Poetry Resources

You all know by now what a huge advocate I am for collecting writing resources. When it comes to poetry, there are some special books that will help make you both a better reader and a more well-rounded writer.

Keep in mind that reading and writing poetry require two similar but different skill sets. Some academic types argue that poetry is an intellectual pursuit but that’s hogwash. Poetry is an aesthetic art that uses emotion for paint and language as a canvas. Anyone can appreciate poetry, but studying it on higher levels can help you better appreciate its nuances.

The same is true with poetry writing. Nobody can stop you from sitting down and writing a poem. It will be just as meaningful if it comes straight from your heart as if it comes from years of study. However, observation of poetic technique can bring poetry to unimagined levels. It’s also helpful if your objective is to have your poetry published in print or on any high quality website that features poetry.

I was resistant to reading and studying poetry in school because I wrote it so frequently on my own. But once I gave in and signed up for the courses, my poetry started to blossom in ways I never could have foreseen. Classes, however, aren’t necessary (though they are definitely beneficial if you get a good instructor). A few good books on poetry writing can whittle your skills considerably.

Here are a few of my favorite books on poetry.

Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook is a very simple but comprehensive guide to reading and writing poetry. It’s a perfect introductory text and ideal for folks who have strayed from poetry but feel it’s time to come home. Mary Oliver herself is an acclaimed poet and her tone is friendly and witty and very easy to follow. From the text:

Something that is essential can’t be taught; it can only be given, or earned, or formulated in a manner too mysterious to be picked apart… Whatever can’t be taught, there is a great deal that can, and must, be learned.

The Practice of Poetry is jam packed with some of the best poetry writing exercises ever conceived. In fact, the book is a collection of exercises that were contributed by many different writers and poets. The subtitle reads “Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach.” Some are designed to call forth the muse, others deal with sound and rhythm, and still more focus on revision. This compilation will stretch and flex your writing muscles and open many new doors that you never knew existed! If you want to write poetry but are at a loss how to begin, this book will get your wheels turning.

Perhaps my all time favorite and definitely my most referenced poetry book is Perrine’s Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry. This book is a delightful and comprehensive romp through the deeper intricacies of poetry. It’s suitable for beginners but it definitely serves as a bridge into more advanced poetry concepts and it features tons of wonderful poems by some of the best known and loved poets of all time, including Maya Angelou, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Andrew Marvell, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen Poe, Anne Sexton, Shakespeare, and far too many others to list here. Suffice to say, this gem of a book doubles as an anthology of poems.

Speaking of anthologies, I would be remiss if I didn’t close this post by mentioning that anthologies along with literary journals are the best way to start discovering poets and poems that you’ll love. These types of compilations give you a taste for many different styles and genres within poetry. My own favorite is The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English, a textbook from my school days. It’s a bit biased in terms of gender but it has some fantastic works, excerpts, and biographies. Norton publishes a lot of fantastic poetry anthologies, which you can check out here.

Enjoy!

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Musicality in Poetry: Meter

Earlier this month I posted an introduction to poetry vocabulary and Greer asked if I wouldn’t mind taking on meter. In poetry, meter is quite complex so for now we’re going to stick with the absolute basics.

Musicality in poetry is the sum of many different elements, all of which are also found in (you guessed it) music. The two basic musical components of a poem are rhythm and meter. These are inherently tied together and are often used interchangeably. However, they refer to completely different aspects of a poem’s musical tone.

Rhythm is motion, the overall flow of a piece as a whole. Meter, on the other hand, is the pattern of recurring accent that we can tap our feet to, the beat.

Rhythm = flow
Meter = pattern

Let’s take a closer look at meter

A Very Short Song

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.

-Dorothy Parker

Scansion

Do you remember diagramming sentences back in grammar school? Well, we can do something similar with poetry, only we are diagramming for meter. This is called scansion. Scanning a poem helps us better understand its meter, rhythm, and become a more prolific reader of poetry and writer of all things.

Feet

Meter is measured in units called feet. These are not the same feet we use here in the U.S. to measure distance. In poetry, a metrical foot consists of one accented syllable plus one or two unaccented syllables. Below are some metrical examples. The syllables in all caps are the accented syllables.

da-DUM da-DUM is an example of two iambs or iambic meters
DA de DA de is an example of two trochees or trochaic meters
ra-ta-TAH is an anapest or anapestic meter
LA-da-da is a dactyl or dactylic meter
BOMP-BOMP is a spondee or spondaic meter

To start scanning a poem, we first identify the prevailing foot. We’ll use bold to denote the accented syllables.

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Note that some accents are heavier than others, but all are equal in scansion marking. For example, in the first line, the word I is not stressed nearly as much as the words once, young, and true. If you match up the accent pattern shown in this example to the types of feet defined above, you’ll probably align most of it with trochee: DA de DA de. However, the final line in this stanza has a different meter: da-DUM da-DUM. So the last line is iambic meter.

