Poetry 101

If you have a poem and want it evaluated by me, [shadow_of_life], or other people, post it on Poetry critique and commentary.



If you're not a student here, but want to jump in, read the intro and then sign up. To use a Swedish expression: "Where there's heart-room, there's butt-room." Hmm, it works better in Swedish.

Archived lessons:
1. Poetry introduction
2. Grammar in poetry  
3. Rhyming in poetry

 
Students:
[MissTricky]
kriss [Love Is Just A Catchphrase]
[Lozzenger2] I want homework! :D
[Lethe]
[Astaldoiâ]
[Dil*] ^_^
[Doormat]
[blood soaked madin]"I love a little poetry after supper" -'moulin rouge'
[Naraxa]
(Just enter your name here if you wish to take the class)



Hello to everyone, I am [shadow_of_life] and I am the new teacher in this class. You can call me Gerry – I will throw in all that I’ve got in order to teach you the many and interesting ways to write poetry along with other helpful information.

If you want your poetry discussed or need some constructive criticism, I’ll never say “no” to you – just submit it in the Poetry critique and commentary and will evaluate it. And now the Poetry 101 class has officially been reopened!! 

General Review

From what my predecessor, [Aristotle], has taught you I assume that you have grasped the general idea of grammar and the systematic aspect of what we usually call poetry. The introduction lesson also covers the basic poetry definition. This is a good start, because you will have a general notion of the specifics of artistic language when we study it more thoroughly.

But as this is a beginners’ class, we cannot start without explaining some things that you might already know. Many of them have already been mentioned, but I wanted to add some information to what you have already learned.

Semantic of the word "poetry":
Before throwing you in a pool of semi-understandable long words (which I hope we can avoid) I believe we should clear out WHAT exactly is poetry – I know everyone has heard of it, but rarely people wonder what “poetry” actually means.

“Poetry” comes from the Greek word “poieo”, which means “to create” – so, before all, poetry is a creative art and every single one of you people, being in this class, is a creator.

You should never forget this – writing poetry is something deep and inspired from within you, and that’s why it hardly ever works if you don’t put some feeling in it. One of its most apparent characteristics is that poetry is emotional and subjective – it expresses emotion and a personal opinion.


Expression and style:
Every piece of poetry is different just as people are different – every poet has a style, a preferred form of writing, a preferred language, and even preferred words - and this is called style.

It is something that develops through practice and experience, trough experiments and failures. Style is what makes you poets, not people who copied somebody else’s idea. Many ideas have already been thought of – but only you can express yourself in that specific way that nobody can copy.


Relativity of the rules in poetry:
You should know that writing poetry is a very fluid matter and you are often permitted to play with words and grammar rules as you have seen from the Shakespeare example in Grammar in poetry – changing the stress of a word or even subtracting syllables is a common thing – the reason is that in poetry expression and rhythm sometimes have higher priority than grammar.

Some poems are written to be read aloud, some are fully understandable only when written and some are neither – and this is all because of the way the poem sounds.

There are cases in which poetry has been written without words – or should I say with no understandable words. The poet has made it so personal that he invented his own language – if you have read “Alice in Wonderland”, you’d know. If you haven’t - well, I strongly recommend it to you.

And last, but not least, you should know that even rhyming isn’t obligatory for poetry – you can rhyme just every once in a while, or not rhyme at all, as long as you watch for the syllables and the emphasis in order to create the right atmosphere.

There isn’t (and there has never been) a theme that couldn’t be written of – everything is a subject, every format is a format and the cliché is nothing more that overused ideas and formats.


Conclusion:
As a conclusion for today’s lesson I would like to explain the reason I started with such simpe theory – I want you to learn to improvise and experiment with your language and imagination. That is the way to discover your own style, the genre that suits you etc. You have all the inspiration it takes - these classes are for guidance and general knowledge that will most definitely prove useful in your poetic realisation.



Homework:
That’s why I’m giving a rather extraordinary homework to you – I want every single one of you to write a poem that is nothing we’ve seen – go crazy, invent new words, shape it in a new way, twist and play with the matter – post your works in the Poetry critique and commentary, where we will discuss every piece you’ve submitted. There is no length limit. And the theme is … FOOD! I promise I will do my best to give your poems a proper analysis and I am going to reward the best with a pretty little badge.



Time and theme of the next lesson:
The next lesson will be held next Monday (on 05.02.2007) and will be entirely dedicated to the different types of rhyme – syllabic, syllabotonical, tonical and many others. It is a very important lesson, so be prepared. Should you have any questions on the matter, please post your questions after the lesson or just send me a message, I’ll reply as soon as I can.



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