The Marketplace of Technique: Open to All

Indeed you did prove your point, Elindil, and admirably! Incidentally, although kung-fu movies do often endow their heroes with impossible powers (and note that they pretend their heroes can have these powers IN THE REAL WORLD, not a fantasy world), there is a different sense in which they retain some realism. I refer to the unhappy fact that some evil men enjoy the undeserved good luck to be stronger than most good men. Therefore, in kung-fu movies, you'll frequently see TWO heroes double-teaming against ONE extra-powerful villain, and no one regards the heroes as cowardly for doing so. (Of course, by the time this climactic fight occurs, the villain has done so much abusing of the helpless that no one in the audience feels any pity for him when he's outnumbered.)


Joseph Ravitts, author of "Southward the Tigers"--for which a generous friend has designed a banner which I hope to have on display before too long
 
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Oh; thanks E.S. Don't know why that lense thing was confusing me.

Yeah, good job Elindil. That made sense.
While we're on this subject i'd like to bring up another fact: when writing about fighting/action, say two Kung-Foo masters dueling it out, you have to be very specific and clear with what is happening. So much happens in such a short space of time, that a five-second fight makes four paragraphs of writing. I've found its very hard to make smooth reading when describing a fight. The writing often becomes thick, and whenever I read something like that i'm tempted to skip over it.
 
I know just what you mean about capturing rapid physical action in the form of words. I have written two heroic-fantasy novels (unpublished, of course; many of you know how that goes) involving a hero sort of like a Christian Jackie Chan, and I struggled with giving an adequate picture of combat while not getting bogged down. What often worked best was "hitting the highlights." In one crucial fight early in his career, my hero, Mo'ajin, was up against two kickboxers at once. Most of the fight I related in terse fashion without details; but then I tried for colorful language at the turning point, when both foes landed simultaneous kicks in Mo'ajin's ribs from opposite sides. I described my hero's sensation at that instant as "an impact like being chewed by colossal jaws." (Mo'ajin lost that fight, but he NEVER lost another one from then on--except the fight to get published!)
 
Well, the subject of plausibility in adventurous fiction has subsided...

So let's take a look at poetry, beginning with one of the few classical-form sonnets I've written in my time. It started with my noticing that the numerous early specks of green on trees in spring were like droplets in a mist; then this neutral visual observation became tied in to thoughts about those who "worship the creation rather than the Creator."

In the poem you will see what I meant by saying elsewhere that comparisons do not have to correspond EXACTLY to the thing being paralleled. My image of robins here is only meant to connote something recurring—not to say that robins are in character like the deniers of God whom this poem rebukes. What is particularly being rebuked is the notion that, instead of spring reminding us of resurrection, the idea of any literal resurrection is itself only a figurative reminder of spring, with earthly nature being all that matters. ///


The trees condense a cloud of leafy mist;
And, like the robins coming home to perch,
Once more the skeptic and materialist
Wield springtime as a flail against the church.
“Your Resurrection’s just a metaphor
Of spring’s renewal!” Saying this, they tell
The world that they don’t know, or they ignore,
The different climate in old Israel.
There, winter was the growing time, and spring
Meant harvest, endings, dryness—not rebirth;
Yet there and then the resurrected King
Leaped far above the seasons of the Earth.
While spring, as we know spring, serves for a sign,
There’s more than metaphor in the Divine.


Joseph Ravitts, author of “Southward the Tigers”
 
In poetry, one can start VERY small. When I was a kid, there was a fad called "terse verse," in which you would make up a title much longer than the poem which followed it. Examples:

THE SAGA OF WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WILE E. COYOTE BOUGHT A FIGHTER JET TO ATTACK THE ROAD RUNNER , BUT THE ROAD RUNNER GOT INTO THE COCKPIT FIRST AND MADE OFF WITH THE PLANE

BeepBeep
Flew cheap.


A REPORT ON A MISHAP AT A BREWERY, IN WHICH A TON OF POTTING SOIL FROM A NEIGHBORING GREENHOUSE WAS DUMPED INTO THE BREWING VATS

The Bud
Was mud.
 
I once wrote this for a lion cub's grave marker. It is meant to be evocative of the style of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Child's garden of verses":

THE GENTLE KINGDOM

By Heaven's waters sweet and clean
A herd of wildebeests is seen
Relieving thirst, and by their side
The members of a lion pride

A cub and calf engage in play
As side by side their elders lay
And angels kneel with mercy mild
To touch the calf and lion child

--John Burkitt
 
I write poetry too. They tell me I'm pretty good. I would post some here, except that I still cherish hopes of entering competitions or being published. And I hear that publishers are beginning to look online to be sure that people are not submitting plagiarized work as their own. Since it might be tough to prove that I really am "Lady of Lorien," I'm afraid to post my best work here. Any ideas? ;)
 
Copperfox, alas, real world lion cub. I've been doing rescue work for years and it wears a body. One of the hardest things you can do is fall in love with someone that ages six times more rapidly than you.

Once I sent some verse for a plaque for a wolf and coyote rescue ranch to go in their cemetary. Though I can't quote it off the top of my head, the focus was on the fact these were not bodies but merely paw prints left behind from a journey to a better world.

ES
 
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LADY OF LORIEN: My suggestion is that you compose fresh, or select from your prior body of work, ONE really good poem that you can "sacrifice"--that is, expose to the possibility of being stolen by posting it here. That one displayed poem--in fact, if it's not too long, you could put it in your siggy so it'll be seen repeatedly--would be like a resume for you, letting all who do see it know that here is a poetess.

