writing poetry enables the I in Identity, from which you can clearly communicate the you to the you in someone else.

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.Â 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.

5. You are opening yourself up to a wealth of human knowledge

By writing, you are doing the legwork in understanding other poets.Â 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.Â 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.Â Poetry is a forum for exchange, not a universal language.

Writing poetry strengthens your reasoning and in so doing, yourcomprehension in just what that author means when he claims, all was mimsy in the borogroves.Â 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.

Vic Vosen is a writer, reader, and slam participant currently bonded in slavery as a mudlogger to the petroleoum industry from his education costs.Â He posts on Usenet forums, a blog, and various poetry web forums in his exploration and development of metaphor and sound.

Making a poem

2009-12-28T00:27:00.000-08:00

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!)

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.

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.

I hope you find these tips useful and good luck for exploring the new dimension.

RULES – STRICTLY MEANT TO BE BROKEN

Poem is what you think it is

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)

Cat on the wall

Bird on the tree

Flower on the bloom

Me on the bus.

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.

Self-realization through poetry

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.

Say anything, mean anything

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.

Create a style

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.

Give yourself credit Mr.Poet

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.

Watch out

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.

Don’t expect instant recognition

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.

Stand your point

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.

Use the language weapon

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.

Write about everything

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.

Have an audience

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.

Those empty moments

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”.

Write responsibly

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.

Learn from others

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.

Write baubles

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.

Remember your masterpieces

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.

Words Words Words

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.

Read your poem aloud

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.

Publish, don’t hesitate

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.

http://www.poeminmaking.com/

Word Choice in Poetry

2009-12-26T22:47:00.000-08:00

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?

Discussion

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 toLyrical Ballads, but wrote the poetry in an educated tongue.

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 upon 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.

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.

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.

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 cold, pale, grey, home, child, morning, memory, ear, feel, hold, sleep, turn, weep, etc. Later come moon, stir, water, body, shadow, house.The mid-nineteenth century popularized dead, red, rain, stone. Nineteen thirties poetry was packed with references to industrial buildings and social change. Current poetry is very idiomatic, if not deliberately uncouth .

Suggestions

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 thee, 'tis, maiden.

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.

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.

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.

5. Perform your poems in workshops and readings. Pay attention to the reception and to comments afterwards.

6. If in doubt, err on the side of everyday usage, even if it means spoiling the odd line.

from poetrymagic.co.uk

Why Writers Write

2009-12-26T00:32:00.001-08:00

Writing is not just another hobby, it is an emotion. The words are not just fitted together in sentences and paragraphs hoping to pass on a message, but it is form of expression of our greatest fears, hopes and dreams.

As a teenager I had my share of problems just like any other, but I was different... special. My mind was not at ease telling my parents or friends about a situation that had occurred or even might occur. I didn't feel that a journal was just as my feelings were hard to explain in ordinary English. I had to find a way to express my love and hate about certain subjects, no matter how large or small.

I grabbed a pencil and paper and started writing. Using images, sounds and smells was easier than I had thought. My mind then became at ease with myself and I could live another day without wondering who or what I was going to tell my thoughts to. As the weeks and months ran on I became even more comfortable with writing my thoughts and feelings on paper, I didn't feel discomfort any longer.

Ever since I have written. It doesn't matter what others say or think about my writings, because I know what these poems meant and the history behind each one. Knowing that every single poem has a story and emotion greater than the comprehension of others give me satisfaction when receiving flame mails stating that I suck potatoes or bananas are more interesting than my poetry.

Writers write not because of what others think. We write because it makes us feel great about putting something on paper that will stay apart of us forever. No matter how much someone says our writing stinks, there will be ten others who appreciate the time, effort and emotion put into each one, and we will know that our writing was meant for us and only us.

Poetry Styles

2009-12-24T15:37:00.001-08:00

The style of writing poetry differs from person to person; long or short meters, three or four lines to a stanza. But the great thing is, no matter how a poem is written it still holds great emotion. Some techniques used in poetry are onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, rhyming, simile and metaphor.

Onomatopoeia is one of the easiest to learn and use (but not spell). The definition of onomatopoeia is a word imitating a sound. For example; 'buzz', 'moo' and 'beep'. This can be used in a variety of ways giving the reader a 'hands on' feel.

One technique that you might be familiar with is alliteration. This procedure is used by starting three or more words with the same sound. An example of this would be 'The crazy crackling crops.' The three words don't have to have the exact same beginning to have this effect.

The next style is assonance. It is defined as a repetition of vowel sounds within syllables with changing consonants. This is also used in many different circumstances. One would be 'tilting at windmills.' Notice the vowels within each syllable sound the same.

