Category Archives: Poetry

There should always be a reason why one line appears before or after another. There should be a reason why the first line is the first and the last line is the last. Even in an Imagist poem, the description of the image needs to progress. The readers shouldn’t feel as if they are being fed a series or random but related facts. They should feel as if the poem is leading them towards a shared goal or destination.

For many poets, progression is second nature. They automatically write in a linear style and it comes through with very little effort. That doesn’t mean that they can just assume the progression of the poem is perfect every time, but they often find little reason for change. Other poets spend much more time determining the order for their poetry. They consistently move or change lines simply because the original version (or even the revision) doesn’t seem to move forward or evoke the right impression. Determining order can be especially difficult in longer poems and in Imagist poems, which are not intended to tell a story so much as to develop an impression or feeling in the reader.

Many Means of Progression

There are no quick and easy solutions to the problem of progression. Every poem is different and has different needs. It is fairly easy to judge the progression of a poem with a plot, but a poem about an image or an issue can be harder to interpret. Below are some ways to measure progression. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it probably covers 90% of poems.

Chronological: Progression through time.
Spatial: Progression through a physical position.
Process: Progression through a sequence of events.
Size: Progression from the large to the small or the small to the large.
Climactic: Progression through levels of importance.
Relational: Progression that shows a relationship such as cause and effect, problem and solution, comparison and contrast.

When reading and editing, try to determine what sort of progression is taking place and how successfully that progression is shown. Once you determine the type of progression you can judge each part of the poem by how it relates to the intended progression.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

Write a three stanza poem that shows a progression with each stanza. The three stanzas should serve as a beginning, middle and end respectively. It might help to picture the poem as a three act play.

Today’s Recommended Poet

John Kinsella is a poet and environmentalist who purposefully pursued a rural existence in the style Thoreau’s Walden. His themes include the relationship of people to the land, to indigenous people, and to the world as a whole.

• Interview in Poetry International
• Six poems by John Kinsella
• Poems and Other Writings
• Poet’s Web Site

Books of Poetry

• Jam Tree Gully 2011
• Divine Comedy: Journeys Through a Regional Geography: Three New Works 2010
• The New Arcadia 2007
• Peripheral Light 2005

Poets can be a sensitive lot. In a way, that’s what poets are known for. Unfortunately, it can be a poet’s undoing. Writer’s block, in most cases, is simply a lack of confidence. A person gets so wrapped up in negative self talk, that no matter what they put on the page, it never seems good enough. When it reaches the point that the poet can no longer put words on the page at all, it has become a severe problem. Try to recognize when you are being overly self critical. Here are some ways that all people, including poets, sabotage themselves. Please note that I am adapting material from Walt Schafer’s book, Stress Management for Wellness.

Negativising: Focusing only on the negative aspects of a situation. For example, if someone reads your poem and has mostly positive things say, but you focus only on the criticism, you are negativising.

Awfulizing: Focusing too much on a problem or obstacle until you build it up into a disaster. For example, you decide you can’t write today because you can’t find your favorite pen and without that, you won’t produce anything good.

Catastrophizing: This is when you go into a situation expecting the worst. For example, you decide not to submit your poems to a poetry magazine because you “already know they are going to turn you down.”

Ovegeneralizing: This is when you take a single negative event or piece of data and apply it to a much larger situation. For example, if you write a bad poem, you decide that you must have “lost it” and you might as well give up. Plenty of good poems get written right after bad poems.

Minimizing: This is when you downgrade praise or an accomplishment. For example, if you get published by that magazine you thought would never publish you, you decide that it must have been a fluke or they didn’t get very many submissions.

Perfectionism: Setting impossibly high standards for yourself or for a situation. For example, deciding that you have to have the perfect word to finish a line and you can’t move forward until that word comes to you.

There are other ways to sabotage yourself but I think you get the point. Don’t focus on the negative aspects of your writing. Its good to want to improve, but don’t paralyze yourself with unreasonable expectations or poor self image. Just write.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

Write a poem that begins with a negative image or statement and ends with a positive image or statement.

Today’s Featured Poet

Sherman Alexie is a Native American poet, novelist and stand-up comedian. He is a prolific writer who probably doesn’t know the meaning of the words “writer’s block”.