Lines

The next step in scansion is to determine how many feet are in each line.

Once, when I was young and true, trochee 4 feet
Someone left me sad- trochee 3 feet
Broke my brittle heart in two; trochee 4 feet
And that is very bad. iamb 3 feet

You’ll notice that the feet in the first three lines seem incomplete. When a poet deviates from any pattern, it is called metrical variation. In this particular example, we would have expected the accented words true, sad, and two to be followed by an unaccented syllable. Omitting an unaccented syllable, affecting an incomplete foot, is called truncation.

Just like there are words to define the types of feet, there are also words to name different lengths of line:

monometer 1 foot
dimeter 2 feet
trimeter 3 feet
tetrameter 4 feet
pentameter 5 feet
hexameter 6 feet

Now, we can go in and replace our foot counts with proper words :

Once, when I was young and true, trochaic tetrameter (truncated)
Someone left me sad- trochaic trimeter (truncated)
Broke my brittle heart in two; trochaic tetrameter (truncated)
And that is very bad. iambic trimeter

Overall, the poem is written in truncated trochaic tetrameter with frequent metrical variations to trochaic trimeter and iambic trimeter. Wow, that sentence makes me sound pretty damn smart!

If you’re still reading at this point, can I just say I love you? Kindred spirits in poetry unite!

Summary

Meter is a tricky subject and this only scratches the surface. Entire volumes have been written on this topic. I personally find it interesting to study, otherwise I would not have spent upwards of four hours researching and writing this post for you fine poetry loving folks. There are a few more things to note about meter:

• The rules are not so hard and fast that you could not read this poem and come up with different results in a metrical scan of your own. In some cases, meters and feet are subjective.
• Meter is not always easy to scan. It took quite a search to find one simple, short poem that would lend itself well to this exercise.
• Meter is no indication of poetic skill. Many novice poets write in strict meter and plenty of advanced poets write in meter so complex, it is practically impossible to scan at all.

Still here? Well, that’s a miracle. I’m surprised if I haven’t bored everyone off by now with this long-winded and overly academic post. Well, you can all blame Greer. As for me, I’m going to thank Greer for motivating me to revisit this lesson, which was very much a welcome refresher.

Source: Perrine’s Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry

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Briefs are Not Just Underwear

photo credit: Monster.

Brett Legree, who blogs at 6 Weeks explains why blogging for profit is like collecting underpants. Brett talks about love of craft but he never does ask (or answer) the question that’s on everyone’s mind: boxers or briefs? Well, I’m here to tell you why some briefs belong on the page and not in your pants.

If writing for the web has taught me anything, it’s brevity. I’ve always written short poems. In fact, my poems are so small, I could slide them up my legs and wear them like a bikini. My other writing tends to be a bit wordy, more like boxers.

Boxy writing is no good. Luckily, with a few well-placed edits, I can turn my boxy-long pieces into briefs in no time.

Here’s an example of some original text I pulled from one of my many unfinished short stories. I have gone through and crossed out parts that can be eliminated without compromising the integrity of the piece:

Saidra turned her head and took a good hard look up the street. Where were the walkers and joggers that usually passed by throughout the day? She looked the other way. Where were the mommies, with strollers and toddlers in tow, walking their young schoolchildren to their classrooms? She stared straight ahead. Every day, the little old lady across the street came out with her coffee, picked up the newspaper and enjoyed both on her front porch, under a basket of pink and lavendar fuscia. After a quick trip inside, Old Rose, as she was known, always spent the first part of her day tending the garden. Today she was nowhere to be found. The entire street was deserted.

Once I trimmed away the excess, I dressed it up a little, just to make sure it still sounds good and makes sense:

Saidra turned her head and took a good hard look up the street. Where were the walkers and joggers? She looked the other way. Where were the mommies, toddlers in tow, walking youngsters to the nearby school? She stared straight ahead. Every day, the little old lady across the street picked up the newspaper and enjoyed it with a cup of tea on her front porch. Today she was nowhere to be found. The entire street was deserted.

How do you like that? I took this from 119 words down to just 78, and in less than ten minutes. It’s like a strip show for word lovers!

Now it’s your turn. No, you don’t have to take your clothes off. Then again, the weekend’s almost here so maybe you should. You do, however, have to unclothe a piece of your writing.

Pick an poem, story, or blog post that you’ve written. Go through and get rid of words and phrases that aren’t absolutely necessary. Then go through it again, reconnecting everything and rearranging the words that remain so they are tempting and alluring. See how short you’re willing to go.

Or, tackle my paragraph and make it even shorter and show off your skills in the comments section. Come on, I dare you!

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