Rhyming is probably the most well-known technique used. However unlike popular belief, it does not need to be within a poem to make it a poem. It is what it is.. a technique.

As for similes, they are often used within poetry. They are an expression that compares one thing to another. A paradigm of this would be 'The milk tasted like pickles.' This method is used in all forms of poetry and generally has the words 'like' or 'as.'

The last but not least style is metaphor. A metaphor is a word or phrase used one way to mean another. Metaphors are sometimes hard to spot and take some thinking to figure out, but they give writers more power to express their thoughts about a certain situation. One famous case where a metaphor is used is within 'The Raven' by Edgar Allen Poe. In fact, not only is it found within the story, the story itself is a metaphor of memory and the constant reminder of the narrator's loss.

These techniques are seen throughout history within both famous and amateur poems alike. To have a full grasp of poetry onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, rhyming, simile and metaphor should be household words.

To view a more comprehensive definition list of go here: Poetry Dictionary

Aha! Recognizing Everyday Creativity

2009-12-23T14:00:00.000-08:00

Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein

Recognizing insight in others stimulates our own aha! moments.

We know an aha! moment when we have one. An emotional exultation often experienced as light piercing darkness illuminates our mind as we see something we’ve never seen before. Recognizing that aha! as it takes place in someone else’s mind can sometimes be an equally moving moment of awareness. Last month one of us (Michele) witnessed the flare of insight in a 5th grade classroom in Mississippi. Here’s what happened, in Michele’s own words.

For some time now, I have partnered with my colleague Lynnette Overby to present a haiku dance workshop in association with the Kennedy Center of Performing Arts Partners in Education Program. As part of a recent gig, I had the opportunity to demo how some part of that workshop might shape a classroom lesson. I had 30 minutes to lead some 5th graders in an exploration of abstracting as a concept and as a framework for the writing of haiku.

The basic idea I hoped to get across is that abstractions are simplifications. They express the essence of some complicated experience or understanding. Picasso’s ‘Bull’ is an abstraction (see left). So is a science experiment. So are numbers and so are many kinds of poetry, especially haiku. What all these share is the finding of a simple thread that weaves its way among complex phenomena to yield a surprising insight. Haiku can help students “get” this concept by implementing it. The form is so spare it forces novice and master poets alike to strip some heightened experience of nature to its bare bones. Feelings, experiences, emotions and ideas that may at first occur as random images and impressions must be distilled into just a few words that are both efficiently descriptive and yet sufficiently ambiguous to carry multiple meanings and intentions.

As a prompt for the writing of haiku, I gave each of the students a different nature photograph. Step by step, they observed the photographs and imagined themselves within the scene. Then they recorded on paper the things they saw, as well as the things they imagined hearing, feeling, smelling and so forth. I call this “getting clay on the table.” Now the poets had ideas and words to work with as they learned to construct a haiku. First they pulled out a few words to describe where or when the observed scene took place. Then they pulled a few more words to describe the most important or remarkable thing in that scene – what and what about it. They assembled these words and phrases in the haiku’s traditional 3 line form. This was a lot to do in half an hour and there was just time left to share the poems and the photos with other children seated nearby and then with the group as a whole.

It was in the sharing that I recognized a moment of insight. One of the students, a young girl, drew my attention to one of the other student’s photograph and asked, what is it? I was disconcerted. I had tried to choose pictures of things the children would be familiar with, so that the imagined experience would have some of the richness of lived experience. The photograph in question focused on a spider weaving a blade of grass into a circular web. Spider and web were backlit by a reddish yellow sun. But the photo was not as easily parsed as I had thought.

“That’s a spider,” I said. I included the other girl in my explanation, the one who had actually written her haiku to that picture. “Did you see the spider?”

She shook her head no. “What did you see?” I asked.

“The sun,” she answered.

Considering that she hadn’t seen the spider, I wondered what kind of impressions the sun alone had made on her. “Can I see your haiku?” She showed me something along these lines (I don’t have the exact words in front of me):

the rising sun
the sun is setting

I read the poem out loud to the two girls. “That’s an interesting abstraction,” I said. “Having two things happen that supposedly can’t happen at the same time makes an interesting poem. It makes me think.”

It made the first little girl think, too. A few minutes later, just as the class was dismissed she tugged at my sleeve.

“I think I know how the sun can rise and set at the same time,” she said. “My mother once lived way up north. I can’t remember where…”

“Alaska?” I asked.

“Yes. Alaska. My mom told me that in winter the sun comes up very low and then, before you know it, it goes down again.”

“You’re right!” I said. “How clever of you to think of that!”

