  Poetry
This week: Edited by: larryp
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Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.
~~Walt Whitman
Softly the evening came
~~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The sky and the strong wind have moved the spirit inside me
till I am carried away trembling with joy.
~~Uvavnuk |
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USING PROMPTS
Some contests, present and past, of Writing.com have offered prompts to spur the poets creativity. Prompts are good tools for stirring the imagination, whether they are to overcome a period of ‘writer’s block’ or simply to express how one has been affected by a prompt. Prompts don’t necessarily have to be something seen on a website or in a contest. Prompts come to us everyday, it seems, in some form or another. A beautiful sunset, enjoyed from the kitchen window, is a prompt. Prompts stir creativity in the writer.
They (prompts) can not only get you moving when you’ve ground nearly to a complete standstill, they can also help you supercharge your creative writing to new levels.
Creative writing prompts are simple techniques or sets of words that give you a starting point to write from. They give you that little spark of inspiration, that gentle push forward you need to get your creative writing flowing again.
Those times when you’re sat at a blank page or screen wondering where the next WORD is going to come from, let alone the next complete poem, story or novel.
How motivating are these kind of ambitions and intentions in times like these?
Don’t you find they can actually increase the pressure?
This expectation you’ve put upon yourself actually adds to the feelings of being stuck and blocked?
It’s during these difficult periods you can benefit most from using creative writing prompts.
~~Dan Goodwin
http://ezinearticles.com/?Creative-Writing-Prompts---Supercharge-Your-Creative-W...
Sometimes, we see a picture or read a sentence or a quote that causes deep inspiration or brings back an old memory. We awe over the beauty of the moon over a river at night. We see a picture in our mind that is sparked by the prompt. To bring this picture to the reader, we need to do what fiction writers call ‘showing’ instead of ‘telling.’ In poetry, ‘showing’ is referred to as using “imagery.” The use of imagery is important, especially when using a prompt as inspiration for your poem.
For instance, we “tell” by writing:
The wind was blowing.
But this is merely a statement, which strikes no imagery, no real picture, in the mind of the reader, shows nothing important about the wind. I think that a reader should be able to ‘see’ the prompt you are writing about through the imagery your poem, without seeing the prompt itself. By adding imagery, we bring the wind to life and ‘show’ it to the reader.
We show the wind with imagery:
Gusts of wind, the breath of nature,
rustled through the elm trees.
USING IMAGERY
We speak of the pictures evoked in a poem as 'imagery'. Imagery refers to the "pictures" which we perceive with our mind's eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, and through which we experience the "duplicate world" created by poetic language. Imagery evokes the meaning and truth of human experiences not in abstract terms, as in philosophy, but in more perceptible and tangible forms. This is a device by which the poet makes his meaning strong, clear and sure. The poet uses sound words and words of color and touch in addition to figures of speech. As well, concrete details that appeal to the reader's senses are used to build up images.
A good poet does not use imagery -- that is, images in general -- merely to decorate a poem. He does not ask Himself, "How can I dress up my subject so that it will seem fancier than it is?" Rather, he asks himself, "How can I make my subject appear to the reader exactly as it appears to me?" Imagery helps him solve his problem, for it enables him to present his subject as it is: as it looks, smells, tastes, feels and sounds. To the reader imagery is equally important: it provides his imagination with something palpable to seize upon.
http://litera1no4.tripod.com/imagery_frame.html
Imagery, at its best, isn’t just the background of a poem or a pretty veneer that draws attention from the ‘point’ the poet is trying to made – it can become the fabric of the poem, conveying the essential emotions and ideas. Imagery has the power to evoke and to illustrate, bringing out the response of the readers rather than pounding the expected response into their skulls.
Imagery is language that addresses the senses. It is a very flexible device and doesn’t have a structural formula, like the simile does; rather, anything that conveys sensory detail and shows, rather than tells, can be an image. Imagery deals in the concrete, rather than the abstract.
http://somethingeuclidean.wordpress.com/2007/08/14/imagery/
Examples of two types of imagery:
visual imagery - From "The Widow's Lament in Springtime"
masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red...
(William Carlos Williams)
auditory imagery - From "Dover Beach"
"Listen! You hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
(Matthew Arnold)
The Saraband Sonnet
The poetry form I would like to introduce this month is the Saraband Sonnet.
