Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations

Method 6: Fake Translations

Now here's a really strange idea for you (They will get even stranger, believe me): If you want to break out of a rut you find yourself in - especially if it's about something creative, like writing poetry - try this on for size. Grab hold of some foreign text - it really doesn't matter what the language is, it simply needs to be a language you are not very fluent in. Also, it doesn't really matter what the subject is about, it just needs to be a foreign language text.

Next, sit down and read it, and try to make sense of what is being said. You may recognise a few foreign words and know their translation. Use that as your starting point as you create your latest poem. Try to guess what is being said. It doesn't matter if you're wrong and the translation is false. That is all part of the fun and creativity of trying to create a poem out of a foreign language text. Language is language, and as we all know in poetry, words can be made to mean what we want them to mean. 

Method 7: Foreign End Rhymes

This is even stranger: Using the same kind of foreign language texts, look for words that appear to rhyme. Use them in your end rhymes in the poems you have already written. Replace the end rhymes you already used with the foreign end rhymes. It may not work, but have a go. You may create something unique and mysterious. It may start a whole new trend in poetry writing!

Have a go, try again, and then try again. The more you attempt these false translation techniques, the more they will begin to make some creative sense to you. 

Steve Wheeler

Image from Flickr used under a Creative Commons Licence

Previous posts in this series:

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness

Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness

This is the second post in my series on experimental poetry. There are many poets who, down through the ages, have tried to push the boundaries of poetry beyond what is expected, and in some cases, what some might consider acceptable. But poetry, as I will keep saying, has no rules. Look at the work of poets such as Ezra Pound, e e cummings and Edwin Morgan, and you will see this is true. 

One of the ways to break out of a poetic rut is to forget all the rules and techniques you already adhere to when you write (Yeah, I know. It's not easy), and just write freely and without any constraints. 

Method 5: Stream of Consciousness is a technique where you simply write (or speak into a recorder) at random, using whatever comes into your mind. Better still, try writing without even thinking - unconsciously.  Perhaps the results will be unusable or gibberish. It doesn't really matter. You are creating something. Just keep writing and do it very fast. Let your mind run away with you. Sooner or later there will be something that emerges that you could never have created by simply sticking to your tried and tested methods. 

This method might result in some really strange and original poetry, but even if it doesn't, the very act of writing freely without thinking too much will loosen you up as a poet, and allow you to exercise and develop your writing agility. Who knows, it might even make you stand out from the poetic crowd!

Steve Wheeler

Photo from RawPixel used under a Creative Commons Licence

Previous Post

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry

Poetry isn't rocket science. Poetry is about emotions, not about scientific formulae. And yet... and yet.... in poetry there are so many wonderful, weird and wacky techniques, it's very difficult to know about them all, or begin to fathom how you might use them. 

Many poets are happy with the way they write. They stick to their tried and tested styles and techniques and go merrily along their way. But if you're like me, you are constantly looking for new ways to express yourself through your poetry. If you're like me, you're always less than satisfied with the way you write and are always on the lookout for ways to stretch your abilities and skills. 

If you are like me, then this is the blog series you've been looking for. In the next (I don't know how many, I really don't) series of blogs I intend to explore experimental poetry in as many of its many colours as possible. And hopefully, you'll come along with me on that journey and push yourself to your poetic limits. So here's the first experimental technique... it's known as found poetry. I wrote about my own experiments in Found poetry in various blog posts including this one. 

Method 1: Open Books. Open up a few books at random, and lay them all around you. They can be books on any subject, including literature, recipe books, science manuals or magazines. Begin to write, and as you write, keep glancing at random at the open books and grab words, lines or phrases you see, and then incorporate them into your writing. It doesn't need to make any sense. Experiment to see the results.

Method 2: Read Out Loud. Find a magazine or other printed text you can tear up, cut up or otherwise vandalise. Begin reading our words, sentences or phrases at random. Record yourself and then listen back to see what sounds (phonics) have been generated. They don't need to make sense. They just need to make an interesting sound.  

Method 3: Blank Outs. Using the same materials above, blank out with white type correction fluid or colour out with a marker pen, or colour with a highlighter pen at random. Watch to see what patterns of words emerge and incorporate them into your latest poem.

Method 4: Cut Up Poetry. Cut out words, sentences and phrases and glue them onto a blank page and watch to see what patterns emerge, before using them in your latest poem. 

Go for it. There are no rules. Just experimentation and possible masterpieces of random, avant garde writing. 

Steve Wheeler

Photo (cropped) from Wikimedia Commons

A Review Of Kenneth Wheeler’s “Inspirations”

Some food is taken in small bites to really savor the flavors and overall complexities of the dish on the palette. I decided to approach the reading of Kenneth Wheeler’s “Inspirations” in this manner. As a result my hope for humanity was fed with all the earthy substance of a hearty steak to the heavenly light satisfaction of clotted cream on scones with strawberry jam.

