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

Writing An Alouette

I’ve found it funny how songs about death can be sung within children’s songs… London Bridge Is Falling Down, Humpty Dumpty… what have our children been singing?!

Alouette is one of those songs. A popular children’s tune made popular in the late 1700s, it is a sweet song about a little skylark bird that sings the higher it goes. The lyrics also insinuate killing, cleaning and eating the bird as well. So much for happy little singing birds! 

Observe these lyrics!!

Alouette 

Little skylark, lovely little skylark, 

Little skylark, I'll pluck your feathers off.

I'll pluck the feathers off your back.

I'll pluck the feathers off your back.

Off your back!

Off your back! 

Off your tail!

Off your tail! 

Off your legs!

Off your legs!

Off your wings!

Off your wings!

Off your neck!

Off your neck!

Off your eyes!

Off your eyes!

Off your beak!

Off your beak! 

Off your head!

Off your head!

Little lark!

Little lark!

O-o-o-oh

Little skylark, lovely little skylark, 

Little skylark, I'll pluck your feathers off.

Wow! Talk about heavy!!  Opposites really do make the world go around. The singing.quality of this song allowed for a fine rhythm for French canoeists trapping beaver in the new world. Also, cleaning birds was no strange thing before processed meats of today. The song was also brought back from soldiers serving in France during World War I, and no doubt provided a fine cadence to march to.

An alouette is also considered a poem form made popular by a poet named Jan Turner. The form is simple… It consists of two or more stanzas, six lines each, with a syllable meter of 5-5-7-5-5-7  and a rhyme scheme of a-a-b-c-c-b. A rather simple form, it carries a succinct rhyme that can mellifluous in its flow as well as potent in its brevity.

Consider this poem in the alouette form:

mon petite alouette

skip with me daddy!

we play hopscotch see?

I want you to lift me up!

now you put me down!

I chase the dog round!

oww… I fell and hurt my foot!

is it okay? swing…!

let’s swing on the swing!

you promised you’d play with me…

the suns going down!

you’re never around…

you promised you’d sing daddy!

now put me to bed

worn out and well fed

now aren’t I the cutest sight…?

read me a story 

of bears and porridge

kiss me then whisper goodnight 

©️penned by: m.e.

all rights reserved

Note the proper syllable structure, as well as the simple yet catchy rhyme scheme. When properly applied, this form can be both profound and song like, especially when written with a good hook, like the parental angle I attempted above.

It’s always fun to learn different forms, and the quality potential of this music friendly form makes writing in the allotted style delightful… as long as you are not a skylark not wanting to get plucked!

I hope this article was helpful and thank you for reading!

Matt Elmore

Image from: Wikipedia 

References: 

https://americansongwriter.com/the-meaning-behind-the-murderous-french-lullaby-alouette/

http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/alouette.html