About Poetry

About Poetry

BLOG SESSION

April 23rd, 2018

Welcome Poets and Poetry Lovers!

Today's Session will be about our favorite subject matter for all Writers who have been following along here on the Blog with our Sessions this month.  In addition to taking Journal notes about our writing projects and current Novels that we are working on in Camp NaNoWriMo, we are going to dive into another area that many of the Writers here are focused on, and that is something near and dear to those who have the "gift" of a Poet's Pen.  When it comes to writing many of you zone in on the genre of poetry.

About Poetry:  Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language—such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre—to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning.

I'd like to mention that many of us here started writing poetry at a young age because we learned about the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, William Wordsworth, Oscar Wilde, and many others who captured our interest with their fascinating poetics.

Young Poet 

As a child, your mind absorbs literary works with a sense of wonder at play.  Visual images come to mind and help the young writer to see exactly what the poet is trying to relay with his or her poetic words.

It is very easy for children to learn to write poetry because they have been indoctrinated with Nursery Rhymes from an infant. 

Everyone of us can identify with the Nursery Rhymes, "Row, row, row your boat...." and "Mary had a little lamb..." and "A Tisket, A Tasket"... and "Baa Baa Black Sheep"..., and the famous "ABC Song".  Nursery Rhymes are in our memory banks.

We must also keep in mind that Music is a rhythmatic vessel awaiting poetic words to be applied ~ also known as Lyrics.

As you grab your Journal today to take notes on our Session . . .

Journal Notes

Please take a moment to think about some of your favorite Lyrics.  If you simply read the lyrics without the music, does a poem appear?  Do you hear the music playing in your head as you read the words to the song?  Do the words (lyrics) inspire you to write poetry?

On the other hand, when you read poetry, does a rhythm form and begin to take motion like wings on a butterfly?  Do you hear the sound of the poem?  Does the beat of the poem become louder or softer as you read?  When reading poetry, does your spirit tap in and meet the poet on the paper and in the air?  Does your spirit "feel" the poet's meaning?  Can you grab a hold of the emotions that are within the poetic words?

What exactly does poetry do for you as far as inspiration and motivation when it comes to the literary world?  Does poetry touch your soul?

Do you consider yourself a Poet?

The Young Poet

(Thinks, feels, expresses)  

Thought-provoking poetry is always inspiring.  Take a Read...

Dream Deferred - Poem by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode? 

By Langston Hughes

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

By Maya Angelou

To all the Poets ~ You too shall rise.

Write your poetry and feel blessed as you do!

OUR NEXT BLOG SESSION:

Making Your Poetry Journal

Peace, Love & Light

By René Allen

©Copyright - René Allen - 2014-2018 - All Rights Reserved

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