Kenneth’s many stories of his experiences in the WWII Plymouth Blitz in England, as well as moving his family about, serving in the Royal Air Force for 32 years, only scratch the surface of the man himself. 

Inspirations covers a substantial amount of spiritual ground as a devotional to the power and redemptive healing hope in the works not only of Jesus Christ, but in ourselves as human beings. The potential reconciliation of our spiritual and our earthly existence is put into perspective in poems such as That Night In Gethsemane, Promises, and Dumping Ground. 

These works challenge typical devotions with a most direct yet immensely beautiful poetic approach that is both entertaining and… well… inspirational! This is a book that lives and breathes with every poem!

In Minute By Minute he writes “… it’s what we do with each and every precious moment, once that moment is gone, we can’t recall it, or reuse it. We can’t live again, so what are we doing with all of those precious moments?” He points out half our lives are spent in bed, and the rest is there to draw upon the righteous word of God in order to shine that light for others to see and share.

Kenneth’s voice also spans immensely vivid portraits of his childhood in Plymouth, where locals are known as Janners. He says so much with so little about his beloved late wife in Ascent Love and A Tribute To My Beautiful Ruth with lines like “In my mind I still see your sweet face, The beauty that captured my soul, your hair so perfect, arranged with great care, led me to levels unknown”. This is the heart of a poet!

The gratitude of a humbled human soul steeped in the righteousness and divine commission of the teachings of Jesus Christ permeates every poem of “Inspirations”. It literally boosts the reader up with the hope that there is more to be seen than unseen, as well as so much to be achieved with living a life dedicated in the service of The Lord, family, and the overall world in general.

“Inspirations” takes devotional books to the next level in many ways,  from the appreciation of the NHS (Thursday Night) to cultural commonalities  (There Are No Borders). His poetic pen weaves many a captivating story in poetic prose, always coming back to his unwavering victory through an undying faith.

I’m honored to have been able to review this book. Although I have not talked to Kenneth personally, I have read and admired his poems from afar for some time now. I’m glad his son Steve got him an iPad during Covid… the catalyst for the creation to this book!

I highly recommend Inspirations, not only for it’s delightfully poignant and relatable stories, but for the vast spiritual smorgasbord it provides to manifest hope. It serves a never ending plate of heavenly poetry that keeps the reader coming back for seconds every time. 

Matt Elmore

 

Writing great poetry

Is there a secret to writing good poetry? There are certainly no real rules. Watch Dead Poets Society, where the teacher tells his students to tear out the turgid introduction to 'How to Write Poetry', because it is rule bound, and actually stifles creative expression rather than encouraging it.  

So how do you go about writing a good poem? What is the process by which you end up with verse that is lyrical, beautiful to read, with some emotional impact? 

Well, the clue should be in the three elements I just listed. Let's take them one at a time...

Lyrical - what does it mean? Think of the lyrics in a song (more on this in a moment). Or think of the work of some of the masters of poetic expression. They don't simply say it as it is. William Wordsworth didn't just walk about a bit. He wandered lonely as a cloud (a simile). Dylan Thomas didn't write blandly about death - he raged against the dying of the light (a metaphor). Think deeply about what you are trying to describe and then go the extra mile. Nothing is off the table in poetry. Language can be made to mean what you want it to mean. Experiment, take risks, and write lyrical poetry that gets people thinking. Step out of the rut of the ABAB rhyme and try to colour outside the lines you've imposed upon yourself. 

Secondly, poetry should be beautiful to read. Now beauty is in the eye of the beholder (you can remove it with any eyewash). Essentially, poetry is subjective. Some may love your writing while others might despise it. Most will be fairly ambivalent, so it's up to you as the writer to convince your audience to keep reading. How do you captivate them? Think about the poetry of Paul Simon: 'My eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light, that split the night...' or 'The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls...' and see how he generates a stark urban imagery for his classic song Sound of Silence. There are various devices, tempos, formats and literary techniques you can employ to create atmosphere, tell a story or capture your reader's attention. Many are already presented in previous posts on this blog, so you'd be very silly not to explore them, wouldn't you? 

Finally, emotional impact. Yes, you can write a poem that is devoid of emotions, but such poems tend to be bland and sterile. Most poets have been through some kind of trauma, heartache or sadness in their lives. Write about your experiences, and you'll naturally have emotional impact.  Emotion can also present as joyful, angry or fearful, or a whole range of other expressions. Your poetry doesn't have to be melancholic to have emotional impact. It can be humorous, or it can be quizzical. Whatever you're writing, write it with some passion, and it will naturally have an emotional impact. 

