Poets & Poetry Writers

Good Afternoon Poets and Poetry Writers!

We're back once again to continue discussing poetry writing.  Our next topic is  line breaks involving the areas of visual effect, and shape.

Just as poets can use sound techniques like onomatopoeia to create auditory imagery, they can also enlist visual effects or techniques to help create visual imagery, or the sense of how something looks. Most of the time, this is done with descriptive language that gives you a mental image of something, but another clever way that poets can create visual imagery is with visual effects, such as altering the poem's physical shape or placement on the page, or adding illustrations.  Just take a look at the following . . .

Visual Poetry

(example)

Let's take a look at shape as it relates to poetry: A Shape Poem is a type of poetry that describes an object and is shaped the same as the object the poem is describing. You could write your shape poem on anything. You could have a circle-shaped poem describing a cookie, or a poem about love shaped like a heart.  Take a look at the following example . . .

Shape Poetry

(example)

Word placement, line placement, line breaks -- these all can affect the visual imagery or even the meaning of the poem. One interesting example of this is concrete poetry, or shape poetry, where the words or lines of the poem actually make a picture or visually reflect what the poem is about.  In concrete poetry, the words are arranged so that when you look at it as a whole, you can see an image formed by the placement of the poem's parts.  Check out the following example of concrete poetry...

Concrete Poetry

(example)

Onward to the topic of Abstractions . . .

Most people who read poetry are turned off by the now academic approach to poetics, mainly literary schools, literary magazines specializing in academia, and abstractions in modern poetry.  Yet, we need to know what an abstraction is?  Or, rather, when should there be abstractions?  In the art of metaphor, love is a primary object of descriptive language.  Yet, love, in itself, is an abstract idea.  It is a broad term and all encompassing in its use.  This raises the question, how do I use an abstract idea in such a concrete object as a poem? Poems thrive on the language of comparison.  Comparing love to an arrow (such as in Anis Mojgani’s poem “Milos”) is such a use:

when the hangman of morrow comes to hang the sun in its daily execution

sarah

we are apples,

our love is an arrow.

I am unbuttoning my shirt and painting a circle over my heart

please

just shoot straight

This is a metaphor that takes concrete examples to describe an abstract ideal.  It is the power of language that has the ability to describe the indescribable, especially in poetry.  When do you use an abstraction?  When you need to describe a very broad idea.  If this is the case, you would use concrete symbols in language.  Yet, why?  Why do we, as poets, use abstractions?  Mainly because the world is full of abstractions and they need to be described.

Poetry answers another question:  the question of being and presence.  Why are we here to live our lives in a pointless and daunting universe (so it seems).  Poetry is that awkward moment between birth and death.  Everything that is essential to life, in all its abstraction is worth the quality of poetry.  Concreteness is a genuine quality of poetry. Therefore, give those abstractions a definition; give them lines to be seen; and give them a body to use in order to communicate.

Let us now talk about the topic of "imagery" or "images" in poetry...

Imagery is the name given to the elements in a poem that spark off the senses.  Despite "image" being a synonym for "picture", images need not be only visual; any of the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) can assist the poet in getting across the intended message in his or her poetry.

However you may come to formulate your poetry dear Poet, do let your spirit be the guide in relation to just how it comes out.  Every poet is not the same, they do not necessarily follow the same guidelines or any guidelines for that matter -- Poets simply "Write"!

We're all looking forward to reading your Poetry, so be sure to share a short poem or two of your poetic works here on the Blog.

See you next time for more exciting discussions here on the Blog dear Readers, Poets & Writers . . .

Peace, Love & Light,

 René

©Copyright - René Allen - APRIL 2017 - All Rights Reserved