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 The Good Life. |
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The (Tentative*) Topic Rotation Self Sundays: Personal blogging days about family, leisure, work, and health. May be boring. Music Mondays: Commentary, articles, and links highlighting music, theory, and ed topics. Writing Wednesdays: Discussion on the art and business of writing. "The Bradbury"  Thursdays: A weekly original short story submission.Friday Reviews**: Every Friday, I will review a minimum of one short story on WDC. * I reserve the right to change the topic of the day at any time, at least until I acquire a million followers and gain official "influencer" status, at which point I shall be more consistent in order to meet the expectations of my adoring public. ** I can only commit to one review per week. If you would like your short story to be in my reviewing queue, please send me a WDC review request. Check out my public reviews to get a sense of what to expect.
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| For today's edition of "Writing Wednesdays," I'm opening a discussion on the topic of poetry. Disclaimer I have never claimed to be a poet. As a writer, I consider myself first and foremost an author of long-form fiction (think, novel trilogy and higher.) I recently revised my bio to identify as a "Professional world-builder and prolific author of partially-completed novel drafts." I excel at the partial draft, y'all, but poetry has never really been my bag, baby. Lyrics Maybe surprisingly, given my actual vocation (music teacher, if you don't know), songwriting has taken second place to serial noveling. I do compose music, and I've written original songs with lyrics, most of which I've even performed in public, but lyric creation is not where I derive songwriting pleasure. My muse traditionally speaks to me in chord progressions, melody and arrangement; words are just a necessary piece of the puzzle - the grunt work, even. In fact, I've historically been more inclined to set someone else's words to music so I can skip that part. (Y'all know who you are.  )Change Traditions change. I kicked off my second half of a century on this spinning planet last September and decided I'm allowed to change my mind. I'm not sure how or when it happened, but I learned how to appreciate - and even write - poetry, and lately I've found my muse talking in a new language: the language of imagery, of metaphor, of personification and alliteration. I blame WDC. But for the record, I partially blame WDC for souring me on poetry in the first place. I tread delicately here, because I'm sure some of my readers enjoy writing poetry... The Rub A lot of the poetry on WDC is mediocre.  Where do I get off, saying a poem is mediocre? Especially since I opened this blog post with the disclaimer that I'm not a poet. Do I even get an opinion on the matter? As with everything else in my blog, these are my opinions. As with any review you've ever received from me, take what you find helpful and trash the rest. In fact, pour accelerant over it and toss it in the incinerator for a fun ka-boom. I, myself, have read a lot of poetry on WDC ▶︎, in part because (admit it - you've done it, too) poems tend to be shorter than stories, which is convenient if you're trying to achieve a reviewing goal. And in nineteen years of reading and reviewing content on WDC, I've discovered a few things about poetry - and what makes it good. 1. Poetry is hard. Were you ever an angsty teen, scribbling your feelings in a journal? I was. Sometimes, it rhymed. Sometimes, it included some meter. I probably didn't know a single form back then. I'm not saying form is required. I'm not saying angsty teens can't write amazing poetry. I'm saying that I didn't write amazing poetry. I wrote my thoughts and feelings, usually in stream-of-consciousness form, but divided into lines, which I shoved into awkward rhyme. I'm talking, shoved, like I shove my six-foot knitted scarf into my winter coat pocket: a wadded-up, lumpy ball with loose ends hanging out. See what I did there? That's called imagery. It's also a simile. But you knew that. In my teen journaling days, a poem would be inspired by a single rhyme or assonance with a meter that felt melodious in my head. I would start writing in line and verse form instead of paragraph, and I'd squeeze those rhymes in that broke the meter or sounded really obviously forced. I've learned that you can't write a poem in one sitting. You can't. Poetry has to simmer, and then, actual work is required to compose, tweak, rearrange, throw out that whole stanza altogether, change the theme completely. That's when the wordplay begins. 2. Poetry is clever. You might need to research. Review your list of literary devices - all of them - and find the ones that jump off the screen at you - that's your muse talking. Then brainstorm. Experiment. Add layers. Then add more layers. You might also need to be prepared to kill that darling you desperately don't want to delete, because it's the thing that kicked off the poem in the first place, but sometimes, you have to shut up and do what your muse says. You know deep down that she's right. You just have to find a way to accept it. What I've found on WDC is that there are poems that look like they were written in one sitting with little-to-no simmer time, no extra work or time invested into playing with the words. And there are also brilliant masterpieces. 3. Poetry is like music. The masterpieces are the reason for my change of heart. If it's a true masterpiece, in my opinion, it reads like music. In fact, reading a poem aloud is one method I use to determine its brilliance. That might not jive with everyone because poetry is art. By definition, art is subject to interpretation. You could love something I think is just awful, and vice versa. But there are elements of poetry that make it poetry and not some other art form, and I feel like the rhythm of a poem, the music of it, is one of the critical elements. Conclusions Writing poetry isn't as unfun as I thought it might be. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what makes poetry poetry. Examples would be great. You're also welcome to debate my strong opinions on the subject matter.  |
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