What Does Poetry

WHAT DOES POETRY DO FOR YOU?

By Josie Whitehead

I don’t know what poetry does for other people, but good poetry, written with an excellent meter

is well on the way to being a song, or perhaps a dance for me.

I love the fact that rhythmic poetry pays so much attention to the musical aspects of language

through its rhyming language and phonemics. (not the same as phonics).

Phonics teaches us the individual sounds of letters and phonemics gives us the ability to break

down sounds and manipulate the various sounds of our everyday speech.

This is what you have to do with rhythmic poetry.

Sometimes it is necessary to substitute one word for another in order to get the rhythm correct,

and sometimes you have to just clear the decks and begin again, tackling the subject from a

different viewpoint.

Here is an example of what I mean, taken from one of my poems:

There was a field in Nazareth, beside a carpenter’s yard.

A little donkey stood and sighed - life had been very hard.

Yes, the lines are the same length, but if you read this, you will find something jars.

Could it be the word carpenter? It has 3 syllables. Well, it jarred for me. So, having found

the offensive word, I tried this:

There was a field in Nazareth, beside a joiner’s yard.

A little donkey stood and sighed - life had been very hard.

In the second version the lines are not the same length, but count the beats.

I count six in the first line and six in the second:

There was (1) a field (2) in Nazareth (3) beside a (4) joiner’s (5) yard (6).

A little (1) donkey (2) stood (3) and sighed (4) - life had been (5) very hard (6).

This is where phonemics helps. You can break down the sounds, as in a song, and music helps.

You sometimes have to listen for the “music” in rhythmic poetry, and often it is loud and clear.

Cadence - the beat, rate, or measure of any rhythmic movement:

Cadence differs from meter in that it is not necessarily regular, but rather a more flexible concept

of rhythm such as is characteristic of free verse and prose poetry.

EXPRESSING SOUND IN LANGUAGE WRITING

I like to play with language sounds and it is exactly this which adds another dimension to poetry

and distinguishes it a little from prose although prose uses many of the following ways of writing also.

Look at these ways of expressing sound:

Rhyming: - Rhyming pays attention to the vowels and the ends of the words: rhyme, time, sublime.

Rhymezone is an excellent website to visit and, in addition to giving help with rhyming words,

has many other useful areas worth exploring:

See: http://www.rhymezone.com/

Alliteration: - Alliteration pays attention to the first part of the word – the repetition of initial consonants

in the following words: Bonny babies blowing bubbles.

Seven swans swimming swiftly;

shiny slugs stealthily slither.

Or for a lesson on alliteration try: http://volweb.utk.edu/Schools/bedford/harrisms/1allitera.htm

For a useful tool, aiding alliteration, see “Vocabulary of Alliteration” - which is a new aid for poets and

songwriters: http://www.xs4all.nl/~in/Poet/VocAll.htm

Assonance concentrates on the middle of the word. Assonance occurs when the vowel sound

within a word matches the same sound in a nearby word, but the surrounding consonant sounds are

different.

“Tune” and “June” are rhymes; “tune” and “food” are assonant.

The function of assonance is frequently the same as end rhyme or alliteration.

Test yourself: http://www.buzzin.net/english/asson-x.htm

Onomatopoeia - the creation and use of words which include sounds that are similar to the noises

that the words refer to: buzzing bees; cuckoo; splish splash; clip clop. etc.

See: See: http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/english/onomat.htm

See Teacher Resource Exchange: Onomatopoeia with hyperlinks http://tre.ngfl.gov.uk/server.php?request=cmVzb3VyY2UuZnVsbHZpZXc%3D&resourceId=11293

There’s much to learn about this subject, and so well worth learning if you want to improve your writing.