Note that there is such a thing as common-law copyright protection. If, say, a poem of your appears here on December 22, and some intellectual-property thief publishes it as his own on the following February 10, you at least have witnesses among us to say that you already had it on display sooner. One other independent protective measure you can take is to mail a hard copy of a poem to yourself, and when you receive it leave it sealed--if possible, with the postmark right over the closed flap of the envelope. This proves that the poem existed, and was in your possession, at least as early as that date.
 
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Thank you very much for your suggestions, Copperfox. I have chosen a poem to 'sacrifice,' so to speak. Actually, I am writing it as a Christmas present for my grandmother, so I probably wouldn't try to do much else with it anyways. To tell the truth, I don't usually write religious poetry, but this one is religious.

On a night still and dark,
O'er a stable poor and bare,
One great star made its mark,
For a King was lying there.

In the hushed darkness deep,
There was heard a gentle tune;
Of complaint, not a peep,
Soft and low a mother's croon.

Who the lady who would sing
For the Savior of our race?
It was she who would bring
Our Redeemer to this place.

Soft and sweet was her song
To the peaceful, sleeping child.
How she loved Love Himself,
Lowly queen and Lady Mild!

After years would her child
Blameless suffer for the blamed;
And her song, now so mild,
Change to weeping, sorrow-pained.

Yet for now, this Great King,
Lord and Master of us all,
Slept beside ox and ass
In the darkened farmer's stall.

And the lady who crooned
Him the Holy Lullaby
Often thought, as she tuned,
That her Son lived to die.

So she sang, patient queen,
To her small, sleeping Son,
Christ the Lord, by Whom life
And Salvation would be won.


To tell the truth, this isn't my best work. At any rate, I'd appreciate honest opinions and suggestions. Since it IS meant for a Christmas present, I'd like it to be as good as possible. :)
 
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Look well, all who are new to writing rhymed verse!

Lady of Lorien has given us an excellent textbook example of a good, pleasing rhyme scheme. Rhymes on alternating lines--dark, bare, mark, there--are what is called an "A-B-A-B" rhyme scheme, which takes more thought and planning than an "A-A-B-B" scheme where it's adjoining lines that rhyme. (To make it better still, she has chosen some less-common word pairings for the rhymes, like tune and croon.) Not _every_ verse has the first and third lines rhyming; I'd say that's because in those cases Lady of Lorien decided that the content of what she intended to say overruled an absolute insistence on maintaining the exact rhyme scheme. That's poetic license, the poet's right to make her own judgments on style.
 
Yes, you're right: On the verses where my rhyme scheme 'fell through,' so to speak, I decided I'd rather just say what I wanted to say - and not ruin the content for an over-finicky little detail. The thing is, I don't think it actually interrupted the flow very much to do this. Is this right? Would you suggest any changes or anything?
 
Although a uniform rhyme scheme is a good effect IF it can be done without awkwardness, your "failure" in this does not at all ruin your poem. Instead of thinking that you failed at an A-B-A-B rhyme scheme, tell yourself that you set out with an X-A-X-A scheme, that is one in which first and third lines are not required to rhyme in the first place; then it was a bonus, an extra flourish, that _some_ verses of the poem had "internal" rhyme (which is another term for what you have when the "off" lines rhyme).
 
Yes, I kind of thought of it that way. I actually find the different rhyme schemes and meters rather fascinating - I'm studying them for school, and I love it. But at any rate, the poem seems to read pretty well. Therefore I won't bother about the lack of rhyme in the occasional 1st/3rd lines.
 
Just for the sake of the creative exercise--

Although there's _nothing_ wrong with your poem as it is, let's just see if we CAN work in more internal rhyme _without_ changing your content OR seeming too forced.

One of your verses goes like this:

Yet for now, this Great King,
Lord and Master of us all,
Slept beside ox and ass
In the darkened farmer's stall.

A little rewrite makes it:

Yet for now, this Great King,
Lord and Master of us all,
In a feed-trough was slumbering,
Sharing the donkey's darkened stall.

On the plus side, we now have a "first-with-third" rhyme; on the minus side, we lose the reference to the farmer. But the existence of the farmer is _implied_ by the very fact that the scene is a barn of some kind.

As I say, that's an exercise. No need to change your poem, it's great as it is.
 
Thank you. Your solution does fix the rhyme scheme trouble. The only thing is, to me it opens a whole new can of worms. It changes the METER of the poem, which I think is in some ways even more vital than the rhyme. So on the whole I think it would flow better if I left the meter safe and lived with the rhyme variations - it does appear to read more smoothly that way. Do you see my quandary? :)
 
No quandary. As I said, your poem didn't need to be changed at all--and you're quite right that my exercise did alter the meter. Just an exercise is all it was, showing the trade-offs we make when polishing our work. You are doing very well without my help; I'm just trying to put up a sort of window for others to peek inside your creative process. Keep on creating!! (By the way, is Olorin your literal birth brother?)
 
Thank you. No fears - I'll keep writing! :) So, at any rate, I guess this is ready to be copied out for my grandmother's Christmas gift. Thanks for all your input! Maybe I'll post something else here at some point....
(Oh, and yes - Olorin is my real, honest to goodness brother by birth. Why? :D )
Oh, and one more thing - would you have any suggestions as a title? I haven't really had the best luck finding one yet....
 
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