How clever, indeed. That little girl had realized that during the Alaskan winter, the sun, even at it’s highest, looks like a setting sun at any other time of year in almost any other place. And since it goes almost straight across the horizon, a rising sun could not only look like, but act like, a setting sun. The girl had puzzled out an incongruity, reconciling two apparently incompatible ideas. Aha!

As the mathematician and poet Jacob Bronowski once wrote (and I paraphrase), the discoveries of science and art are each in their own way explosions of hidden likeness. The impromptu collaboration between the two girls yielded just such an explosion. If the first little girl gave voice to an intuitively felt contradiction, the second gave voice to the combustion of that tension. In puzzling out how a setting sun and a rising sun could simultaneously be one and the same, things that were different suddenly became one. What a wonderful illustration of everyday creativity!

And what a wonderful stimulant to my own everyday creativity. The more I think about it, the more I like that haiku, though I would add a final gloss:

rising sun
the sun is setting
day’s night

And even Bob, who rarely puts his mind to poetry--let alone haiku--was inspired:

far north
in evenings without days
the setting sun rises

Tips for Writing Poetry

2009-12-20T00:13:00.000-08:00

Writing poetry has always been about emotion; thrilling, bitterness and even humorous. Although it sounds simple enough, it isn't always. Poetry can be as complicated or as frivolous possible, it's all up to the author.

Poetry is food for thought and all food has its ingredients.

Writing poetry techniques

Show all senses. A genuine poem offers its readers a variety of senses to endure while reading.

Smell. Give the readers a mental smell of the scene. Create a situation where the reader can distinguish between a 'good' or 'bad' scent.
Touch. Is it rough, smooth, pleasurable? Give the reader a way to 'touch' the scenery.
Sight. What does it look like? Describe the scenery, describe the situation. Use words which will describe it easily without going too far into detail.
Hearing. Does it screech? Does it yelp? Or is it smoothing and sensual? Again, let the situation give a sense of what the surroundings sound like.
Taste. Is it salty or bitter? It doesn't always have to be food that has a taste. It could be a situation which leaves a 'bad taste in your mouth' or even a good taste.

Have a point. Why are you writing? What is it about? Although not always directly, show your readers the path to the meaning of the poem. Say what you want to say, but still let your readers decide on what the true meaning is.

Have rhythm. To be considered a poem, a writing must have rhythm. Let the meters flow smoothly off the tongue. This doesn't mean the poem has to have the same number of syllables every line or even every other. It means to allow the reader not to get tongue twisted while going line to line. Give it flow.

Don't rhyme unless it fits. Not all poems rhyme, in fact the majority do not. Many amateur writers tend to force rhymes where it doesn't need to be. Only use it when it fits the overall poem and helps bring the emotion to the reader.

Give the poem characteristics. A poem doesn't always have to fit inside a genre. Make it your own style. Use as much voice as possible. Show that there is a person behind the poem

Poetry is for the Ear

2009-12-19T00:10:00.001-08:00

by Dennis G. Jerz

A fine article on the SOUND of poetry - one of the subtler aspects of a poet's craft.

See the full article at

http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative/Poetry/ear.htm

Lots of Poetry Writing Tips

2009-12-18T00:13:00.000-08:00

Think about what you are trying to express but don't do it with literal intentions, use symbols, metaphors and descriptions.

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Most of all have fun, strong feelings of any kind will enhance your true nature and you will find it easier to express it through your poetry.

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Be happy writing poetry, this is your time to expand and write whatever comes into your mind.

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Write to the world or write poetry to someone special.

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Don't be shy.

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Give thanks for life, reward it with a poem.

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Submit your poems. Sooner or later you have to send your babies out into the world to find their way. Emily Dickinson was a fluke, most people who don't publish while they're alive will never be seen or heard of -- no matter how good their poems.

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Say what you want to say, let the reader decide what it means.

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Don't explain EVERYTHING.

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Poems that focus on form (Sonnet, Villanelle, etc.) are a challenge. They make you think.

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People will remember an image long after they've forgotten why it was there.

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If you write a bad poem, at least you wrote.

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Develop your voice. Get comfortable with how YOU write poetry.

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Don't be afraid to write poetry from a different point of view. Write a poem that says exactly the opposite of what you believe, and do it without irony.

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Untitled poems are lazy. They're like unnamed children. Obviously their parent doesn't care about them.

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Write in different places. Keep a notebook. Write in a park or on a street-corner or in an alley. You don't HAVE to write about the place, but it will influence you whether you do or not.

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Listen to talk radio while you write. Listen to the people who call. Great characters and voices emerge that way.

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If you don't like a poem or poet, figure out exactly why. Chances are, it reflects something you don't like about your own poetry.

