Saying hi to the poets here.

[LaRascasse]

Hi,

I've been lurking around this place for a while now, fascinated by the poetry.

I have written 25 stories here and now would like to write my first poem. This is completely uncharted waters as far as I'm concerned.

Throughout high school (just 3 years ago, now that I think about it), I loved poetry, particularly the Romantic poets like Keats and Shelley. Endymion by Keats is my absolute favourite, closely followed by Tithonus. I want to write poems along those lines, weaving a story in rhyme and meter.

Any advice from the experienced poets here would be most welcome.

 

[bronzeage]

It's not written until someone can read it. Get something on paper(metaphorical paper, it must be recorded if you want to share it with more than the people within earshot).

 

[champagne1982]

Hi,

I've been lurking around this place for a while now, fascinated by the poetry.

I have written 25 stories here and now would like to write my first poem. This is completely uncharted waters as far as I'm concerned.

Throughout high school (just 3 years ago, now that I think about it), I loved poetry, particularly the Romantic poets like Keats and Shelley. Endymion by Keats is my absolute favourite, closely followed by Tithonus. I want to write poems along those lines, weaving a story in rhyme and meter.

Any advice from the experienced poets here would be most welcome.

Welcome to the PoBo, LaRascasse and welcome to narrative poetry as well. I'm guessing you have many stories to tell but now want to set them up as minstrel tales and lessons. This is not terrifically hard to do; just more difficult to do well, in my opinion.

Your first step is to work out whether you want to write an epic or a ballad; maybe something along the lines of Suess, Service or as you said - Keats' Endymion. To start, I try to establish atmosphere first, then setting, and as the tale progresses, introduce characters and plot, next comes the climactic event, followed by resolution and conclusion. Not much unlike a story, nu?

Condense all the words you would give us in prose, make each line give us a fact and break on either a verb or a noun word but try not to end-stop on every line, instead run your sentence across those breaks so that when read with punctuation, the rhyme disappears gently and the entire piece turns into a pleasant, rhythmic narrative that would be fun to speak.

Get a sense of rhythm by reading those poems of Poe, Service and Suess (but to mention a few) that are set up as spoken word poems and are pleasing to recite. This will get your metrical language rocking and then start writing. Don't worry about syntax at first, unless you find that you're slipping into the passive voice more often than not. Editing such a poem is a nightmare and very frustrating since you have to change almost all of the rhymes to suit a more direct style.

Search out great rhymes in a thesaurus or rhyming dictionary but if you can't find the perfect word pairs then discard that particular phrase in favour of another that conveys your ideas as well or better, along with the bonus that you can find a wonderful rhyme!

So I'm advising that you READ, practice, READ, READ and READ some more. Inspiration comes not from waiting but by heading out and finding some.

Take care

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Hello LaRascasse. Thanks for saying hello, Lurker! Welcome. Jump on in on one of the challenges if you're ready to get your knees wet, too.

 

[LaRascasse]

Thanks for the warm welcome. Maybe a sample of my (as of now terrible) poetry will help. I wrote this poem as an ending to one of my stories. It is supposed to convey loss and longing of a lover.

"Our moments together sustain me,
All night till the day is dawning.
Your memory gives me strength
To get up and face the morning.

I must go now, love.
Face the new day and my sorrows.
But for one more yesterday with you,
I would gladly give up all my tomorrows."

Yes, I do realize I have violated the metrics and syllabic structure in my pursuit of rhyme, but I would like your opinion on this. I am writing a long-ish blank verse as we speak. Should be done soon enough.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Thanks for the warm welcome. Maybe a sample of my (as of now terrible) poetry will help. I wrote this poem as an ending to one of my stories. It is supposed to convey loss and longing of a lover.

"Our moments together sustain me,
All night till the day is dawning.
Your memory gives me strength
To get up and face the morning.

I must go now, love.
Face the new day and my sorrows.
But for one more yesterday with you,
I would gladly give up all my tomorrows."

Yes, I do realize I have violated the metrics and syllabic structure in my pursuit of rhyme, but I would like your opinion on this. I am writing a long-ish blank verse as we speak. Should be done soon enough.

