Poetry 101

I thought i'd share some of links that have helped me a lot in understanding poetry.

Is it prose or poetry -
http://poemtree.com/articles/PoetryOrProse.htm

Rhythm, meter and scansion made easy -
http://server.riverdale.k12.or.us/~bblack/meter.html

A Look at Scansion Methods -
http://poemtree.com/articles/Scansion.htm

What is metre?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_(poetry)

In English poetic feet are limited to six: iamb; trochee; spondee; dactyl; anapest; and pyrrhic.
http://www.expansivepoetryonline.com/journal/prospart2.html

Im just in the beginning stages of studying and learning poetry.

Please share your best tips.

Also: http://www.howmanysyllables.com
http://www.thesaurus.com

Have you ever read Stephen Fry's "The Ode Less Traveled"? It's basically "Writing Poetry 101", it'd be a good companion to this.

Cool links, though I don't think much of "how to" writings on poetry. I suppose you can study the forms and all but at its roots poetry takes a bit more in you than knowing how to make forms. I would say that's true for every art, too. It's all human expression and that takes flesh, not texts.

But still - these can be good for reading up on forms and such.

I'm glad you made this thread, theswedisheditor, as I'm in a similar position. I've tried to "get into" poetry a couple of times, but I usually find it difficult to decipher the meaning in the poem or even differentiating between good or bad poetry (ee cummings' poem "anyone lived in a pretty how town" left me thinking wat).

Anyone got any tips/"beginner poetry" (if such a thing exists)?

beardedtit wrote:Anyone got any tips/"beginner poetry" (if such a thing exists)?

If you're looking for a clear, straightforward style, I can recommend Philip Larkin.

High Windows, by Philip Larkin

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he’s fucking her and she’s
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That’ll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

perkunas wrote:Cool links, though I don't think much of "how to" writings on poetry. I suppose you can study the forms and all but at its roots poetry takes a bit more in you than knowing how to make forms. I would say that's true for every art, too. It's all human expression and that takes flesh, not texts.

But still - these can be good for reading up on forms and such.

I'm sorry but I hate these statements. They are just so uninformed.

You study scansion and form so you can get a closer understanding of the poem such as the poet wanted his poem to be read. You follow the rules to get into his mindset. He knows that you should know them - and follows them accordingly.

This explained very well in the essay I linked.

Also you'll come to understand the choices the poet made when he wrote and you'll be awed that he or she managed to describe a complex feeling in only a couple of feets.

The more your knowledge grows the more complexity and depth you'll see. And the less impressed or you'll be with poetry that has been given no thought. Your new found understanding gives you a set of tools to accurately judge good and bad poetry.

Of course it's about human "expression" but expression can also be hidden deep in the structure of the verse tying together something you havn't quite figured out yet. And when you find it -- you'll get a huge "AHA!" moment

If you remain uninformed all you have to go by is the way the sentences are put together in a neat looking way or how they sound. This may also be the reason why a lot of the golden era poets might be totally lost on someone.

Without learning about Iambic pentameters you'll never fully be able to understand or appreciate the genius of Shakespeare or Milton.

Or you'd never know that the Gettysburg address is basically written in 90 percent Iambic Pentameter.

Or that Ahab's monologues in Moby-Dick are unlineated pentameters.

Then you have Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid -- all written in Dactylic hexameter. The scansion focus there focuses on long and short syllables instead of stressed and unstressed syllables.

In the end I would just like to say that giving you more knowledge about poetry will never hurt your understanding of poetry.

I really recommend John Lennard's "The Poetry Handbook". It's really in-depth and has loads of examples not only on pretty much everything you could want to know about how poetry works.

theswedisheditor wrote:I'm sorry but I hate these statements. They are just so uninformed.

You study scansion and form so you can get a closer understanding of the poem such as the poet wanted his poem to be read. You follow the rules to get into his mindset. He knows that you should know them - and follows them accordingly.

This explained very well in the essay I linked.

Also you'll come to understand the choices the poet made when he wrote and you'll be awed that he or she managed to describe a complex feeling in only a couple of feets.

The more your knowledge grows the more complexity and depth you'll see. And the less impressed or you'll be with poetry that has been given no thought. Your new found understanding gives you a set of tools to accurately judge good and bad poetry.

Of course it's about human "expression" but expression can also be hidden deep in the structure of the verse tying together something you havn't quite figured out yet. And when you find it -- you'll get a huge "AHA!" moment

If you remain uninformed all you have to go by is the way the sentences are put together in a neat looking way or how they sound. This may also be the reason why a lot of the golden era poets might be totally lost on someone.

Without learning about Iambic pentameters you'll never fully be able to understand or appreciate the genius of Shakespeare or Milton.

Or you'd never know that the Gettysburg address is basically written in 90 percent Iambic Pentameter.

Or that Ahab's monologues in Moby-Dick are unlineated pentameters.

Then you have Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid -- all written in Dactylic hexameter. The scansion focus there focuses on long and short syllables instead of stressed and unstressed syllables.

In the end I would just like to say that giving you more knowledge about poetry will never hurt your understanding of poetry.

I think you ignored what I said so you could go on a rant. It was a nice rant though.

No, I feel like I understood pretty well what you meant.

perkunas wrote:

theswedisheditor wrote:I'm sorry but I hate these statements. They are just so uninformed.

You study scansion and form so you can get a closer understanding of the poem such as the poet wanted his poem to be read. You follow the rules to get into his mindset. He knows that you should know them - and follows them accordingly.

This explained very well in the essay I linked.

Also you'll come to understand the choices the poet made when he wrote and you'll be awed that he or she managed to describe a complex feeling in only a couple of feets.

The more your knowledge grows the more complexity and depth you'll see. And the less impressed or you'll be with poetry that has been given no thought. Your new found understanding gives you a set of tools to accurately judge good and bad poetry.

Of course it's about human "expression" but expression can also be hidden deep in the structure of the verse tying together something you havn't quite figured out yet. And when you find it -- you'll get a huge "AHA!" moment

If you remain uninformed all you have to go by is the way the sentences are put together in a neat looking way or how they sound. This may also be the reason why a lot of the golden era poets might be totally lost on someone.

Without learning about Iambic pentameters you'll never fully be able to understand or appreciate the genius of Shakespeare or Milton.

Or you'd never know that the Gettysburg address is basically written in 90 percent Iambic Pentameter.

Or that Ahab's monologues in Moby-Dick are unlineated pentameters.

Then you have Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid -- all written in Dactylic hexameter. The scansion focus there focuses on long and short syllables instead of stressed and unstressed syllables.

In the end I would just like to say that giving you more knowledge about poetry will never hurt your understanding of poetry.

I think you ignored what I said so you could go on a rant. It was a nice rant though.

Actually, I'm pretty sure you just ignored all of that so you can stick with your rather silly and clearly teenage opinion.

i missunderstood

Interview: The Art Of The Prose Poem Russell Edson
http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1596&context=prosepoem

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