The Poetry Course

I was stumbling through the college grounds

On a day, eight months ago,

It was wintertime, in a fading light

And the ground was covered with snow,

I was there for a course of literature

Set up by Professor Burke,

They said that he had all the answers, then,

To the Poets, and all of their work!

 

I’d never read too much poetry

What I had went over my head,

I thought there was too much imagery

To understand what they said,

The class was small, I sat by the wall

And tried to avoid his frown,

Whenever he asked a question

I was afraid that he’d put me down.

 

I didn’t know anyone else in there

I was feeling bereft, alone,

But one of the students that sat by me

Had a face that was set in stone,

He was shrunk right down in his overcoat,

And he sat there, stroking his mo,

So after the class, I followed him

And he gave me a brief: ‘Hello!’

 

I can’t ever say that we were chums,

He was far too quiet for that,

We’d wander together, lost in thought

And I was the one to chat,

He’d answer me with a short ‘Hurrumph’,

Occasionally answer: ‘Hah!’

And often he’d sound almost profound

With a short and considered: ‘Bah!’

 

The only time that he came to life

Was when Burke was discussing Rhyme,

Burke curled his lip at the thought of it,

And said: ‘It’s a waste of time!’

My friend sank down in his overcoat

And he gave out a funny sigh,

With Burke extolling the free-form art

Of the moderns, and told us why.

 

He tore up Coleridge: ‘Christabel,

Is just an unfinished dream,

And Wordsworth, him and his leeches - Well!

It seems to me quite obscene!’

He massacred Noyes and his ‘Highwayman’,

And Kipling he threw in the bin;

‘‘The Raven’ is boring, it’s much too long

And the rest of his stuff, just spin!’

 

Exams were held on a frosty night

With a hell of a fog outside,

My friend was down and dispirited,

But he wrote with a quiet pride,

The final question on rhyme was set

On ‘The Raven’ - give a critique!’

I think he would still have been writing there

If we’d had ‘til the end of the week!

 

The marks came back in a day or two,

I’d scrambled through with a pass,

My friend walked off on his own that night

His shoulders were hunched at the last,

I never ran into him after that,

He’d said, ‘I’d better just go!’

The marks for ‘The Raven’ had let him down,

They’d flunked Edgar Allan Poe!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[poeticpiers]

What annoys me is the experts who claim to know what the poet really meant.
Poets write about life as they see it in their environment in their time.
Experts are invariably totally wrong in their opinions but merely pass on what some other expert has said. What you or I write into a poem will not be read in the same way by two readers. Readers relate to their own life experiences and some times astonish the writer with their interpretations

[Erin Thomas]

Exactly. That is why there is no science or math to poetry. It is not exact or precise, it is whatever the write makes it which will be different to the reader!

[Dinesh Sairam]

The problem is, they should start teaching children prosody and meter at a young age, and not only rhyme. In fact, meter is the music of the poem and is very important to them than rhyme.

Kids who grow up with reading just rhymes seem to think that free verse or non-rhyming verse is more 'mature'. Bullshit, I say.

[Tate Morgan]

Ill second that.More mature could easily equate to lazy.To create a rhyming metered verse Is extremely hard .If it were easy everyone would do it.It is exactly that tribulation that makes it special ,that makes a verse sentient.

[BlackRose]

I so agree with these others here. It's your poetry and how you write it. How you want it to read and be read by others. It's your style, being you and not someone else. I have had some critique mine to the hilt, I still knowing it's just as good as anyone elses. And we don't expect everyone to like our works or everyone one of them or anyone else to expect it either for that matter but it's the many many others that like them that will that will count and keep us going strong. I have read many and your poetry so far is one of the very few that I can rave about. LOVE LOVE your work.

[Extant]

There is something primal and relatable in rhyme that cannot quite be found in free verse. I mean, string of consciousness is amazing, but how can anyone tell if someone thinks or doesn't think in verses that may or may not rhyme?
I'm not personally a fan of Poe, but Kathleen Millay is one of my favourite poets who I could read non-stop and she rhymed nearly everything she wrote. With rhymes we find a connection, a pattern that we can follow through the massive amounts of imagery. With free verse one can almost become discouraged by the lack of luster.

[Dr. Wood ?]

Yeah, hooray for the rhyme. I have been battered for writing rhyming verse, so much so that I even rewrote a few of my limericks in blank verse...just to prove my point that Rhyming has a definite place in poetry...it always has and it always will. The blank verse limericks by the way were simply NOT funny. Goodbye to thee...Mr. D L P

[Erin Thomas]

I have recently been trying to discover what poetry actually is. I found out that it is indescribable and that's what makes it beautiful. This poem is perfect! Poetry is about being ourselves and expressing what we think and feel. The greats in history were often misunderstood but impacted our world in many ways. This is fantastic!

[Leigh]

Big is beautiful

[caesarkreshen]

most poetry rhymes it just doesn't end rhyme or exact rhyme.

[...]

Sir, you never cease to amaze me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ceri]

This is exactly what put me off poetry for so long, and off literature for that matter. Why is it so wrong to enjoy poetry that rhymes? Literature that entertains? Why should everything be a million miles deep, when it means nothing to me? Ah, pretension. It takes all the fun out of it. I love this, by the way.

[Lumière Dé..]

Wonderful as always :) I loved the ending.

[Droll Prole]

That was fun to read, I love rhyming poetry, it's more challenging to write than free-form poetry.