Category Archives: Poetry

The benefit of syllabic meter in English language poetry is that it is less restrictive than meters that focus on stressed and unstressed feet. Syllabic verse gives a poem structure, but avoids the patterned, sometimes singsong qualities of popular English meters such as iambic or dactyl. Syllabic meters can be as simple as ten syllables per line and can grow quickly in complexity from there.

A poetic compromise

Those who dislike syllabic meter feel that it doesn’t provide real structure, that the English language is far more focused on stressed and unstressed syllables than on the number of syllables. Their contention is that most people don’t notice the number of syllables in a line, only the number of stresses, therefore, determining line length solely by the number of syllables is meaningless.

In my opinion, syllabic meter is a reasonable poetic compromise between image-based lines and metered poetry. While length-based word choice still enters into consideration when writing syllabic verse, you don’t have to torture yourself trying to replace the most appropriate word with one that fits the meter. Syllabic verse “looks” like poetry because the line length is patterned, but it allows you the freedom to experiment within the line.

Poetry Assignment

Write a poem using syllabic verse. You can assign length ether by line or stanza. If you are stuck for a way to begin, start with this two-word ten-syllable line:

Historically Antithetical

Bukowski standing by his BMW

In the comments these past few days, I have had a discussion with one of our participants, Rosemary, about poetry in forms and one poet in particular, W. B. Yeats. W.B. Yeats is widely recognized as a master. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923, and most believe his best work happened after winning the prize. That said, I don’t particularly care for Yeats. It is easy for me to acknowledge his skill, but he writes in a style that leaves me cold. Reading his work feels like reading an English assignment. It brings me no pleasure. Rosemary does not agree with me. She’s not alone.

While I like to think of the poetry community as one big family, I don’t necessarily think of it as one big happy family. Just because you are in the same family doesn’t mean you have to like each other, although I certainly like Rosemary.

Feuds and expectations

Alexander Pope was by all accounts an insufferable little man (At 4 foot 6, I do mean little) who was loved by half the literary world and despised by the other half. Any poet his disliked, he insulted and parodied within his poems. Even poets that were his friends rarely escaped his poetic wrath. He was perhaps the best poet of his age, and he had no humility about that fact whatsoever.

In modern times, one of my poetic heroes, Charles Bukowski, was forever insulting the beat poets, and took great offense whenever his work was lumped in with theirs. On the surface, their work had many similarities, but Bukowski felt as if the beats were conspicuously trying to embrace the lifestyle of the poor and downtrodden, while for him that was simply the reality of his life. The moment he had money, he embraced it with both hands and wrote about it conspicuously. That ticked a lot of people off too. They wanted their poor, downtrodden poet to stay poor and downtrodden.

Write the way you write

Some people believe (or at least believed) that you cannot have poetry without meter. They believe that patterns are the very heart of poetry and that meter is the way of determining and defining those patterns. For most of the history of poetry, few poets questioned that poetry and meter were inextricably intertwined. In the twentieth century, however, poets began to reconsider the idea of meter. Poets such as William Carlos Williams began to focus on image over meter. They wrote poetry in which line length was determined by the image or the impression the line was meant to create rather than patterns of syllables, word lengths, sounds or stresses. This was a controversial act. Today though, this style is the dominant approach to poetry.

My point is that you will never please everybody. Some people will like your poems and others will, most decidedly, dislike them. You have to write what feels true to you. Embrace your voice, whether the crowd likes it or not.

Today’s poetry assignment

Write a poem in the first person that makes a definitive statement. Stand behind something you believe or tell a bold lie. Either way, embrace what you have to say.

When I decided to write this series, I gave some thought to just how much time I wanted to spend writing about poetry forms. Forms are an interesting exercise for poets. Forms such as sonnet, villanelle, sestina, and ghazal are challenging and can really help beginning poet develop skills such as learning to work with meter, rhythm, rhyme and word choice. The downside is that forms rarely produce great poems, and the more constraints a form puts onto the poet, the less the poet gets to focus on themes and ideas and the more they have to focus on following rules.

I think there is a lot of benefit to be had from learning to work within forms, but I think that they can frustrate people needlessly. Also, if the market for poetry as a whole is tiny, than the market for poetry in forms is microscopic. There just aren’t very many people who are interested in reading them.

The primary goal of this project is to write 31 poems in 31 days. The secondary goal is to produce thirty-one poems that you would feel comfortable putting into a book. While it is possible to write a good villanelle, the odds are stacked against you. So, while I will be getting to such squirrely topics as line, meter and stanzas, I am not going to push a lot of difficult forms on people.

