References and Resources

[Mythos50]

References and Resources For Poets

This is an attempt to preserve some of the references and resources I have come across or have been suggested to me or I have culled from the Poetry threads here at Lit that are about to be lost from 'aging'. They are for all Poets, but especially offered for beginners.

This thread also came about as a result of an unfortunate aspect of the threads at Literotica. It is that, without posts of a certain frequency, the threads slide down the pages into the past and get lost after about a year and 3 months or so later.

The resource sites I have given here I have found to be active as of their posting. There are many more, and there is an enormous wealth of advise from many poets in the threads themselves.

So, here are my humble offerings:

WHAT IS POETRY?
This topic is discussed endlessly on the boards and there is no one statement that all poets can agree upon. However, there are elements of every good poem that all can point to and say this or that had to be there to make the poem work.

One of Lit’s poets, Angeline, says this about poetry (borrowed from another thread):
“For me poetry is about expression and communication. I write because I feel compelled to express myself in writing. I always have, so while I get enjoyment out of a poem where I'm trying to be funny, I'm more satisfied if I feel that I communicated something well. Therefore, I need to think about not what expression or format is most comfortable for me, but what is most likely to capture the reader's imagination and make her feel what I need to communicate.”

Another of Lit’s poets, OT, says he uses his dictionary definition to answer if what he has written is a poem. (Borrowed from another thread) His dictionary says:

“POEM:
1. A verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid and imaginative way, characterized by the use of condensed language chosen for its sound and suggestive power and by the use of literary techniques such as meter, metaphor, and rhyme.
2. A composition in verse rather than in prose.
3. A literary composition written with an intensity or beauty of language more characteristic of poetry than of prose.”

POETRY IN GENERAL
I offer the following sites on the web for your further study:
Poetry Magic

This site speaks about poetry and its many aspects. You can read about writing poetry for pleasure, writing poetry as a means of self-knowledge, as therapy, as a creative writing form and as a serious art form. It gives you traditional, modern, post-modern and experimental poetry forms. It takes you through the steps of creating a poem – theme, word choice, image and metaphor. Plus more.

Another good site is: csmonitor.com (from the thread “Poetry 101—Good Advice”) for tips in making a good poem by Elizabeth Lund, as posted by Angeline.

POETS
For a place to find Contemporary Poets and Poets of each century, Renaissance or Medieval or Classical Poets; for Haiku, Senryu, Tanka, Nursery rhymes, pantoums, sonnets, etc. Check out: About Poetry

Are you looking for a specific Poet? Here is Academy of American Poets site.

This site is an index of poets: Representative Poetry On-line a site in Canada.

This site is an anthology of poets: The Wondering Minstrels

Specific Poets mentioned in threads of poetry boards have been: Notes on Piet Hein and Link to Piet Hein

John Donne Poems and Meditation and John Donne

Poetry of John Brodsky

Shel Silverstein Poems

The First Web Folio of Shakespeare

IMAGERY
This site is good for learning imagery, motion in writing, point of view, metaphor, quatrains, etc. Teachers Guide

RHYTHM
Discussion on rhythmic forms is located here: Discussion by Unmasked Poet

POETRY FORMS
Information on Sonnets with Iambic Pentameter, as Judo is noted for: UConn Iambic and BSU Sonnets and Judo’s own thread Love Sonnets the best I have seen on Sonnets and Critique. Yes, JUDO remains one of the best! Has there ever been a poem she wrote not a 5?

Within JUDO’s thread are references to others: Poetry Bootcamp is one and Sonnet Central is another.

Information on Terzanelle

Information on Haiku, Senna recommends: Heron's Nest and also World Haiku Review

Ghazals: Cordelia is the one to see. She offers this site: Ghazal Form

Triolet: Cordelia is also one to see for this form. Here is her Ghazal poem. This site Poetic Forms:Triolet is written by Conrad Geller. It is worth the read on many levels.

Lipograms: OT wrote: “WOW. I just went here: Eunoia (it took me a minute to figure out that I had to let my mouse hover over the little circles to get the text to appear). Very impressive stuff. Coherent and clever.”