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When nothing is coming, start writing poetry very fast-- any word, phrase or sentence that comes to mind. Do that for about a minute, then go back to your poem. (I call this flushing.) Whether to use anything you flushed is up to you. You can, but that's not the purpose.

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The more you read, the more you learn. The more you write poetry, the more you develop.

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Make a list of poems you can remember specific lines from. Go back and read those poems. Figure out why they stuck with you.

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There are many excuses not to write. Try using writing poetry as an excuse not to do other things.

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Keep a dream journal. Dreams are your mind at it's most creative so listen to it. Don't feel you have to write a poem ABOUT your dreams. If you want to, fine, but the main goal is to see what thoughts the dreams lead you to.

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Subscribe to poetry journals. Give back to the poetry community by reading (and paying for) the works of others. If you don't, what right have you to expect others to do it for you?

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When nothing is coming for you, try analyzing someone else' s poems. (Or even one of yours) Figure out what works, what doesn't work, and why. Think about what you would have done differently.

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Use humor, irony, and melodrama, just don't abuse them.

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Write the worst poem you can possibly write. Use cliché's, pretentious words, and beat your reader over the head with your point. Felt good, didn't it? Now get back to work. The point is, don't be afraid to write a bad poem. If it takes a hundred bad poems before you can produce a poem you like, fine, get that hundred out of the way.

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That one perfect line in a twenty line poem may be what makes it all worthwhile, or it may be what makes the rest of the poem bad. Keep an eye on it.

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Every great poet has written a bad poem, probably dozens or hundreds, possibly thousands. They kept writing though, and so should you.

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Every line of a poem should be important to the poem, and interesting to read. A poem with only 3 great lines should be 3 lines long.

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Poems should progress. There should be a reason why the first stanza comes before the second, the second before the third, and so on.

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Listen to criticism, and try to learn from it, but don't live or die by it.

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When you write a good poem, one you really like, immediately write another. Maybe that one poem was your peak for the night or maybe you're on a roll. There's only one way to find out.

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Follow your fear. Don't back away from subjects that make you uncomfortable, and don't try to keep your personal demons off the page. Even if you never publish the poems they produce, you have to push yourself and write as honestly as possible.

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The bigger your point, the more important the details are.

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How to Write Good Poetry

2009-12-17T09:39:00.000-08:00

by A. J. Kramer

I don't know what makes a good article, but I do know what makes a good poem. All poetry tips can be placed into three categories that I believe are essential for a good poem. 1.) The poem must be a meaningful, necessary part of your personal process. 2.)

It must appeal to one's aesthetic senses. 3.) It must be read.

I'll admit it, I've written some bad poetry. Usually this has been a result of stagnation in my spiritual process, when what I have learned no longer provides a mentally orgasmic epiphany, yet I write it anyway, like I have already written before. They may be slightly new words, but they don't take me anywhere new. Someone reading the poem may not know that it is bad, but in the context of my life I know that it is so. So the first rule of writing good poetry is that it must be truly important to you.

The beauty of good poetry flows naturally with the process, in my experience anyway. Rhymes and rhythms are visceral experiences that help the ideas flow. Onomatopoeia becomes all there is as words seem like biological eruptions. The sounds of words, their placement on the page, all the possible ways to play with attention and ambiguities of meaning... There is no need to know what you want to say before you start to write, but if there are no words for part of the experience, it is okay to make them up. Good poetry results from a freedom of expression that has no boundaries but those the poet chooses. Classical forms can be so free; likewise, free form might be limiting.

After a poem has been created it exists on its own. You may live or die. You may tweak some words or never visit it again. If the poem is lucky, someone will find it and read it. It will be interpreted by someone other than the author. They will find in it some of the same things as the author, and some new things as well. If it is a good poem is will inspire something. As the inspiration spreads, poem to poem to action of some kind, to perhaps another poem, another action-- it will live on in some form, perhaps quite removed from the original. But if it inspires, it is good.

Seven R's of Poetry

2009-12-16T07:46:00.001-08:00

The Seven Rs

Following is a list of hints compiled by well known Australian writer Libby Hathorn.

Read

Delight in intricate patterns of sounds and sense that intensify meaning. Read silently for yourself, or read aloud for the sheer pleasure of hearing the music of poetry.You'll see the art of poetry is to compress and crystallize ideas. Have a poetry book by your side (at 821 in any library) and dip into it! I promise you'll find something for every mood.

Respond

Excitement is one of the great aims of poetry writing. We can respond in many ways. It's emotional when we feel things the poet expresses. It's sensual when we respond to the music of words. It's intellectual when we think about the ideas the poet expresses. Readers respond to your poems in the same way. So try to excite their minds with honest feelings and ideas expressed thoughtfully.