The List Poem

That said, here is a form for you to try. It is actually a relatively easy and fun form that starts us down the path of thinking about the use of the line in poetry. A list poem is exactly what it sounds like. It is poem that takes the form of a list. Every line of the poem (or alternately every stanza) should be a different item on the list. The poem can be about anything that can be listed. Here, in unpoetic form, is a list of lists:

A grocery list
A list of rules
A list of childhood games
A list of reasons you hate mornings
A list of foods you love or hate
A list of everyone who has ever made you angry
A list of everyone you love
A to do list
A list of goals
A list of failures
A list of names for your baby
A list of insults
A list of the best body parts
A list of places you would like to go
A list of features you look for in a new house
A list of the cars you have owned
A list of things that scare you
A list of things you want to do before you get too old
A list of reasons you love your spouse
A list of the things attached to your refrigerator
A list of books you’d read again

The list can go on and on.

The difference between an ordinary list (like the one above) and a list poem is a poem needs themes and structure. It should evoke a feeling from the reader. Each item of the list should have a relationship to or a contrast with the items around it. Each item on the list should be written in the same general style, setting up a rhythm that propels the poem forward. There should be a beginning, a middle and an end so that the reader feels there has been a progression towards a point or a goal.

Today’s Assignment

Write a list poem that uses a single line for each item on the list. Feel free to choose one of the topics above, or use anything else that comes to mind. As always, post the poem in the comments section or in our Facebook group if you would like to share it.

Today’s Recommended Poet

Tony Hoagland is one of my favorite poets. He can be playful, but he can also be bitter and sarcastic at times, which is a selling point for me but might turn some people off. More importantly, he can turn a phrase on a dime. One line plays off the next with beauty and precision. You never know where he is heading until he is finished.

You can read a few of his poems in the web:

Grammar
Jet
Lucky

Here are his books:

Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty: Poems 2010
Little Oceans 2009
Hard Rain 2005
What Narcissism Means to Me 2003
Donkey Gospel 1998
Sweet Ruin 1993

As you can see from the previous topics, there are many poetic styles to choose from. We have already covered poetry of place, personal poetry, issues oriented poetry and persona poetry. These are all unique approaches to poetry. They have nothing to do with meter, diction, rhythm or form. Once you combine all of those poetic concepts, you can see that there are many diverse approaches to the writing of poetry. Some people write well using very specific styles while others jump from style to style easily.

Poetic voice is something that exists outside of all of these concepts. Poetic voice is, quite literally and broadly the way that you write. It is your choice of words, the order of your words, the length of your sentences, the length of your poems, your use of description, your choice of subjects, your attitude and everything else that goes into the writing of a poem. While any of these aspects of your writing can change from one poem to the next, general patters will emerge over time. It is sort of like the difference between climate and weather. Weather can change daily or even hourly, but the climate rarely changes. It is the guiding force behind the weather.

Developing your poetic voice is a process that continues as long as you write poetry, but in general your voice will become more specific and pronounced over time. When people first start to write poetry, they tend to mimic the poets (or even musicians) they have heard in the past. They have an idea of what poetry should sound like, and they try to force their natural voice into the styles they imagine. As writers grow more comfortable with their writing, their own unique voice comes to the forefront. This doesn’t mean that they put all of their past influences aside, it merely means that those influences serve less as a conscious guide and more as a subconscious inspiration.

It is only natural, even for an experienced poet, to adapt aspects of a new poet or style that they find interesting or inspiring, just as they may react against a style or poet that they find distasteful. As a poet grows more confident in their voice, those influences will have less and less impact.

So, how do you develop your poetic voice? You write. You write and write and write. You also read other poets, not to copy their style but to learn from them. As you continue to write and to read, you will keep the influences you like and discard the ones you don’t, all as a natural part of your development. You will also find that your voice will begin to win out.

Other things to remember:

• Listen to the way you speak.

• Don’t try to write in a style that is dramatically different from the way you speak.

• Don’t use words in your poetry that you wouldn’t use in conversation.

• Incorporate influences from other media such as television, movies, news, talk radio, fiction, non-fiction, music and the people around you.

• The greater the number of influences you have, the less dominant any one influence will be.

• Accept that you don’t have to sound like other writers to be successful. Your own voice and experience will be better than anything you try to simulate.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

Take at least five minutes to meditate in a quite room free of outside influences before you write today’s poem. Try to clear your head of stray thoughts. Once you feel like you are clear and calm, write your poem. Let the topic be about whatever comes to mind after your meditation. If you have never meditated before, simply sit in a chair with your eyes closed and try to relax.

Today’s Recommended Poet

Leslie Adrienne Miller deftly combines three of the writing styles we have been discussing. She writes poems from a deeply personal place, but uses that to address wider issues, and she incorporates her travels into her writing, giving her poems a distinct sense of place. She also incorporates today’s concept, the persona poem, as she stretches to capture other women’s lives (and deaths). I highly recommend The Resurrection Trade. It is one of the most accomplished books of poetry I have read in recent years.

Books by Leslie Adrienne Miller

The Resurrection Trade 2007

Eat Quite Everything You See 2002

Ungodliness 1994

Toad chases Thumbelina through the Valley of the Moon.

