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What makes a poem?

What makes a poem

When I was a child, my definition of a poem was something that resembled “The Highwayman,” rhyming lines formed into stanzas, with evocative imagery, and that told a story. As I grew older, and discovered poets like Sandburg and Amy Lowell, I realized poems didn’t need to rhyme, and, as my poetic horizons expanded to include Whitman and Elliot, I realized that they didn’t have to tell a story. My definition of a poem became lines and stanzas with evocative imagery. Then I encountered prose poetry.

Now I’m not a big fan of prose poetry. For me, I need lines and stanzas to feel that it’s a poem, but modern poetry doesn’t agree with me.

So what makes a poem, beyond the let me read it, and I’ll let you know if it’s a poem? The use of language to move beyond literal meaning, to evoke a mood, a sensory image, by the way that language is used is the basis for poetry.

If you studied poetry in school, you may have studied poetic devices: rhyme, meter, alliteration, assonance, consonance, metaphor, simile, to name a few.

Rhyme is probably the most familiar: cat, hat, sat, bat, rat, with meter, the rhythm that the words form when read aloud, a close second. Alliteration, where words begin with the same consonant sound, assonance, where words have the same vowel sound, as in black cat, and consonance, where words have the same internal or ending consonant sounds as in near cure.

Here’s a poem of mine, in the tradition of Walter De La Mare’s The Listeners: It appered in the June, 2010 issue of ezine Dark Eye Glances. Notice how the first and last stanzas are nearly identical —
At Midnight

Three to ride the shadowed road,
two to catch them as they slowed,
one to flee and try to warn,
none to live to see the morn.

Three rode out one moonless night
beneath the shafts of silver light
of stars above in a cloudless sky
and none of them demanded why.

Not one of them asked why they rode,
why they left their snug abode
to ride the woods that dark, dark night
beneath the shafts of silver light.

When midnight chimed they stopped and stared.
Two strangers stood with broadswords bared.
Two brothers dead without a fight,
one brother left, one to take flight.

One brother turns and flees in fright,
rides and dies that dark, dark night,
killed by strangers with broadswords bared.
Three brothers caught all unprepared.

Three to ride the shadowed road,
two to catch them as they rode,
one to flee and try to warn,
none to live to see the morn.

Category:

Creative Writing, Margaret's Musing, Poetry

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Margaret Fieland poetry

On Writing Poetry

Poetry is about truth, and writing truly exposes me, even if I am not the subject of the poem. If I pull my punches, soften my truth, or omit some detail that I feel exposes me, I stab my poem in the gut. I have to write truth, though not necessarily for publication.

The poem that propelled me, indirectly, into serious poetry writing is a case in point. I was in a meeting, listening to someone talk about his drinking, and inspiration struck. I hauled out my handy pad and pen, and, ignoring the nudges of my companion, (She: “What are you doing?” Me: “Taking notes.”), jotted down what would become one of my first published poems. But it was about a sensitive subject, and I hesitated to submit it for publication. Would people assume the narrator of the poem was me? Maybe not, but at the very least, the poem would clearly indicate that the subject was one that mattered to me. Was I willing to risk that? Ultimately I decided I was.

Some time after that, I wrote a poem about a batch of chicken soup (I was annoyed, and I find writing poetry can be wonderfully therapeutic) and hesitated before writing, “I wanted to hit her with the soup pot.” Yes, the line ended up in the poem. Best of all, by the time I’d finished writing it, the impulse itself had passed.

Here’s the poem. It was published in the June, 2006 Humdinger (www.humdingerzine.com):

Bitter

I don’t want to hear how unhappy you are
because I didn’t buy any Roast Beef at the deli
or because I made Chili from Dave’s recipe
with the six tablespoons of Chili powder

and Minestrone
with the rind from the Parmesan cheese in the broth
just like Marcella does.

It was enough to make me want to hit you
with the soup pot.

And if you’re ever happy with my cooking,
then please tell me.

But I’m not holding my breath.

Category:

Creative Writing, Margaret's Musing, Poetry

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Lines by Lin

I Wouldn’t Trade It

Tall geeky-girl brunette whose lungs don’t work well,
Refuses to see the end of the road
Southern accent trills Edna St. Vincent Millay,
Shoots coffee out her nose with Billy Collins,
Haunted by Greek mythology, Lonesome Dove,
Prince of Tides.

Not just literature and poetry saturate my heart and soul —
Anything to do with art, music, and my Nature mother
Real life too, my yen for chocolates and Riesling wine
Timeless hours with kin and friends and sanctified solitude
Sweet incense of lavender wands
Perky daffodils boldly yellow,
While on a table sits Quan Yin
Contented with crucifixes and candles,
My floured hands punching down sourdough bread
In another room.

Later, dog and cat invade my bed, which will leave me
Clinging awkwardly to the edge
But it’s all good.

Category:

Creative Writing, Introductions, Lines by Lin, Poetry