Reveal

Poetry reveals all of life to you in a succinct and often surprising way.The play, the fun, the gloom and doom, the pain, the joy, the wit, the shock, the cunning, the sense, the truth! But you must give it time. And give yourself time to be still, to be alone and to dream. You can reveal your own ideas and your special feelings by trying to express them in the shortest, most powerful way, always with the very best words you can find. This might mean editing and re-editing to get it just right!

Recollect

Recall the times when you may have felt deeply. Use these emotions in your writing. Remember to tune into your five senses - taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing - and use these to help express your experiences to others. This will make your work more vivid! Learn bits of poetry that strike a chord in you, by heart. Get acquainted with poetical language and then it will flow more easily for you.

Reconnect

Reconnect to the special language of poetry; the three Rs of rhyme, rhythm and repetition.To rhyme or not? Sometimes blank verse suits the subject and honesty is all. It's true that rhyme does have an obvious appeal so experiment with both. Read poems aloud for rhythm. Sometimes breaking the rhythm can give a good dramatic effect. We chant, clap, stamp because rhythm appeals. Make use of the beat. Repetition causes excitement in poetry. Experiment with repeating words or whole lines in your poems.

Revel

Revel in making new connections. Play with language to make these fresh connections to surprise people. (Use the language of metaphor). 'My life is a journey' may not be true in the literal sense – but it's a pleasing comparison and we have to stretch our imaginations a little to understand it. Sometimes unlikely connections or opposing ones make us notice and really think. For example, Alexander Pope talks of humankind. "Create half to rise, and half to fall'/Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all". Opposites can be exciting.

Rejoice

Read poetry often and write it, most of all, for yourself. Poets don't write poetry to pass exams (or to help you pass exams). They write from an inner need to examine the human heart, to look more closely at human emotions and to express ideas in the best possible way. If you read a lot of poetry, it develops your thinking and imaginative abilities.

You'll write better poetry, and in doing so develop the ability to think more deeply and to communicate your thoughts with ease.

Yours in poetry,
Libby Hathorn

Stream of consciousness: how to get ideas for writing

2009-12-14T22:40:00.001-08:00

When you are a writer, sometimes you have to dig pretty deep into the bottom of the barrel for ideas. Sometimes, when you reach way down deep into the bottom of the barrel, your hand comes back out with nothing. These are the times when we reach out for help to unclog our weary writer minds and get the ball rolling again. Writer’s block is one of those things you will try anything to remedy. One valuable way for breaking through a block or getting ideas for writing is the stream of consciousness method, or free writing. Stream of consciousness helps you to get your mind rolling and your pen moving, and the best part is, it doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. In fact, it is better if your stream of consciousness writing is not used for anything but the clearing of cobwebs and if you do find a few useable ideas inside, great!

To start a stream of consciousness exercise, sit quietly in a room with nothing but a pen and paper. Put your pen to the page and start writing whatever comes to your mind. Now it doesn’t matter if it makes sense, if you write in complete sentences, if you use correct grammar, complete a thought or just make noises! Just keep writing, no matter what it is that comes to your mind. If your mind becomes totally blank, just write something like, ‘my mind is blank, my mind is blank’, just keep writing that until something else pops into your head. This is a good way to clear junk out of your head, you know, the day to day minutia that clouds our thinking from time to time. Do this exercise for at least thirty minutes and save your writings in a journal. You can go back and look through your stream of consciousness exercise to glean writing ideas from them later on.

If you are having a lot of trouble with this exercise you may need to focus in on something to help you out. Pick a topic to stream on, for example, fishing, and write everything you can think of on this subject whether it be a trip with your dad when you were young or a commercial about a singing bass that hangs on your wall. Fill a page with things about fishing. Focused stream of consciousness writing can be a great help when you are working on a project that requires more exploration of a subject. If you are so blocked that you can’t even think of a topic to stream on, just turn on the television and write about the first subject you see.

Focused stream of consciousness writing can be saved in another journal and when you are working on projects that involve any of your themes, you can look to them for a little insight. The best way to open your stream of consciousness is to just start writing and write about anything, don’t worry about how good or bad it is because no one is going to read it except for you. This is your one chance to just hang loose with yourself and not worry if you have all of your I’s dotted and T’s crossed, have fun with it!

10 Tips for Writing Poetry

2009-12-13T20:06:00.001-08:00

1. Pay attention to the world around you—little things, big things, people, animals, buildings, events, etc. What do you see, hear, taste, smell, feel?

2. Listen to words and sentences. What kind of music do they have? How is the music of poetry different from the music of songs?  

