The Marketplace of Technique: Open to All

My new sonnet thread has caused a couple of members to lament that they can't write poetry. To them, I say, "Are you SO sure you can't?" Creative ability does not consist entirely of a mystery that falls on you from the sky; God has provided ALL of us with ability that most of us underestimate. And most of what is entailed in poetry CAN BE TAUGHT AND CAN BE LEARNED, if the learner is willing to pay attention.

For anyone who is

willing to do more

than write

sentences which really are

only prose,

just broken up

arbitrarily,

probably the most important thing in poetry is METER, the consistent rhythm of syllables, and that can be learned. The following example has a consistent meter in which single STRESSED syllables alternate with single UNSTRESSED syllables throughout each line. (Note that, to a great extent, one-syllable words can serve as either stressed or unstressed syllables according to what the poet needs.)

Sally Martin drove to Paris in a limousine;
There she visited her cousin, who was called Colleen.

My second example alternates TWO unstressed syllables with ONE stressed syllable:

On the shore of Lake Michigan, Roger camped out;
He was tired of Chicago, without any doubt.

If anyone here has never seriously tried to write poetry, but would like to, here's what I suggest:

FORGET ABOUT RHYME for the present. Rhyming words can always be found; even "orange" has adequate near-rhymes in the words "forage" and "porridge," the latter used once by J.R.R. Tolkien. WORK ON RHYTHM. Pick a meter--a pattern of strong and weak syllables--and start writing sentences which STAY WITH the meter you have chosen. After you have written 20 or 30 pages of sentences with consistency in rhythm, regardless of the subject, you may feel yourself ready to try making the line-endings rhyme.
 
Yes! A poetry writing class... I definately would love to learn.
*Takes out pen and paper and starts taking notes*
Maybe, after a while, I will take your techniques and write a poem!
 
Okay, Aravis, to reward your interest, here's a followup.

You can write rhythmically without rhymes; but rhymes are affected by the choice of rhythm. In the two poetry samples I made up for my previous post, it happened that every line ended on a stressed syllable. If you go back to my series of sonnets, you will see that all the lines in those also end on stressed syllables, because that is the norm for sonnets. But there's no reason why a verse CAN'T end on an UNstressed syllable.

Rhymed endings that end on a stressed syllable are called "masculine" rhymes. Endings that end on an unstressed syllable are called "feminine" rhymes. Feminine rhymes are more challenging to use, because it is NOT ENOUGH to have the weak final syllables rhyme, the last stressed syllables must ALSO rhyme. Below I will first give two sets of masculine-rhyming words, then two sets of feminine-rhyming words.

Attack, back, black, crack, flak, hack, Jack, knack, lack, Mack, pack, rack, sack, shack, slack, snack, stack, tack, track, whack.

Afford, board, bored, floored, gored, gourd, hoard, horde, ignored, implored, Lord, roared, soared, sword.

Able, cable, fable, Gable, Grable, label, Mabel, sable, stable, table.

Blasting, casting, fast thing, fasting, last ring, last thing, lasting, vast thing.
 
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if I may inquire something:
to me the best poetry is capturing a mood, moment, miracle or is mimicking (spelling?errr) something else. it doesn't have to ryhme, sometimes it doesn't even have to make sense but what it does do is make the reader feel one (or more) the 4 Ms above.

creating a mood is usually an abstract kinda poem that makes you feel what the author/character feels.

moments are usually created with imagery (could also just be abstract words too)

miracles are usually very profound phrases that make the reader go "oh! AHH Awww" ect

mimicking is usally sarcastic but can also be serious. mimicking is the same thing as parody.
 
Dayhawk, a long time before you joined TDL, there was a discussion of what it took for a composition to be poetry and not prose. At that time, I said that a poem, to BE a poem, had to have AT LEAST ONE of the following three elements: rhythm, rhyme, and/or a hard-to-define subjective something that set the sound of it apart from plain speech. What you have tried to describe in your new post would, in my mind, come under that subjective third factor.

In the novel "Shogun," author James Clavell described how samurai who knew they would soon die would customarily write a "death poem," like writing one's own epitaph. One important Japanese character's death poem went like this:

"What are clouds but an excuse for the sky?
What is life but an escape from death?"

Obviously, that does not rhyme, nor do the two lines have the same number of syllables. But the FEEL of something being said poetically is there.
 
Copperfox said:
Dayhawk, a long time before you joined TDL, there was a discussion of what it took for a composition to be poetry and not prose. At that time, I said that a poem, to BE a poem, had to have AT LEAST ONE of the following three elements: rhythm, rhyme, and/or a hard-to-define subjective something that set the sound of it apart from plain speech. What you have tried to describe in your new post would, in my mind, come under that subjective third factor.