Steve Wheeler

Image source Flickr

Anthology 4

Do you want some good news? Wheelsong Poetry Anthology 4 is now published, and at the time of writing, it is selling quickly across the globe, in all continents. It's already available in softcover (paperback) and hardcover editions and the Kindle e-book version will be with us soon. 

The book contains poems written by 127 members of our Wheelsong family of groups (Invisible Poets, Wheelsong Poetry, Safe Haven and Pure Poetry). The editors reviewed and selected from more than 500 submissions, and selected around 250 poems for the final publication. The process was managed as fairly as possible, where each submission was anonymised in what is known as a double blind peer review (similar to the process used by academic publishers). 

It has, as ever, been a mammoth task to put together a book of this quality. The cover art was designed around a stunning photograph by poet David Catterton Grantz (the church is on Lake Bled in the central European country of Slovenia). There is a wonderful quote inside the first few pages by the former UK Poet Loreate Carol-Ann Duffy. 

Every purchase (whether from Wheelsong Books directly, or via Amazon sites worldwide) will raise £3.00 ($4.00) for a great cause - Save the Children worldwide relief fund. Other worldwide outlets such as Barnes and Noble (USA), Wantitall (South Africa) and Waterstones (UK) will also stock the softcover edition in their online stores.

So, please do get behind this mission of war on poverty by purchasing, promoting, sharing and otherwise helping us to sell as many copies of this splendid book as we can! 

Poetry against poverty!

Steve Wheeler

P.S. All previous Wheelsong Poetry Anthologies are still available to purchase!

Try A Triolet!

It’s not always easy to find inspiration to write poetry. 

Writing is just part of it. There can be devices, terms, forms to consider, and appropriate content to juxtapose in creating something unique. Articles in this blog suggest plenty of these, and I encourage you to seek them all!

It’s not that hard though. Pick a path and go for a walk to see where your mind takes you. 

Triolets are most likely the easiest form to incorporate into your poetry tool belt. However, don’t be fooled… there is a trick to it!

A triolet is a one stanza poem of eight lines with a rhyme scheme of ABAAABAB. The first, fourth, and seventh lines are repeated, as well as the second and eighth lines, making the last couple lines repeat the first couple lines.

Consider this triolet from fellow Wheelsong author and triolet queen Charlene Phare from her book Cobalt Skies entitled Drowning In Flowers!

Mother Nature surrounds

Still drowning in flowers

Silently thoughts compound 

Mother Nature surrounds

Enriched soil in the ground

Delicate rain, showers

Mother Nature surrounds

Still drowning in flowers

The trick to the triolet is making the repeating lines function to accentuate those lines that do not repeat… propping up a central theme. 

This poem’s theme could suggest a loved one being buried, or even suffocating under one’s “natural” ideals. Either way, despite “Mother Nature”s presence, peaceful thoughts, rain, and rich nourishment… there is still a drowning taking place, irregardless of the beauty Mother Nature provides. There is pain here that suggests a number of possibilities.

Triolets can be comical, satirical, or poetic. There is a craft about these poems, a way to weave seams of meaning to create a small tapestry of potent verse, as Ms. Phare has done in her triolet above.

Give it a shot! Try a triolet! It may surprise you what you come up with.

Matt Elmore

The Soul of the Poet

Well, this is interesting... it's an interview I completely forgot I had done for an education magazine called Inspired Creative Minds. I was interviewed about my 'poetry career' by one of Tony Dukeva's students and this is the result (click the image to enlarge it for reading). You can also read the entire magazine online at this link. 

Steve Wheeler

Review Of Shadows Into Light

I was fortunate enough to be able to talk with David Catterton Grantz on the phone before receiving his most recent book, Shadows Into Light. My impression of him as a retired teacher, avid hiker, world traveler and genuine human being reverberated with every poem once I opened the first pages.

From “The Me In You”…

“And I am you, if you could see

The rocks, the streams, the waves;

The clouds that flow and float within,

But you just peer from your dim caves

And toil away your lives, my slaves.” 

David’s ability to filter reality down into a refined essence is evident within his many themes. Poems about dealing with age, translations of purpose from the cosmos, family relations, love sweet love, artificial intelligence, political and religious hypocrisy, and even reflections on writing poetry dazzle throughout. His verses pull no punches. 

He tackles growing older “Says I’ll gladly die if if didn’t hurt; I’d wear deaths tie, I’d iron his shirt; I’d wrestle pigs down into his sty, But pains gonna find you by and by.” (Pains Gonna Find You By And By). On climate change he writes “…for we were made to seek and climb. Into the trees, not whither on the vine.” (Resolved). 