3. Read all kinds of poetry. Which poems do you like and why?  

4. Read what you write out loud. How does it sound? How could it sound better?  

5. Ask yourself: does this poem have to rhyme? Would it be good or better if it didn’t? If it should rhyme, what kind of rhyme would be best? (For example, 1st and 2nd lines rhyme; 3rd and 4th lines rhyme—“Roses are red/So is your head/Violets are blue/So is your shoe"; or 1st and 3rd lines rhyme; 2nd and 4th lines rhyme—“What is your name?/Who is your mother?/This poem is quite lame/I should try another.”

6. Ask yourself: does this poem sound phoney? Don’t stick in big words or extra words just because you think a poem ought to have them.  

7. A title is part of a poem. It can tell you what the poem is about. It can even be another line of the poem.   

8. Before you write, think about what you want your whole poem to say.

  9. If you end up saying something else, that’s okay, too. Poet X.J. Kennedy says, “You intend to write a poem about dogs, say, and poodle is the first word you’re going to find a rhyme for. You might want to talk about police dogs, Saint Bernards, and terriers, but your need for a rhyme will lead you to noodle and strudel. The darned poem will make you forget about dogs and write about food instead.”  

10. Go wild. Be funny. Be serious. Be whatever you want! Use your imagination, your own way of seeing.

Marilyn Singer Home Page

A Bit About Meter

2009-12-12T22:13:00.000-08:00

by Eric

Ever wonder why some rhyming poems just seem to be forced, or the flow starts out well and then goes bad?

Remember: It's the meter that matters.

I think it's helpful to begin by talking about music meter.

In standard 4/4 music, we have four beats per measure.

Say the following out loud:

one two three four / one two three four

Often, the first beat will be accentuated:

ONE two three four / ONE two three four

Sometimes, other beats will be accentuated:

one TWO three four / one TWO three four
or:
one two THREE four / one two THREE four

It doesn't matter which beats are accentuated, so long as it is consistent thruout.

Now let's extrapolate this to poetry:

The boy woke up at eight o'clock
He found his shoes but not his socks

There are 8 syllables in each line, corresponding to the eight musical beats I just discussed.

the BOY woke up / at EIGHT o'clock
one TWO three four / one TWO three four

he FOUND his shoes / but NOT his socks
one TWO three four / one TWO three four

This gets slightly more complicated for longer lines:

T'was the night before Christmas and all through the house.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse

In this case, there are 12 syllables or (beats) in each line: It is easiest to use + for accentuated syllables and - for non-accentuated syllables.

t'was the NIGHT be-fore CHRIST-mas and ALL through the HOUSE,
--+--+--+--+
not a CREA-ture was STIR-ring, not E-ven a MOUSE
--+--+--+--+

Notice how the + and - line up perfectly in these two lines.

Try tapping the beats (syllables) on a desk and you'll quickly notice a rhythm developing.

Notice how every third beat is accentuated. That is very similar to a waltz in music: 3/4 time.

Once you get the idea of meter, you can easily learn about iambic pentameter and other rhyming metered forms.

Poetry inspiration: making your life experiences into poems

2009-12-12T01:04:00.000-08:00

So, you want to write poetry but you don’t know where to start or what to write about? Where did most of the great poets take their inspiration for poetry from? –LIFE! If you base your poetry on your life experiences, your options are endless! Now, you may be thinking that your life is not that exciting and you may not be able to see much in the way of inspiring writings coming forth from your personal experiences. Life is THE experience. Everyday you see things and experience things and it is these experiences that can be put into your poetry.

Poetry can be about anything, it can take many different forms and it certainly doesn’t need to rhyme! When we think of poetry we tend to think of beautiful phrases and flowing verses. We think of “windy willows” and “cascading mountains”, the things that are usually out of reach of our everyday lifestyle. Poetry doesn’t just have to be about great wonders; it can be about the simplest of things. Don’t aim for eloquent wording and imaginative details; focus more on what you know. Now obviously writing about doing your laundry doesn’t sound like anything worth reading, but if it was something you really felt compelled to write about, you could make it something fantastic. The idea is to write about things that you know, things that you have experienced, and things that you feel. Feelings and emotions are often the best source of inspiration for poetry and we can write about them well because WE HAVE experienced them. Too often we overlook many of our life experiences when searching for inspiration for writings because them seem unexciting and uneventful, but it is very often these so called “unexciting” experiences that create the best inspiration.