I do think you would have been better without the gerunds (says she considering what is written by my profile pic!) i.e

Moments together sustain me,
All night till the day will dawn.
Your memory gives me strength
To get up and face the morn.

 

[Angeline]

Thanks for the warm welcome. Maybe a sample of my (as of now terrible) poetry will help. I wrote this poem as an ending to one of my stories. It is supposed to convey loss and longing of a lover.

"Our moments together sustain me,
All night till the day is dawning.
Your memory gives me strength
To get up and face the morning.

I must go now, love.
Face the new day and my sorrows.
But for one more yesterday with you,
I would gladly give up all my tomorrows."

Yes, I do realize I have violated the metrics and syllabic structure in my pursuit of rhyme, but I would like your opinion on this. I am writing a long-ish blank verse as we speak. Should be done soon enough.

Hi and welcome. And good for you posting a poem here! All of us have been where you are, and we know it's a brave thing to post one's first poem here.

I wouldn't call your poem "terrible." That's such a subjective descriptor. I think your poem reflects that you haven't written much poetry, and who can fault that? We all gotta start somewhere. It also reflects (imho) your interest in Romantic poets. To me, that says you are on the right track, reading poetry that appeals to you and experimenting, based on what you've read, in your own writing. If you keep reading (and I'd recommend diversifying the kinds of poems you read: explore even those poems or poetic styles that you don't like at first) and writing every day, you will be amazed by how quickly you'll improve.

Also, as you may have observed, we love to adopt new poets who seem to be making a sincere effort to learn and improve. (The ones who are just here for praise get short shrift cause who wants to invest time in that?) So feel free to ask questions and remember there are no stupid questions when you're simply trying to learn.

I'm intrigued by the fact that you're thinking about verse and meter and you're writing in a traditional form (blank verse), rather than just free-styling it. There is a verrry entrenched argument here about traditional forms versus free verse. Some people just hate form poetry and eschew it. They feel that the forms are the equivalent of Latin: dead. Others (myself included) see writing in traditional forms as a valuable learning tool. I think it helps build poetic discipline, forcing one to find just the right word or sound or meter, and that gets one thinking more analytically about poetry overall. I also believe (and Tzara is a master of this) one can marry traditional forms with modern themes and language and have beautiful results, i.e., great poetry. But the form haters don't see it that way.... Personally I've always written both form poetry and free verse all the time. I like that balance and I'd recommend it especially if you are writing every day.

Good luck and keep asking questions.

 

[Tzara]

I do think you would have been better without the gerunds (says she considering what is written by my profile pic!) i.e

Moments together sustain me,
All night till the day will dawn.
Your memory gives me strength
To get up and face the morn.

Actually, I think only "morning" is a gerund. "[D]awning" is a present participle and part of a verb phrase (which is in turn part of an adverbial phrase).

I kind of like the original better--"dawning" and "morning" is a kind of elegant slant rhyme--but it's a matter of personal taste.

 

[Tzara]

Thanks for the warm welcome. Maybe a sample of my (as of now terrible) poetry will help. I wrote this poem as an ending to one of my stories. It is supposed to convey loss and longing of a lover.

"Our moments together sustain me,
All night till the day is dawning.
Your memory gives me strength
To get up and face the morning.

I must go now, love.
Face the new day and my sorrows.
But for one more yesterday with you,
I would gladly give up all my tomorrows."

Yes, I do realize I have violated the metrics and syllabic structure in my pursuit of rhyme, but I would like your opinion on this. I am writing a long-ish blank verse as we speak. Should be done soon enough.

The first stanza is actually perfect (as I hear it) accentual trimeter. It isn't iambic, or accentual-syllabic, but some forms are not. (Dana Gioia has an interesting article about accentual verse here.)

If you want to write a narrative kind of formal poetry, you might want to consider using accentual verse rather than blank verse. Blank verse is very hard to do well--i.e., to make it sound natural. Most poets trying to write it (or any kind of regular metrical line) end up sounding kind of singsong because they force the line to be too metrically regular. Accentual verse gives you a little more leeway.

For example, take a look at Elizabeth Bishop's poem The Burglar of Babylon. The poem is a modern ballad (though in uniform trimeter to my hearing instead of alternating four and three beat lines). It's a good example of writing a longish narrative in form.