The Saraband Sonnet is a delightful little sonnet form. In my search, I found only one place that mentioned the Saraband,
http://www.thepoetsgarret.com/2006Challenge/treten.html
The Saraband is based on a musical dance form. The Saraband was originally an Asian dance introduced in Spain in the 1700’s and later in France and Itally.
The Saraband Sonnet has four stanzas, alternating between tercets (3 lines) and quantrains (4 lines). The Saraband Sonnet affords the poet liberty in both rhyme scheme and meter.
Stanzas 1 and 3, the tercets, carry a rhyme scheme of a – x – a . There is two options for the rhyme in the middle lines of the tercets. The middle lines can be omitted from the rhyme scheme, meaning they do not have to rhyme with any other line, or the middle lines of stanzas 1 and 3 can rhyme with each other.
Stanzas 2 and 4, the quatrains, can carry rhyme schemes of [b – b – c – c ], [b – c – b – c ],
[b – c – c – b ], or any combination of the three.
The meter of the poem, in purest form, is tetrameter (8 syllables – 4 iambic or trochaic feet), usually iambic or trochaic meter, but it can also be written in pentameter (10 syllables – 5 iambic or trochaic feet).
Following is a Saraband Sonnet. Notice that the poet Nicola Wynter used iambic tetrameter, did not rhyme the middle lines of stanzas 1 and 3 and kept the same rhyme scheme for stanzas 2 and 4.
Blood Moon
On the deepest night of tears
She comes to follow the one,
Ancient eyes beckon, come near.
Enter your dreams to swallow
Flowing into minds hollow
The alchemy of olden
From yesterdays n'er golden.
Emboldened now, he flies,
Across times planes of astral
To meet the lady that cries.
Under a reddened full moon
Runs a maiden that croons,
Found by noble arms, circled
Around her unlamented.
~~Nicola Wynter
http://www.thepoetsgarret.com/2006Challenge/treten.html
If you create a Saraband Sonnet, you may post it in "Invalid Item" .
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Selected poems from around Writing.com
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Song-poem in dimeter (2 beats to a line) & Ecstasy/Joy theme for Katya's Dew Drop Inn
#1406615 by Joy   |
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Petrarchan Sonnets
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
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The Poetry Newsletter editors appreciate your feedback and comments. Thank you for taking time to read the newsletter.
dkdoulos
This was a great newsletter. I really enjoyed learning about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Petrarchan sonnet. It has inspired me to try my hand at the sonnet. Thank you for all your hard work at putting it together.
Kelly,
I am honored that you enjoyed the newsletter. It was really an enjoyable experience learning about Elizabeth Barrett Browning as I prepared the newsletter.
kansaspoet
Larry
njames51 
Kansaspoet - this pertains to your newsletter from November, 2007. Searching for YEATS in the archives I found you highlighted his beautiful love poem "When You Are Old". Thanks so much for including his work. He is my favorite poet!
Nancy, it was my priviledge. I learn so much by reading the poems of poets like Yeats and Browning.
kansaspoet,
Larry
njames51
Kansaspoet - Thank you for putting the spotlight on Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Her sonnets ARE emotional for me...and the love affair and history of the romance between she and Robert Browning is the classic romance we all strive to have. I really appreciate when the editors of the newsletters highlight the biography of their chosen spotlighted poet. I always want to know their life stories, and how the eras in which they lived affected their writing. Thanks again for giving Elizabeth Browning her day in the Sun. Now, has Yeats been given the spotlight yet? I don't know how to search the archives for a newsletter concerning his life and writings. If he has not yet been given the honor, I hope you will offer some historical information about him.
Great newsletter!!
Thanks for being so faithful to read and respond to the poetry newsletter Nancy.
jaya h 
Thank you for mentioning my entry to the scratch pad activity.
Talk to you soon,
Jaya H.
You're quite welcomed Jaya.
GabriellaR45
Thank you, Larry. Your newsletters are an
inspiration, each one filled with wonderful
advice and fascinating historical info/profiles
of poets as well as excellent instruction. Thank you for the hard work that goes into preparing
this well crafted newsletter each month.
All the best, Gabriella
Thank you for your continued support of the Poetry Newsletter, Gabriella, and for your continual encouragement to me.
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Poetry: June 18, 2008 Issue [#2448]
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