In the novel "Shogun," author James Clavell described how samurai who knew they would soon die would customarily write a "death poem," like writing one's own epitaph. One important Japanese character's death poem went like this:

"What are clouds but an excuse for the sky?
What is life but an escape from death?"

Obviously, that does not rhyme, nor do the two lines have the same number of syllables. But the FEEL of something being said poetically is there.
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exactly, poetry is the...escence, soul that is lacked in common speech...if that makes sense....

ok like this:
Yellow grass grows knee high
turquoise skies never turn grey
forests of green grow here and there
broken fences all around
and blue birds are the only sound
the scarlet sun's rays gleam across his face
as he leans down to kiss me
in this wonderful place.

alright most of that didn't rhyme and had no rythem but gave a mood and captured a moment.
 
Well, CF, here's my attempt at poetry (it's only 3 lines, but that's the best I can do at the moment) based on my siggy pic!

This day, this very hour
Snow falls like silvery white powder
Upon a still, gentle flower

Well, that's it. I took 3 words that rhymed with flower and came up with that. Hopefully with more advice I can come up with more substantial ones.
How'd I do?
 
queenaravis707 said:
Well, CF, here's my attempt at poetry (it's only 3 lines, but that's the best I can do at the moment) based on my siggy pic!

This day, this very hour
Snow falls like silvery white powder
Upon a still, gentle flower

Well, that's it. I took 3 words that rhymed with flower and came up with that. Hopefully with more advice I can come up with more substantial ones.
How'd I do?
Click to expand...

very beautiful! imagery and setting a mood!
 
Q-A, that was pretty good, and with such a fine start I'm sure you'll continue to grow as a poet.

Dayhawk, yes, I'll do at least a short critique for you.

Now for a little more technique.


I know Dayhawk would know; but Q-A, do you know what alliteration is? It's an alternative to rhyming, and was used in Old English verse before the use of rhyme was well established. Alliteration means putting into one line two or more words which START with the same sound. Note that vowels are treated as all being the same letter for purposes of alliteration. Here is a short alliterative poem:

King Kong was climbing up concrete,
With Ann along on the ascent.
The flying fighters would find him and fire,
Till mortally machinegunned, he fell on Manhattan.
Among the police, the producer would ponder
How beauty beguiled the bulky beast.

Poems fully committed to alliteration usually don't bother with rhyme; but there have been hybrids. The epic "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," at least the modern-language version that I've read, ALTERNATED between longer sections using alliteration and shorter parts using rhyme.
 
I couldn't choose between the two so...

yeah. one is about a boy (figures)
the other is me comparing myself to the women of the Bible.

He professed the hymn
and I watched
The words were spoken
I savored them as a token
A turquoise stone.

The spectators heard and saw,
but only I listened,
to a voice that tried to take the Words,
and make them his own.

Like a musician who hears sound,
and makes a melody,
He spoke the words as if it were a trade,
or artform
Faith.
An intricate design sewn.

The words meant something,
in a generalized way,
but I was too entranced by his voice,
Soothing like the sharps and flats of a Winter piano,
Casted like the german sheperd's tone.

I knew the meaning behind them,
The intent of the author's hymn
was nothing I didn't have bound to my being,
but never had I heard them sung
with out musical notes,
with out fear of what the gremlins thought.
A confident speaking scribe traveling alone.

A turquoise stone,
unpolished, unused,
potential so apparent,
but he's only a resaurant's Mr. Clean,
Once polilshed,
Once he sees Fire 'stead of Burn,
A hymn will be created,
And it'll be his own.

I'll stop by the white steepled sanctum,
Walk on the wine colored carpet,
In the crwowd I'll smile,
And look up at the stone all grown.




Mary they compare me to you,
Oleander white
Consencrated to Master
I know the sweet consequence to Light.

They never knew,
I've walked the Magdelan shoe,
The women's tribe died under the moon
The Son passed them by
And I pleaded for the why.

They say great is the queen
who comands the socialite
but the power of queens do not compare to the Moabite
A widow and ancestor of sheperds.

They compare me to you Mary,
But how sweet must have been the berry,
That she must have seen,
deceived was our mother,
she has condemned us all
to be compared to the broom that sweeps the dust.

Black the bleak Jezebel
I can be cruel
Hoping to be thrown from the palace sill
so that I can die to self and rise from the throne of Persia
with a king's hand in mine.

Mother of Isreal
Where is Wisdom now?
Had we not known her before?
She hasn't been taught to the daughters,
and has been abused by His sons.
Now it seems she only resides in the eyes of Eve.

