POETRY AND ART

http://www.artakiane.com/gallery
CLICK ABOVE, THEN

Choose one of the pieces of art... and write a poem describing it.

22. Meter

Perhaps you'll want a challenge and will try to write a poem in METER --- that is, to give each line a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. For beginners, let's try one of these two:

1. Each line has six syllables, alternating an unstressed syllable with a stressed syllable:

da/DAH, da/DAH, da/DAH (The dead began to speak)

2. Each line has eight syllables, also alternating an unstressed syllable with a stressed syllable:

da/DAH, da/DAH, da/DAH, da/DAH (I wandered lonely as a cloud)

If you write in meter, maintain your beat, but a times add a little variation so your verse doesn't become singsong. For instance, you can reverse the beat in the first two syllables in any line without doing serious harm to your pattern.

from da/DAH to DAH/da

21. Try Rhyme

Almost as simple are poems in rhymed couplets (two rhyming lines) or quatrains (four rhyming lines). If you use couplets, the last words in each line should rhyme.

I wish I could unLOCK
The secrets of a cLOCK.

If you use quatrains, you can rhyme just two of the four lines, or you can rhyme that last words in every line. Here is a quatrain in which only two lines are rhymed:

This morning, late for class, I skipped a
My cornflakes and, gung-ho, departed. b
Nice timing! I made history c
Before the Civil War got started b

20. Try Free Verse

The simplest form for a beginning poet is FREE VERSE. If you use free verse be careful in deciding where to break your lines, and be sure not one line is too long. It should imitate natural rhythms of speech.

Begin with a statement to catch the reader's attention. Then keep your reader's interest, not only by what you say, but also by using question marks, but using dots.... to continue a thought, by using dashes ----- to add a thought, even by using exclamation marks!.

19. Look Around

1. Look through a newspaper for items that catch your imagination.

2. Pretend you are Cinderella, a rock star, the last dinosaur (or any other figure from a story, movie, or real life).

3. Begin with a question:

"What kind of house would I have lived in in 1600?"

"How would I be remembered if I disappeared this very moment?"

"Twenty years from now, who will I be?"

4. Choose an object or a creature and speak to it as though it were capable of understanding what you say. You might call your poem, "A Conversation with a House" or "To a Pizza Pie" or "Words for an Old Dog."

5. Write a poem consisting of a series of images. Its title might be "A Catalog of Sounds" or "A List of Memories." Or its first lines might be, "I see -- I smell, I taste, I touch, I hear."

6. Write a poem consisting of a series of contrasting metaphors.

"A cat seems to be________, but it really is______________.

"Fog seems to be__________, but it really is______________.

"An onion seem to be______, but it really is______________.

18. Try these exercises for ideas, and express them in a poem.

Start by listing moments or days i your life that you associate with some feeling. An one of these moments may provide that spark, that connection between outside events and inside feelings that may lead you to a poem.

1. You learn that your family is moving to another city and you know you'll have to give up friends and neighborhood and everything familiar.

2. Your grandmother has died and you realize you'll never see her face again or open the birthday and Christmas presents she never failed to send.

3. You smile at someone you life a lot, and you see that person looking back and smiling at you.

4. You go back to your old playground and find that all the kids there look so young.

5. You have a wonderful dream.