A list of technical do-s and don't-s

• Avoid pronouns. They carry no poetry.
• Avoid artificiality, e.g. phony mystery effects; be authentic all the time.
• Use words with the narrowest range of meaning, which describe exactly what you mean, and exclude everything else (as much as possible). Thus use proper synonyms. Don't be lazy, use dictionaries and thesaurus. Instead of two words use one. Instead of a long and strange word use a short, common word.
• Use adjectives only as information, never as opinions.
• Don't have ad hoc anthropomorphisms in your poems.
• Avoid local metaphors.
• Juxtapositions and diagonal kennings are preferable to similes and local metaphors.
• Try to turn kenning extractions into diagonal kennings; most of the time the poem will gain.
• Leave the logic and explanations to the reader. E.g. don't write that "he did it so that nobody will see..." or "B happened because earlier A happened"--write "A. B." instead.
• Be utmost precise on the lowest, material level of your poem; don't worry about any precision on the higher, idea level; don't force the reader to think exactly what you are thinking (it's not important what you are thinking).

(I'll continue) (or not).

Senna Jawa said:

• Avoid pronouns. They carry no poetry.
• Avoid artificiality, e.g. phony mystery effects; be authentic all the time.
• Use words with the narrowest range of meaning, which describe exactly what you mean, and exclude everything else (as much as possible). Thus use proper synonyms. Don't be lazy, use dictionaries and thesaurus. Instead of two words use one. Instead of a long and strange word use a short, common word.
  [*]Use adjectives only as information, never as opinions.
• Don't have ad hoc anthropomorphisms in your poems.
• Avoid local metaphors.
• Juxtapositions and diagonal kennings are preferable to similes and local metaphors.
• Try to turn kenning extractions into diagonal kennings; most of the time the poem will gain.
• Leave the logic and explanations to the reader. E.g. don't write that "he did it so that nobody will see..." or "B happened because earlier A happened"--write "A. B." instead.
• Be utmost precise on the lowest, material level of your poem; don't worry about any precision on the higher, idea level; don't force the reader to think exactly what you are thinking (it's not important what you are thinking).

(I'll continue) (or not).

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A single line such as, "the beautiful city skyline," leaves me cold. A person wanting to write poetry could write a whole poem just to describe that skyline so that the reader actually comes away with an image and the feeling that the skyline is beautiful.

A thing I notice that distracts me is the use (or overuse) of conjunctions, as though the writer's trying to make the writing flow as smoothly as normal speech — if, and, or, but, etc.

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Senna Jawa said:

• Avoid pronouns. They carry no poetry.
  

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I don't agree with the this one. I like the he-she play that pronouns quickly allow you to create.

Good list. Two comments.

Senna Jawa said:

• Avoid artificiality, e.g. phony mystery effects; be authentic all the time.

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Can you clarify this a bit? Sounds about as concrete as "avoid bad writing" to me. I think I see what you're aiming at, but not quite.

Instead of two words use one. Instead of a long and strange word use a short, common word.

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True for most poems. But the long, wordy and stange can be the right word, depending on what effect you want with the text.

Liar said:

Good list. Two comments.

Can you clarify this a bit? Sounds about as concrete as "avoid bad writing" to me. I think I see what you're aiming at, but not quite.

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There are many examples. Off hand I'll mention two. Certain poem was all the time about expecting someone. At the end we learn that it is about a miscarriage. A true drama was replaced by a small trick, perhaps with the intention of enhancing the drama. The poem would be actually stronger if the situation was simply presented from the beginning, and the drama of the text would dependent on the straight descriptions of the expectations and of the sad, depressing, final disappointment. A poem is for poetry, not for drawing an extra hidden ace from your sleeve.

Another poem was truly awful. It had a rare word in its title which was already a trick. Then it described a hospital scene, with a woman in bed, and hospital stuff around her. The text was making idiotic, dirty, pornographic allusions. At the end it was clear (if you understood the title) that it was about delivering a child. It was simultaneously a puerile and disgusting text at the same time.

In general, don't introduce a suspension based on the difference between the author and the audience with respect to the knowledge about the described scene. If it was not a suspense to the author, i.e. if it is not a true suspense in the scene itself, then it is a cheap trick, which lowers the poetic value of the poem (while authors think the opposite, that it adds). Often, when you strip away this kind or other tricks then nothing is left of the text, and there would be no poem. Thus authors think that these tricks are good. But no, there truly is nothing in such texts, there is no poem, only a cheap illusion of a poem (in the author's mind, and in the mind of people who have no clue about poetry).

Now you comment on my remark about short expressions:

True for most poems. But the long, wordy and strange can be the right word, depending on what effect you want with the text.

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This kind of statements (about short expressions) are only statistical. Like a tennis coach may advice you to avoid shots like the one with which you have just scored a point, saying: this kind of shots have low probability; avoid this kind of risk. But yes, there are situations to which such rules don't apply.

One source of exceptions appears when you use someone's voice (but don't overdo it). Your character can say or do all kind of things. In particular, a snobbish character may use overly sophisticated and/or scientific words, grammar, etc. Another source of exceptions is when the goal of a phrase is not so much its meaning as its sound or melody or mantra effect. Or perhaps you are after a surrealistic, nonsensical effect. Etc.

Regards,

Such lists are guides and not definitive because some genius will come along and prove all the list to be wrong. Maybe not on lit though.