Double Dactyl Form: go to this site: Double Dactyl.

This link goes to Double dactyl posting that Judo has written.

REVISIONS
Revising Your Work? Try this site: Poetry.com and the article Poetic Metamorphosis, Revising Your Work by Kathy Hoeck

- - -

 

[Mythos50]

Need Help With Signature Field?

This appears at the bottom of the each individual posting. The information there comes from your individual Profile page. To get to your Profile, press on:

Step 1. the “User CP” button,
Step 2. then “Edit Profile”
Step 3. then scroll down to the “Signature” field.

You are now at the field that corresponds to the bottom of each post
If you would like a direct link to an ‘ITEM’ do the following:

Note: ‘ITEM’ is a symbol for whatever website or webpage you wish to make a link to. Do not include ‘ITEM’ in your line. If it shows up on your posting go back to the Signature field and delete all of ‘ITEM’.

Step 1. type out ‘ITEM’ below the star line of step 1
Note: I am using < & > here to allow you to see the code. You need to replace arrows < and > with brackets [ and ] facing same direction as arrow in the following steps.

Step 2. add the following to front of ‘ITEM’: <url= so it looks like: <url=‘ITEM’

Step 3. add the following to back of ‘ITEM’: a single > so it looks like: <url=’ITEM’>

Note: ‘ITEM TITLE’ is a symbol for whatever description you wish to appear on the bottom of postings. You need to replace ‘Item Title’ with your own text.

Step 4. add the following to back of bracket: ‘ITEM TITLE’ so it looks like: <url=’ITEM’>’ITEM TITLE’

Step 5. add the following to back of ‘Item Title’: </url> so it looks like: <url=’ITEM’>’ITEM TITLE’</url>

Step 6. click the [color=dark blue]'Submit Modifications' button[/color] at the bottom of the page and now the “LOOK AT MY WRITINGS HERE” or whatever your title is will appear on the bottom of your postings.

Note: getting your member page to appear requires your ID number in the following line:
<url=http://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=xxxxxx>My Humble Stumbles</url> where xxxxxx is your number.

Note: if you get any part of the code or the whole thing appearing on the posting you missed converting a bracket and will need to return to the signature field to correct it.

My Signature field contains the following when you view my postings:
- - - - - - -
I am
Myth. . .
An illusion

My Humble Stumbles

Yours should have its own distinction.

Once Step 6 is completed, go to the last posting you did and “refresh” the screen to see if it takes affect. If not, PM either Lauren or Mythos for help. [color=orange red]Preferably Lauren, she’s never busy![/color]

Mythos

 

[Mythos50]

The following is taken from “The NORTON INTRODUCTION to LITERATURE, POETRY” copyright 1973 in A Preface to Poetry. The author of this preface, J. Paul Hunter, offers the following to readers of poetry. Interesting enough, the poems he offers to use this guide on are To His Coy Mistress by John Donne, and the poem (ponder, darling, these busted statues by e. e. cummings.

I humbly offer the guidelines to both readers and poets, to aid us all in enriching our experiences in poetry.

1. Identify the poem’s situation. What is said is often conditioned by where it is said and by whom. Identifying the speaker and his place in the situation puts what he says in perspective.

2. Read the syntax literally. What the words say literally in normal sentences is only a starting point, but it is the place to start. Not all poems use normal prose syntax, but most of them do, and you can save yourself embarrassment by paraphrasing accurately (that is, rephrasing what the poem literally says, in plain prose) and not simply free-associating from an isolated word or phrase.

3. Articulate for yourself what the title, subject, and situation make you expect. In other words, read the title out loud. Then express to yourself what the title, the subject in the title, lead you to believe the poem is about. Poets often use false leads and try to surprise you by doing shocking things, but defining expectation lets you be conscious of where you are when you begin.

4. Be willing to be surprised. Things often happen in poems that turn them around. A poem may seem to suggest one thing at first, then persuade you to its opposite, or at least to a significant qualification or variation.