Try taking a different perspective at the things in your life. Look upon the everyday things you do as experiences and you will be surprised at what inspires you to write. Something you saw yesterday, or something your child said, or something you are feeling, could bring forth the most imaginative piece of writing. It is all in how you look at your experiences. The poems that really touch people with their depth and honesty are the poems written by people who had experienced what they wrote about. They wrote from the heart. They wrote about what the saw, smeled, touched and most importantly felt and this is the key to remember when writing poetry. Whether good or bad, life is one great experience and it is every great poet’s inspiration!

Pick up your pen, and just write about something you saw or felt today. Just place a few ideas on the paper and take a look a how poetical than can sound! You will be surprised at what you can achieve. If you write about you and your feelings and your experiences, it will become simpler to find inspiration for your poetry and your poems will take on a new depth. Your experiences will be able to make the most eloquent poetry even if you are not necessarily a natural born writer. This is possible because if you are the one that has had the experience, you will know just how to explain and share your experience and feelings about it in your poetry. That is something that no one else will be able to do the same way as you!

eassortment.com

Productivity Pointers — From a Poet?

2009-12-10T23:44:00.000-08:00

I remember starting a new job abut 10 years ago and being introduced to an employee who was plugging away in his cubicle. As we moved out of earshot, the manager who was showing me around remarked, "Good guy, but a bit of a poet."

"I'm not sure I follow you," I replied, bristling internally at the insult to poetry (and to my new coworker).

"Not very productive," the manager said, "but easy to work with."

I've always had a reputation for being highly productive at work, but I also write poetry in my spare time. And, unlike this manager, I don't consider them entirely separate enterprises. Indeed, a well-channeled poetic sensibility is part of what makes me efficient. I joked about that dynamic in one of my first blog posts, "The Art of the Self-Imposed Deadline," which was about personal scheduling. But the relevance goes beyond that. Productive endeavors of all kinds — from getting through a rote task, to organizing your workday, to pacing a project, to crafting a big presentation or report — are not unlike well-executed poems. Here, I believe, are the commonalities:

1. A compelling opener. No matter what work lies ahead of you, an engaging first step sets the right tone. Start out with something intriguing that's intrinsic to, not distracting from, the task. I often choose a peculiar element that has the potential to inject humor (however dark) into the mission.

2. Elements of surprise. Too much predictability is deadly, even though it can appear to go hand-in-hand with brevity and efficiency. Let yourself make discoveries along the way rather than follow a rigid script. Just remember that there's a difference between a detour, which can derail you, and what poets sometimes call a "happy accident," which actually speeds you along despite the surprise.

3. Repetition as pleasure, not drudgery. To be sure, almost any endeavor requires some redundancy. The key is to feel like you're on a roll. Doing things in threes sometimes works, as I've discussed before in this blog. Or sometimes it helps to make certain parts into a game.

4. Endings that are new beginnings. Being exhausted and being energized are not mutually exclusive — the right balance is what athletes call "the good kind of tired." Similarly, effective poems tax you as they take you somewhere, but they also make you appreciate the journey and want to explore the next horizon. It might be a stretch for your job-related task to reach the same level of artistic edification, but if you build personal challenges into your plan, you'll feel like you've grown. And, chances are, the audience for your work will feel like that, too.

How do you find the poetry in your productive endeavors?

STEVEN DEMAIO

Poetry Writing Tips by J.C. Hewitt

2009-12-08T10:34:00.000-08:00

Listen to criticism and try to learn from it, but don’t live or die by it. When I was in college, I would always take my best reviewed poem from the previous class and submit it to the professor for the next class. Invariably, the next professor hated the poem, and could provide good reasons why it failed.

When you write a good poem, one you really like, immediately write another. Maybe that one poem was your peak for the night, bit maybe you’re on a roll. There’s only one way to find out.

The bigger your theme, the more important the details are. A poem with Love, Destiny, Hate or other huge themes in the title already has two strikes against it (and I like love poems).

Say what you want to say. Let your readers decide what your poem means.

Feel free to write a bad poem.

That one perfect line in a thirty-line poem may be what makes it all worthwhile. It may also be what is ruining the rest of your poem. Keep an eye on it.

Don’t explain everything.

Untitled poems are like unnamed children.

People will remember an image long after they’ve forgotten why it was there.

Develop your voice. Get comfortable with how you write.

There are many excuses not to write. Try using writing as an excuse not to do other things.

The more you read, the more you learn. Read poetry often.

The more you write, the more you develop. Write poetry often.

Poems that focus on form are rarely my favorites, but most of my favorite poets learned how to write in forms before they discarded them. Writing in forms is a challenge. It makes you think.

Don’t be afraid to write from a different point of view. Write a poem that says exactly the opposite of what you believe. If you can, do it without irony.

When you cannot write, lie on the floor a while, go for a walk, or at least twirl around in a circle. Do something that changes your perspective.