• Review of The Business of FancyDancing and Old Shirts & New Skins
• Sherman Alexie’s Iowa Review Interview
• General Commentary on Sherman Alexie
• Alexie’s Web Site

Books of Poetry

• What I’ve Stolen, What I’ve Earned
• The Business of Fancydancing
• One Stick Song
• Old Shirts & New Skins

The first and most recognizable difference between poetry and prose is the line. Poetry is written with line breaks and prose is not. While it is possible to write “prose poetry” without line breaks the reason it is called prose poetry is because it is written in a prose style. All other types of poetry rely on the line.

There are many ways to play with and manipulate the line in poetry. The most established way to define your line is the use of meter, which we have discussed several times already. Even when you use meter, it is far from the only consideration in the creation of a line.

One of the primary considerations in the use of the line in poetry is to determine the line break. Even if you use meter, you have to determine the number of feet in the meter you choose. Pentameter (generally a ten syllable line depending on the length of the feet) is going to have a much different feel than trimeter (generally a six syllable line). The first is around the length of the average sentence while the second is closer to the length of a phrase. Each creates a much different feel and rhythm.The line is open to other sorts of manipulation beyond meter. One is the use of the enjambed line versus the endstopped line. An enjambed line breaks in the middle of a phrase or thought. An endstopped line finishes at the end of a sentence or a thought. The use of enjambment changes the rhythm of a poem and gives it a feel that is more like prose. It often results in readings that ignore line length entirely.

Other line tools

Another way that poets manipulate the line is through placement. They indent or otherwise displace a line, often to emphasize that line or to show a progression. These placements can often get quite intricate, with lines appearing in all sorts of locations on the page.

A final way to manipulate the line is length. With meter, there is generally (though not always) a consistent line length. When meter is not used, line length can be much more variable. Some poets manipulate this, following short lines with long lines, or combining line length and line placement to create shapes on the page. These poems are often called shape poems or pattern poems.

The key point, in my opinion, with any sort of line manipulation is that it should be done for a reason and it should enhance the reading of the poem. If a poem uses lines in a disruptive way, it can harm the overall experience of reading the poem and often says more about the poet than the poem. There is often a fine line between art and artifice. The more manipulative you get, the more you risk creating the latter.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

Write a poem that has a variable line length rather than a set meter. Use either enjammed or endstopped lines.

One of the great things about this poetry project so far is that we have started to develop a community. We have regular contributors, occasional contributors and readers. A sense of community is important in poetry. Because the market for poetry is so small compared to the fiction market, it needs constant support to keep going.

There are many benefits to joining or creating a poetry community. You gain the support of your peers. You have the opportunity to compare yourself with and learn from other poets. You encourage each other to keep going. You meet the people who can help you down the road.

The people who publish other people’s poetry do it because they love it. There is no great financial benefit, and it is certainly easier to make money publishing something else. The best way to get noticed by these people is to get out in the poetry community and start introducing yourself. Attend poetry readings. Take poetry classes. Attend open mic nights and poetry slams. Get up on stage if you can. Support other people’s poetry by buying their books and magazines. The more you support poetry the more it will support you.

Today’s Assignment

Include the words “formal” and “casual” at some point in your poem.

Reviewing your old poems is an important way to grow as a poet. Because I am not always the most organized of people, I keep finding more poems that I have scribbled down somewhere or saved in inappropriate places. At one point in my life, I had a file cabinet full of poems, but after a dozen moves over the past fifteen years, it has long ago disappeared. Many of those poems would be over twenty-five years old now. That’s a trip through time I would still like to take at some point.

As I read my old poems, I have varying reactions. Some poems I clearly remember writing, while others are a mystery to me. Some even make me cringe just a little. When that happens, I try to tell myself that they can’t all be winners.

Overall, my old poems tell me about where I have come from. I have ventured in and out of poetry over the years. My old poems definitely show signs of their age, at least to me. I can almost immediately see the difference in life experience between then and now. That doesn’t make the old poems bad, just of a different time.

Changes in Focus

In reviewing my more recent work, I can spot a certain narrowing of focus. My life is spent in hotels, offices, hospitals and on the road between them. These are the places where the events of my life happen, and it shows in my work. While I like many of the new poems, I feel as if my poetic world has gotten a bit too small, and I need to open it up again. This project is helping with that.

I don’t have specific advice for how you should review your old work. I can tell you that the process isn’t about editing (though you are free to edit). It is about assessment and growth. By reviewing your old poetry, it is possible to spot patterns and habits that you may want to break or bring back. You can also track changes in your point of view. If nothing else, reading your old work is an interesting personal journey, and one that I suggest you take at some point.