5. Find out what is implied by the traditions behind the poem. Verse forms, poetic kinds, and metrical patterns all have a frame of reference, traditions of the way they are usually used and for what. For example, anapest is usually used for comic poems, and if a poet uses it ‘straight’ he is aware of his ‘departure’ and is probably making a point by doing it.

6. Remember that poems exist in time, and times change. Not only the meanings of words, but whole ways of looking at the universe and man’s role vary in different ages. Consciousness of time works two ways: knowledge of history provides a context for reading the poem, and the poet’s use of a word or idea may modify your notion of a particular age.

7. Bother the references and resources at hand. Look up anything you don’t understand, be it a word, a word usage, spelling, meaning, diction, slang, cliché, a place, a person, a myth, an idea. If it is in a poem and you are not sure of it, look it up! I may lead to new discoveries!

8. Take a poem on its own terms. Adjust to the poem; don’t make the poem adjust to you. Be prepared to hear things you do not want to hear. Not all poems are about your ideas, nor will they always present emotions you want to feel. But be tolerant and listen to the poem’s ideas, not only to your desire to revise them for yourself.

9. Argue. Discussion usually results in clarification and keeps you from being too dependent on personal biases and preoccupations which sometimes mislead even the best readers. Talking a poem over with someone else (especially someone very different) can expand the limits of a too narrow perspective.

10. Assume there is a reason for everything. Poets do make mistakes, but in poems that show some degree of verbal control it is usually safest to assume that the poet chose each word carefully; if the choice seems peculiar to us, it is usually we who are missing something. Craftsmanship obliges us to try to account for the specific choices and only settle for conclusions of ineptitude if no hypothetical explanation will make sense.

 

[Mythos50]

On Poetry

From thread New Poems List


Originally posted by Senna Jawa:

"But I don't, I never do. Unless I am dragged into a personal exchange I stick strictly to poetry, to the issues.Strange, but my very first poem was very good. Then my batting average was low for a long time, and went up very slowly. Some of my early poems make me proud today, but majority was poor. This was the result of my conflicting impressions of what poetry is about. I could feel in a few cases that I did well, while reading most of those poems after years made me blush from embarassment. Mercifully, I lost almost all of them (while I wish bad a few more of them survived).

On one hand I had my own deep feeling about poeticity, on the other I tried to understand, learn, absorb, adjust to what I read and saw around me. Of this I did a poor job. It was confusing like this until I discovered the oriental poetry. Then finally I felt a relief and I was able to sort things out.

I had no natural ability. I bothered people around me as much as I could. I was fortunate to always find people around me who had ear for poetry. If two of them, independently, pointed to the same flaw in my piece then I knew that it was something objective. It was not easy to get feedback in the preInternet times. (Hm, Internet is a mixed blessing, you've got to be selective, use your judgement,...).

Clock kicks in (perhaps the biological clock). In the past I was not able to write poems like I do today or recently, while today I cannot write poems as in the past, I cannot recreate my best old poems, I cannot write poems in the style of those from the past.

It is extremely important to have the ability to be deeply ashamed of what you write. When you make a "booboo", you should feel frustrated, you should feel a burning pain.

Whenever you meet a true challange, larger than yourself, you need two wings to overcome it. One wing is confidence. The other wing is FEAR. You cannot fly without the two wings being equally powerful. Imagine that you are writing a computer program guiding a cosmic rocket. If you mess up, your family inside the rocket will never come back, will freeze out out there. One tiny bug bug anywhere in your program is enough to sentence them to death, to kill them. So, be intensive, be confident in your intensity, but have that constant fear in you all the time, the fear which keeps ypu honest. Only then you have a chance for a happy end. And there are no excuses.

The same with a poem. Let FEAR be your companion, let it be the companion of your confidence. Be on guard all the time during the writing process or else you will be happy but your child-poem will be dead.

My reactions to grave blunders in poetry are adequate. It is all within the world of art. It is not about the real life or about people who happened to write those poems. It's only about them as the authors of the particular piece under the consideration. And no more.

For each muscle there should be an opposite muscle of equal strength. Thus, for instance, you should be able both to admire and to be critical. Etc.