A boy goes to the library to verify some subversive things his Granda told him about religion and life itself in “Things That Grandpa Told”. “AI AI OH!” suggests an artificial intelligence we build that could “initiate the final solution” and destroy humanity.

As a writer, David’s ability to change up the flows of his works captivate the reader. This is a book to learn from. By switching his end rhymes and adding extra lines to extend cadence and emphasize messages, David approaches master levels. 

In “The Seeker” he writes 

“Oh my love we travelled all this way, 

Alone together for a day, 

Seen from just the sand and clay; 

I cannot answer, I can’t comprehend 

What cannot be seen.

Above me hangs the ancient moss,

The measure of the life that I’ve lost,

The life once taut in crystal glints,

Flown on wings of recompense.”

His penchant for appropriating colorful and humorous phrases pepper the book throughout, comparing poets writing poems as “like bees making honey, their purpose resolved”. A line in “Rhyme Of The Ancient Terrier” got me laughing as a poet myself when he wrote “I can’t help wondering as I peruse his stuff, what pith omitted as he sloughs his fluff”.

The experiences of David’s travels are reflected in a number of poems. He interprets the changing landscapes… often only known by those hiking with rucksack resolve, far beyond the convenient approach of roads.

A passage from “Awakening” reads:

“I’m not accustomed to this side of the mountain… but now I plunk the quavering mirror, rippling it into concentric ovals from the matrix below, from whence we come, and hence I go.” 

The takeaway from Shadows Into Light is a restitution of the senses, a reboot into realities often overlooked. So often we do not see what is right before us, or hear what we could be hearing, cloaked in shadows. These shadows could be illuminated by the light of the wisdom of our kin, the pertinent purpose of our involvement in the betterment of our world, or in simply believing in the sweet hope of a new sun rising.

I am honored to know David, and look forward to knowing him better. By reading this book, I believe you can get to know him better as well, and come to respect him as the poet, teacher, and golden soul he really is.

Matt Elmore

AI: Threat or opportunity?

AI is nothing new. I first started experimenting with machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) way back in the early 1980s. The phrase 'Artificial Intelligence' had been coined way back in 1955 by John McCarthy, but many years before this, others had been speculating on, and experimenting with the idea that machines could 'think' or at least mimic human patterns of thought. The entire history of AI can be read at this link. 

In 1966 computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum developed a program that mimicked a psychotherapist. He called it Eliza, and it was probably the first artificial dialogue program (or chatbot) ever created. 

I sit at the nexus between psychology and computer science. As a former associate professor in education I have a professional and personal interest. In 1982 I developed a chatbot based on Eliza's source code which I named Dr Fraud. Essentially, the program analysed whatever you inputted and then spat back an insult or some form of abuse at you. This rapidly became a very popular program with my student nurses (especially the psychiatric nurses), and they queued up to use it. Often you would hear gales of laughter as the student nurses read the rude, but inventive lines the 'psychiatric insultant' chatbot known as Dr Fraud would hurl at them. It was all good fun, and it introduced my students to the idea that not only could they learn from using computers, but that it could be fun, because of the dialogic and interactive elements.

Today of course, AI has developed rapidly from the early forays to the point that it is now a constant news and media item, and everyone seems to be talking about it. Generative AI (G-AI) is built into so many applications we use, from banking and shopping to home use of devices such as Siri, Alexa and smartphones. The popularity of free AI tools such as ChatGPT, DALL-E and Synthesia is transforming the way we create, analyse and disseminate knowledge and content. 

Where poetry is concerned, we can perceive AI as either a threat or an opportunity. Most online poetry groups have banned the sharing of AI generated poetry because in essence it is plagiarism. The AI tool will spider the web for existing poetry texts, steal from them and construct a 'poem' for the user. It takes away from the creativity of poetry and makes a mockery of the process of writing a poem. Why claim to be a poet when all you are doing is pressing a computer key? There are similar arguments from the art, entertainment, literary and music industries who sense the same threat.

What is the alternative perspective? It is this - that in all of the above fields, AI can be used as a starting point, an inspiration or a series of steps toward creating something new and unique. The view is that creativity can be supported and even enhanced through the use of G-AI tools, if used sensibly, ethically and appropriately. 

So for example, could AI be used to prompt an idea for a poetry topic, or to offer a template for a villanelle or a pantoum? Could it be used to suggest s good end rhyme, or as a check for grammatical or syntactic accuracy. How about using it to translate your poem into another language... or as a co-author of your work. Which of these is ok and which is going to far?

The jury is still out. What are your views on the use of G-AI in poetry?

Steve Wheeler

Image from Wikimedia Commons