Poetry 101

The basics of poetry.

Poetry has plenty of technical elements to it, but let's skip over those, since you can find those things by searching poetry elements on Google. I'm here to instruct you in the abstract things of poetry, beyond meter and rhyme.

Besides technical elements, there are two things in poetry which make it essential to being poetry, and, though the "conventional" poets may criticize me for it, there are two things: Message, and Form.

Your message is central to your entire work. If your poetry has no message, there is no point to it, so you may as well scrawl SKIP THIS across your work if you have no message.

Your form is a means of enhancing your message. If you are talking about how the world is difficult, don't lay out your point. Make your reader work for it. Be abstract, write in broken verse. If your message is that we are all going to die in the end, maybe you should put your poetry into the shape of a knife. If your message is that people are inherently good, but are corrupted by money, make your text the color of your audience's national currency. If you are writing to expose a wrong that has been hidden under many layers of cover-up, write abstractly at first, and then slowly get simpler and simpler until at the end your point is all but laid out.

Experiment for a while, and if you are a student of this course, I expect to see a couple of poems like this in your galleries soon. Then we'll move on.

Comments

Mark

Posted 14 Years Ago Sorry, Samantha, I can't say that I agree with your philosophy...I am very much old school; I believe it is the interplay of the words that ought to convey the meaning in all its subtleties, rather than their arrangement on the page, or the style or color of the font. But mine is only one opinion, and not the one currently in favor, so i wish the best to you and your students.

Samantha Altrosse

Posted 14 Years Ago Thank you all for reviewing. I'm going to say that right now, as life is picking up a little, and I won't be back on all that much.

Chamil3001

Posted 14 Years Ago Yes, poetry is not a hard thing. But i seriously believe it inherits from the parents or grand parents. Poetry is a feeling; feel it Poetry is a tool; use it Poetry is a technique ; practise it Poetry is a world ; Welcome it..

Shellie

Posted 14 Years Ago I actually also found this very effective and informative. I love the idea of the knife shape. I have used font colour in an old poem of mine well gone from the site now but the readers loved the different colours like blue for sky and green for grass etc so i know thats def effective. This line really spoke to me: If you are writing to expose a wrong that has been hidden under many layers of cover-up, write abstractly at first, and then slowly get simpler and simpler until at the end your point is all but laid out. I like that idea and most certainly will try to apply it to a poem. Cheers.

JohnL

Posted 14 Years Ago Thank you. Interesting and informative - and brief enough to absorb in one bite - therefore, effective. JohnL

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