Today’s poetry assignment

If you like, reread some of your old poetry. Write a new poem about a subject from one of your old poems. See how revisiting it feels.

 

One of the central concepts of poetry is repetition. As poets we repeat sounds, syllables, words, syntax, meters, lines and stanzas. The use of repetition is one of the qualities of poetry that separates it from prose. In prose, repetition is rare and usually done to either increase clarity or to make a single point.

Repetition creates patterns. Whether the patterns are phonetic or syntactic, when people encounter these patterns they recognize them and respond to them. If you repeat the same word or line over and over again, the reader will assume that it has significance. If you repeat a sound (rhyme, alliteration, consonance) it links words or lines together. If you repeat a meter, it moves the poem forward and adds a musical quality to the poem. If you repeat syntax, it allows different ideas either form links or create contrasts.

Repetition is a tool. If used well, it adds to a poem through the links and patterns it creates. If used badly, it can become too obvious, creating predictability. Like any poetic tool, it should be used carefully and with intent. If you don’t know what you want to accomplish by using repetition, there’s a good chance you will misuse it.

Here are a few of many types of repetition to consider:

Adnomination: repetition of words with the same root word (e.g. inform, informal, perform, formula)

Anaphora – repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines.

Assonance: repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in non-rhyming stressed syllables.

Alliteration: repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

Consonance: repetition consonant sounds in close proximity.

Meter: repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Rhyme: repetition of word endings, often at the end of a line.

Ploce: repetition of a word or phrase

Epanalepsis: repeating a word or phrase from the beginning of a sentence, line, or stanza at the end of the sentence, line, or stanza.

 

Today’s Poetic Assignment

Write a poem that uses at least two different forms of repetition. Try to embrace at least one form of repetition that you don’t ordinarily use.

We have spent the past few days talking about form and meter. I could use a break from that, so today lets discuss approaches to the act of writing a poem. Some people just sit down and write. They don’t have a plan or even a topic in mind. They simply sit down and start to write. Sometimes it takes them a while to get started, because they don’t have a set idea or method in mind. At other times the muse strikes them right away and before they know it, they’ve created a poem. Today I want you to think about your process of creation. First off, do you have a process? Secondly, does that process seem to work for you? Here are some parts of the process I want you to think about, along with some typical answers.

Where do you write?

• At home
• At work
• At a coffee shop
• On the bus/train/drive to work
• Outdoors
• At a desk
• At a table
• On a comfy sofa
• In a hotel room
• In bed

What tools do you use?

• Pen
• Pencil
• Notebook
• Journal
• 3 x 5 Cards
• Computer
• Tablet
• Audio Recorder
• Dictionary
• Thesaurus
• Plenty of snacks
• Music
• Facebook

When do you write?

• Whenever the mood strikes
• First thing in the morning
• In the middle of the day
• At the end of the day
• Whenever the kids give me a quiet moment
• At work when the boss isn’t looking
• On my lunch break

How long are your sessions?

• I don’t have a set length
• I spend about a half hour a session
• I spend an hour or more per session
• I like to spend an entire day just writing poetry
• I concentrate on the number of poems, not on the time

How do you choose your subjects?

• I write about the events in my life
• I take items from the news or other mediums
• I try to imagine other characters and voices
• I write about the things I see
• I just make stuff up

How do you prepare?

• Just sit down and start
• Take a walk first
• Exercise first
• Meditate first
• Keep a list of possible topics
• Read the newspaper
• Read other people’s poetry
• Reread my previous session’s work
• Scream

What writing methods do you use?

• Just write the poem
• Write an outline
• Automatic writing
• Start in prose then convert to poem
• Convert entries from journal

How do you edit or revise?

• I don’t
• I correct spelling and grammar errors
• I revise as I go
• I reread the poem and look for errors or parts that could be better but I don’t spend too long on it
• I rework my poems extensively, often changing order, word choice and adding new parts

Today’s Poetry Assignment

Today is a two-part assignment. The first part is to think about your method of writing poetry. Please tell us about your work style in the comments, even if you aren’t posting your poetry in the comments.

The second part is to shake up your process. If you have a lot of structure, try loosening up. If you write very loosely, try adding some structure to the process. Find a new place to write or use a different tool. The change doesn’t have to be major, but if you post your poem, please tell us what you changed.