Mary they compare me to you,
in this age of betrayal to my Father.
I know their claims to be untrue
for I have walked the Magdelan shoe
Though proud should you be
that I keep the Oleander new.
 
Firstly, Dayhawk, both poems have good use of language, drawing the reader into vivid scenes. I reserve opinion on the _meaning_ of the second poem, until you yourself say more about what you meant by it. But the first poem raises a question of more manageable proportions. You wrote:

The spectators heard and saw,
but only I listened,
to a voice that tried to take the Words,
and make them his own.

I'm not sure which of two things this verse means:

1) Is the singer somehow _betraying_ the intent of the words, falsifying it to suit himself, and thus earning the _disapproval_ of the viewpoint character?

2) Or is the singer doing what you would say _should_ be done, becoming one with the material?
 
Copperfox said:
Firstly, Dayhawk, both poems have good use of language, drawing the reader into vivid scenes. I reserve opinion on the _meaning_ of the second poem, until you yourself say more about what you meant by it. But the first poem raises a question of more manageable proportions. You wrote:

The spectators heard and saw,
but only I listened,
to a voice that tried to take the Words,
and make them his own.

I'm not sure which of two things this verse means:

1) Is the singer somehow _betraying_ the intent of the words, falsifying it to suit himself, and thus earning the _disapproval_ of the viewpoint character?

2) Or is the singer doing what you would say _should_ be done, becoming one with the material?
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number two. yes when this guy quoted the Bible it was like he was becoming one with it melodically, even though he wasn't singing.

and the second one is the complexity of my personality. I can be a Jezebel sometimes in that I can be cruel, yet can be Esther to counter the cruelty. Then I identify with both Marys in the Bible. One is on a strait path, the other was once crooked. In some ways I am and always have been on that strait path, in other ways...not so much...
Oh and the mother of israel is just Deborah...lol
 
Okay, then, another word about Jezebel. For many years, churchgoers were somehow conditioned to believe that this woman's evil had something to do with _sexual_ sins committed by her personally. Thus, a "fallen woman" in cowboy stories was apt to be likened to Jezebel. But in reality, although she certainly did support the Baalist cult which included temple prostitution as "ritual magic" to create farm fertility, there is no evidence that she herself ever had any sexual act in her life other than her lawful marital relationship with Ahab.

Unlike the screeching caricatures of Western women in "Cat Ballou," you have the true understanding of Jezebel when you refer to her cruelty. I think she _enjoyed_ being able to cause people to be put to death.
 
Copperfox said:
Okay, then, another word about Jezebel. For many years, churchgoers were somehow conditioned to believe that this woman's evil had something to do with _sexual_ sins committed by her personally. Thus, a "fallen woman" in cowboy stories was apt to be likened to Jezebel. But in reality, although she certainly did support the Baalist cult which included temple prostitution as "ritual magic" to create farm fertility, there is no evidence that she herself ever had any sexual act in her life other than her lawful marital relationship with Ahab.

Unlike the screeching caricatures of Western women in "Cat Ballou," you have the true understanding of Jezebel when you refer to her cruelty. I think she _enjoyed_ being able to cause people to be put to death.
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yeah I hate it when ppl call women (who are loose) Jezebel. you know in some churches (really in the south) they call loose women Jezebels. its so stupid...

anywho yeah thats what I meant in that poem
just about everything is a metaphor
 
Dayhawk, the shallow preachers whom you heard getting it all wrong about Jezebel are probably the ones who:

-- Pronounce the name of the prophet Haggai as "Hag-EEEEEEEEEEE-aye."

-- Endlessly chant, "Bring the tithe, bring the tithe, bring the tithe, tithe, tithe!"
 
Copperfox said:
Dayhawk, the shallow preachers whom you heard getting it all wrong about Jezebel are probably the ones who:

-- Pronounce the name of the prophet Haggai as "Hag-EEEEEEEEEEE-aye."

-- Endlessly chant, "Bring the tithe, bring the tithe, bring the tithe, tithe, tithe!"
Click to expand...

ha ha lol pretty much. Sometimes I really hate the South...lol

but yeah that poem is too all about breaking the Biblical women cliche`s
 
Well, when it comes to cliches, there isn't really any proof that Mary Magdalene was ever a prostitute. It makes a good story, and there certainly WERE prostitutes led to a new life by Jesus and indeed by John the Baptist as Jesus' herald; but it is not known that Mary Magdalene in particular was ever a "registered companion." She might equally have been a conventional farm wife who became demon-possessed as a result of attending a seance on a dare.
 
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