Yes, _Land, I was happy to see in several of your poems that you've got poetic talent. But if an author treats deadly errors, which nullify their writting effort as just a minor nothing of importance, if an author feels satisfied because here and there is something interesting in his/her poem, then such an author has no chance to get anywhere. You've got to be sharp. Confident but alert to dangers.In those cases you (and others) have a choice. You can be angry at me or... at yourself. (There is also that ostrich way too ).

Best regards, "

 

[Angeline]

kudos

and thank you for pulling this together, Mythos--it helps to have it in one place!

 

[Mythos50]

Revisions

Revising Your Work? see 1st posting

 

[Mythos50]

Posting Format

From another thread in which Senna Jawa gave us this:

If you are willing to post your poems via the online Literotica editor, then the first thing you may do is to copy the text between the star lines below into the editor's text window:

******************************
<pre><font size="2" face="Courier New"><b>





</b></font>
your name ©

</pre>
********************************

Just replace "your name" by your name.

Then type your poem below the first line ("<pre><font...). All indentations and line breaks will be preserved.

 

[Mythos50]

Threads On Votes

called “1” about votes
voteless poems (a statistical trivia item)

 

[RhymeFairy]

another Bump~

I know ya'll need inspiration...

Could be just me.

 

[RhymeFairy]

Sometimes we all look for things in others words.
I keep coming back to this thread, time and time again.
To help me become a better poet.


I will Bump this one again,
for those who might need a lil push,
like me ...

 

[Jennifer C]

Sometimes we all look for things in others words.
I keep coming back to this thread, time and time again.
To help me become a better poet.


I will Bump this one again,
for those who might need a lil push,
like me ...

Thanks RF...

 

[NspirMe]

8. Take a poem on its own terms. Adjust to the poem; don’t make the poem adjust to you. Be prepared to hear things you do not want to hear. Not all poems are about your ideas, nor will they always present emotions you want to feel. But be tolerant and listen to the poem’s ideas, not only to your desire to revise them for yourself.




I found this Rule to be very useful. Helps me understand a lot more than I did to begin with. I agree, we do hear, see things sometimes we do not agree with. Think that is what poetry is really all about. To see things from a different perspective, dissect it. Regurgitate, then come out on the other side, with a whole new perspective than you started with.

IMHO

 

[Jennifer C]

8. Take a poem on its own terms. Adjust to the poem; don’t make the poem adjust to you. Be prepared to hear things you do not want to hear. Not all poems are about your ideas, nor will they always present emotions you want to feel. But be tolerant and listen to the poem’s ideas, not only to your desire to revise them for yourself.




I found this Rule to be very useful. Helps me understand a lot more than I did to begin with. I agree, we do hear, see things sometimes we do not agree with. Think that is what poetry is really all about. To see things from a different perspective, dissect it. Regurgitate, then come out on the other side, with a whole new perspective than you started with.

IMHO

Thanks NspirMe and welcome to the threads...

 

[Jennifer C]

Bump

such a useful thread...

 

[CharleyH]

Hello and welcome. Well, we all try to keep these types of posts up I think, or so I have been told. It will diminish into obscurity like everything - unless you keep it up.

Nice go Mythos and again - welcome

 

[My Erotic Tale]

8. Take a poem on its own terms. Adjust to the poem; don’t make the poem adjust to you. Be prepared to hear things you do not want to hear. Not all poems are about your ideas, nor will they always present emotions you want to feel. But be tolerant and listen to the poem’s ideas, not only to your desire to revise them for yourself.




I found this Rule to be very useful. Helps me understand a lot more than I did to begin with. I agree, we do hear, see things sometimes we do not agree with. Think that is what poetry is really all about. To see things from a different perspective, dissect it. Regurgitate, then come out on the other side, with a whole new perspective than you started with.

IMHO

If exceptance is the Key to Tranquility, than this type of reading is not from one who can be tranquil. But a constant rearrangement of everything one sees. I for one would like to see a plum-apple tree, but I am happy with apples or plums.

 

[Jennifer C]

Bump