No time for long replies. I'm off for my usual one shot christmas shopping spree. Just wanted to say thanks to senna for the explanation.

And I'm out.

Jingle bells, and such, to you all.

bogusbrig said:

Such lists are guides and not definitive because some genius will come along and prove all the list to be wrong. Maybe not on lit though.

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ROFL
I am that fucking genius...

except I don't know WTF is a local metaphor.

I, the great killer of birds
at the base of Giewont

This had the potential to be a very interesting thread but died too quickly.

Yes, I'm checking out S.J.'s old threads.

Originally Posted by Senna Jawa
Avoid pronouns. They carry no poetry.

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FifthFlower said:

I don't agree with the this one. I like the he-she play that pronouns quickly allow you to create.

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I tend to use he/she quite a bit. I do try to eliminate the unnecessary ones. But I'm comfortable with a certain amount of pronouns.

Senna Jawa said:

• Avoid pronouns. They carry no poetry.
• Avoid artificiality, e.g. phony mystery effects; be authentic all the time.
• Use words with the narrowest range of meaning, which describe exactly what you mean, and exclude everything else (as much as possible). Thus use proper synonyms. Don't be lazy, use dictionaries and thesaurus. Instead of two words use one. Instead of a long and strange word use a short, common word.
• Use adjectives only as information, never as opinions.
• Don't have ad hoc anthropomorphisms in your poems.
• Avoid local metaphors.
• Juxtapositions and diagonal kennings are preferable to similes and local metaphors.
• Try to turn kenning extractions into diagonal kennings; most of the time the poem will gain.
• Leave the logic and explanations to the reader. E.g. don't write that "he did it so that nobody will see..." or "B happened because earlier A happened"--write "A. B." instead.
• Be utmost precise on the lowest, material level of your poem; don't worry about any precision on the higher, idea level; don't force the reader to think exactly what you are thinking (it's not important what you are thinking).

(I'll continue) (or not).

Click to expand...

Senna, if you get a chance, will you please give as many examples as possible.

Senna Jawa said:

[*]Don't have ad hoc anthropomorphisms in your poems.

[*]Juxtapositions and diagonal kennings are preferable to similes and local metaphors.

[*]Try to turn kenning extractions into diagonal kennings; most of the time the poem will gain.

Click to expand...

OK, Senna! I admit that I am a public school grad. Can you explain this is terms I can understand?

(If you purpose was to get me to spend the last hour reading a variety of dictionaries, trying to decipher your meaning, you were successful )

Ought not we rename this thread Poetry 301? This is a better poetry course than I have ever had. Conducted by a poet--a cranky one, but so spot-on correct. Besides what poet isn't cranky some time or other.

I hope every poet wannabee who follows the PF&D lurks here. We'll all get better.

Thanks, SJ

Liar said:

Good list. Two comments.

Can you clarify this a bit? Sounds about as concrete as "avoid bad writing" to me. I think I see what you're aiming at, but not quite.

True for most poems. But the long, wordy and stange can be the right word, depending on what effect you want with the text.

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True for most WRITING.

Liar said:

Good list. Two comments.

True for most poems. But the long, wordy and stange can be the right word, depending on what effect you want with the text.

Click to expand...

True for most WRITING.

Safe_Bet said:

OK, Senna! I admit that I am a public school grad. Can you explain this is terms I can understand?

(If you purpose was to get me to spend the last hour reading a variety of dictionaries, trying to decipher your meaning, you were successful )

Click to expand...

I've been trying to figure out that kennings stuff for five years. The only time I'd ever heard of it was in relation to Beowulf.

I'm a public school grad, too.

Senna Jawa said:

• Leave the logic and explanations to the reader. E.g. don't write that "he did it so that nobody will see..." or "B happened because earlier A happened"--write "A. B." instead.
• Be utmost precise on the lowest, material level of your poem; don't worry about any precision on the higher, idea level; don't force the reader to think exactly what you are thinking (it's not important what you are thinking).

(I'll continue) (or not).

Click to expand...

These two points are particularly worthwhile.

(as an aside, I have immense respect for Senna's knowledge. I believe he knows that, otherwise he wouldn't put up with my occasionally swatting him on the butt, like I do)

Give the reader some credit; don't explain everything; just provide the images.
I wish I lived by this even more often, but one thing I often find myself telling people is not to insult their readers' intelligence. Let me figure it out for myself, what it all means.

And the part about "it's not important what you are thinking" is also very true, if oddly phrased. Of course it's important what you intend, but once you let a poem go, it's going to form its own relationships with readers, and you have to let go and let people understand things from their own viewpoint.

There's also this. I really like Babette Deutsch's definition of poetry: a poem cannot be paraphrased without injury to its meaning. I have always taken that to mean that I must be able to defend every single word choice in a piece, as the absolute best word for that place.

That's one of the reasons I have such trouble with rhyme. Sometimes it's well, I'd have liked to use this other word, but it didn't rhyme. So it's harder to put it to my standard test.

Senna Jawa said:

A poem is for poetry, not for drawing an extra hidden ace from your sleeve.

Regards,

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I know this is terribly colloquial, but really, the best choice of response I can use for this sentence is slang from the hood:

WORD.

bj

[*] Careful editing makes a brillant poem. Don't skip it or overdo it.