Try this exercise: http://www.garts.latech.edu/owl/literature/pljumble.htm

I know I’m not alone in loving the sound of language. Look at this, taken from Dylan Thomas’s

“Under Milk Wood”, which I really love:

“There's the clip clop of horses on the sunhoneyed cobbles of the humming streets, hammering

of horseshoes, gobble quack and cackle, tomtit twitter from the bird-bounced boughs, braying on

Donkey Down. Bread is baking, pigs are grunting, chop goes the butcher, milk churns bell, tills ring,

sheep cough, dogs shout, saws sing. . . . “

Listen to the sounds in the above piece of writing. What can you hear? Notice the short sharp phrases

which indicate “busyness” to the readers.

For me, as you may guess, I just love rhyming, rhythmic poetry and I’m afraid that I feel that without these

two elements, I can’t call it poetry but others do. It may be well written, expressive, having all the other

elements, but without rhyming and rhythym something seems to be lost. Children have told me this also,

in their simple little way. Rhyming and rhythmic poetry is like dance and song, and unrhyming,

unrhythmic poetry or prose is, to me, like drama – a very good means of expressing things ,but different.

As a child I was brought up with dance. I started ballet and tap dancing lessons at the early age of three

and a half years and I continued, loving every minute of it, until I was eighteen years of age.

I have taken it up again for a short while later in life. I have done most types of dancing from Scottish

dancing to Maypole Dancing, American Square to Ballroom Dancing, with English Folk Dancing thrown

in also. I have also studied the piano for many years, but I’m afraid I should practise the piano more

and write less poetry. So rhythm seems to be inbuilt into my soul. Ballet, in particular, is a disciplined art.

When you are part of a team, there is no place for individualism. I am also a high speed writer of Pitman’s Shorthand and have taught this for many years. This also is an extremely disciplined art.

So it is natural for me to like disciplined writing, and what is more disciplined than rhythmic and rhyming

poetry? I grew up in an age when we didn’t have many books (during the war years) and we had to use

our imaginations to create stories for ourselves. Thus you will find many children’s story poems in my

collection of poems. Children should be encouraged to create stories in their play, not just absorb other

people’s stories from books, computers, television etc.

POEMS ARE PRECISE AND CONCISE

People like poems because of their preciseness and conciseness. I know that I have one piece of paper

and I try to keep my story to that one page, so you may find that when talking about life (as in the poem “She”)

I get through from birth to old age in a remarkably short time. I like people to be drawn into the thread of

my poem as quickly as possible. I like to think of my poems as a series of little pictures, painted with words.

It is important when writing to remember that we have five senses and that speaking of these five senses can improve what you are writing. You can see, feel, hear, touch and smell things – so mention these things when writing. Also, give others the chance to feel joy or sorry and especially to enjoy a laugh, as a result of reading

what you have written.

You should practise every day writing something, no matter how small, and examining it and improving it,

using different adjectives, verbs, trying alliteration, metaphors etc. Just have fun with your words and you

are well on the way to writing better poetry.

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Links:

Dan Kurland’s “How the Language Really Works. The Fundamentals of Critical Reading and Effective Writing”

http://www.criticalreading.com/poetry.htm

Glossary of Poetic Terms: http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/glossary_poetic_terms_c.htm

Glossary of Poetic Terms http://www.poeticbyway.com/glossary2.html

POETRY CLASS – “Taking the Fear Out of Teaching Poetry” http://www.poetryclass.net/index.htm

http://www.teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/twpmater.htm

Artzone - Poetry at BBC Online Visual poems, audio poetry, poet-in-residence, and a poetry message

board. "Here's your chance to swap writing tips, recommend great poems, track down a half-remembered

favourite or anything else that springs to mind. Maybe you'd like to ask our Resident Poet, John Hegley,

a question?"

The Poetry Zone
Publishes children's poetry on the net as well as excellent book resources (including recommended book

lists and poetry for 12 - 17 year olds), poetry book reviews written by children, lesson plans for teachers

and interviews with poets.
http://www.poetryzone.ndirect.co.uk

Interactive Quiz on Meter (Metre)

Test your grasp of terms and ability to identify meters by name – quiz by Seamus Cooney, Professor of

English at Western Michigan University.
http://www.wmich.edu/english/tchg/quiz/meter/q2/quiz.html

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