As we continue to explore different approaches to poetry, today we are going to look at the persona poem. Persona poems are poems written from a perspective other than your own. You use your imagination to enter the world of another character. You can write a persona poem from the perspective of a friend, an enemy, a relative, a pet, a celebrity, a historical figure, a character from literature or you can make up a character of your own.

The basis or a persona poem is a change in point-of-view. You aren’t just writing about another character, you are writing as if you were that other character. You try to think like that character. You imagine that character’s thoughts, actions, skills and limitations. You try to capture the world in which that character lives and you portray it as if you were that character.

This is a style of poetry that is heavily influenced by fiction. You leave behind your point of view and take on another. You try to bring a character to life and make that character interesting to your readers. It can be challenging, but also freeing. You are given the chance to change your style, tone and perspective, at least for the length of one poem.

Adding a fictional layer to your poetry allows you to address issues you can’t comfortably express as yourself. Persona poems can be an excellent method for dealing with personal issues that are too close for you to write about from your own perspective. Persona poems also can be a great way to explore your feelings about an social or personal issue by looking at it from the other side. What would the person on the other side of the issue say to you?

Poetry Assignment

Write a persona poem that incorporates one of the past two concepts. It should either address a social issue or it should provide a strong sense of place. One great way to do the latter is to write a poem in a public place, and to observe the people around you until you find someone interesting that you can imagine a back-story for.

Bowling for Poets

Now that we have moved from personal poems into poems about the world around us, it is time to explore poetry of place. Poets have memorialized places in verse for about as long as there have been poems. In a place poem, the poet attempts to capture the spirit of a particular place, and perhaps use that place to reflect upon either the events in their life or the events that have taken place at that location.

Things to remember when writing a poem about a place:

• The more vividly and distinctly you describe the place you are writing about, the easier it will be to draw your reader into any other themes that you have in mind.
• Themes that arise out of the description will be the most likely to take root. Look for details that blend well with your thoughts.
• The more meaningful a place is to you, the more likely it is that you will write about it with passion.
• Sometimes it is more interesting to look for a location you don’t know so well and imagine a history for it.
• You are a poet, not a reporter. Don’t feel as if can’t change details. Just be aware that if someone with knowledge of the place reads it and catches the differences, it might annoy them. Barbara Kingsolver writes books that are set in my hometown of Tucson, but she often makes up details. This can sometimes take me out of her stories.
• When you can, it is a good idea to actually be at the location you are writing about when you write about it. Plenty of poems have been written after the fact, however. Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey was written five years later, and it may be the most famous place poem in all of literature.

Today’s Poetry Assignment

Get out of the house and write in a new place. Write about the place you choose to go to. Don’t just rely on what you see. Describe the smells, the tastes and the sounds if you can. Try to give your readers a full picture of the place you choose.

The first couple days of our poetry project have focused on the personal. Poetry can be therapeutic. It can help you to explore personal issues and to capture the events of your life. If all poets stuck to writing about themselves, however, the world of poetry would be far too narrow. For every poet who writes about the personal, there is another poet writing about the external world.

Poetry that is focused on issues, causes and events can be very powerful. This type of poetry can inform people, change people’s views or even spur people to action. Poetry has, for all of history, been a tool for social change and the expression of political and philosophical ideas. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, for example, was an introduction it a sub-culture that most of America knew nothing about. Pablo Neruda, a passionate Chilean poet and communist politician, once read his poetry to a live audience of over 100,000 people, the largest known crowd to ever assemble to hear a poetry reading.

Inside out

Poetry can be issue-oriented and still be personal. Political movements take place at every level. Social issues such as homelessness, health care, immigration, discrimination, addiction, physical abuse and mental illness are felt most strongly by the people who experience them first hand. The world is an imperfect place and humans are the living embodiment of all those imperfections.

A voice in the wilderness

You can’t solve the problems of the world in a single poem. There is only so much that can be accomplished with poetry, and solving the world’s problems is pretty tall order. Your goal in writing about an issue is self expression more than change. You want your poem to influence, not dominate.

But is it art?

Another key to writing issue-oriented poetry is to remember that the poem should not take back seat to the issue it addresses. Make every line interesting and memorable to the reader. Make your images sharp and specific. Keep your reader interested until the end. Don’t work too hard at drawing conclusions and giving instructions or you will risk leaving the reader feeling manipulated, which is a quick and easy way to lose your audience.

Not everyone will love you

One final thing to remember is that when you take a stand, you can expect dissent. Some people are easily offended and angered. Some people are so locked into their own mindset that they will lash out at anything that disputes their view. There may even be some people out there who will intelligently and calmly demonstrate that you are wrong. Worse yet, you may find that the people who take your side are more offensive than the people who disagree with you. Taking a stand means taking a risk. There’s no way around that.

Today’s assignment

It doesn’t always pay to follow the crowd, but lets give it a try today. If you have FaceBook or Twitter, you are probably familiar with the trending feature, a quick list of items people are talking about (or some sponsor is trying to get people to talk about). Pick a trending story and write about it, or just write about trends in general.