Write in different places. Keep a notebook. Write in a park or on a street-corner or in an alley. You don’t have to write about the place, but it will influence you whether you do or not.

Listen to talk radio while you write. Listen to the people who call. Great characters and voices emerge that way.

If you don’t like a poem or poet you read, figure out exactly why. It may reflect something you don’t like about your own poetry.

When nothing is coming, start writing very fast. Write down any and every word, phrase or sentence that comes to mind. Do that for about a minute before you go back to working on your poem. I call this trick flushing. Feel free to use anything you came up with, but the purpose of flushing is to clear your head.

<Make a list of poems you can remember specific lines from. Go back and read those poems. Figure out why they stuck with you.

Keep a dream journal. Dreams are your mind at it’s most creative so pay attention to them. Don’t feel you have to write a poem about your dreams unless one truly inspires you. The main goal is to see what thoughts the dreams lead you to.

Analyze other writer’s poems. Figure out what works, what doesn’t work, and why. Think about how you would work with the same material and concepts.

Use humor, irony, and melodrama, but don’t abuse them.

Write the worst poem you can possibly write. Use clichés, use pretentious words, and beat your reader over the head with your point. Felt good, didn’t it? Now get back to work. The point is, don’t be afraid to write a bad poem. Every great poet has written a bad poem. Most great poets have written hundreds, even thousands of bad poems. The great poets kept writing though, and so should you. If it takes a hundred bad poems to produce a poem you like, finish those hundred poems.

Limericks can be fun too.

Every line of a poem should be important to the poem, and interesting to read. A poem with only 3 great lines should be 3 lines long.

Poems should progress. There should be a reason why the first stanza comes before the second, the second before the third, and so on.

Follow your fear. Don’t back away from subjects that make you uncomfortable, and don’t try to keep your personal demons off the page. Even if you never publish the poems they produce, you have to push yourself and write as honestly as possible.

Find a way to publish your poems. Sooner or later you have to send your babies out into the world to find their way. Emily Dickinson was a fluke. Most people who don’t publish while they’re alive will never be seen or heard of — no matter how great their poems.

Buy poetry books, especially books by current writers. Give back to the poetry community by reading (and paying for) the works of others.

Go to poetry readings. Check your local arts publications for upcoming events. Almost any sizable town has readings every week or every other week. This is a great opportunity to meet poets and people who care about poetry.
When you go to readings, donate money and buy books if you can.

Host a poetry event or organize a reading.

If you want to swap poetry and criticism with your peers, form your own group. Many local arts publications let you list your group for free.

Publish your own poetry journal or web site. Even a few sheets of paper stapled together gets the word out.

Whatever else you do, keep writing.

Changing the Course of a Poem

2009-12-04T15:21:00.000-08:00

There is no one way to write poetry; no one way to choose the right words.

Sometimes you will choose words to fill in and to finish a poem that already has a set mood and a set structure. At other times, a word choice, especially early on, may determine where the poem leads. For example, look at the difference between choosing the word "inn" versus choosing the word "tavern" in the third line of these poem snippets.

I'm telling you a fine joke
About a girl and a bloke
They met in a tavern
Then fell into a cavern

I'm telling you a fine joke
About a girl and a bloke
They met at a roadside inn
Bet on darts, to see who'd win

You can see that, particularly in rhyming poetry, the word you choose can change the whole direction of the poem. Will the above poem be congratulating the dart competitor or wandering into caves?

So, if you have the idea for your poem pretty clear from the get go, you will be picking your words to make sure that the poem ends up telling the story that you intended. Otherwise, if you just have an inkling of what you want to say, or in fact, how you want to start (but no clue how you want to finish), then just start writing and play with the words. You may have a topic:

--I want to write about friendship between a man and a woman.

Or you may have a few exact words (excerpted from The Bride Wore White )

The bride wore white
the groom a kilt

From here, you'll be going for the sound, the feeling, the mood, the meter, line by line. Have fun selecting the words. You can tentatively choose words for one line of your poem and then see how that word plays out in rest of the verse. Does it make sense? Can you complete the verse or are other words just not happening. The word "orange" isn't the only word that has few or no pairings. If you get stuck, then you can leave your poem rest for a while and take a look at it later; or you can find a synonym that does work.

So don't get too frustrated. The words you choose may just lead you to write a different poem than you thought. And it may be a better poem than the one that you set out to write!

Mindy Makuta. Her poetry may be enjoyed at WeLovePoetry.com. To find books, audio books and other educational media, please explore WeGoForBooks.com. Mindy and her husband own a small resort, Stone Mountain Lodge and Cabins, in Lyons, Colorado where they host outdoor weddings and family reunions.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mindy_Makuta

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