On Writing Poetry

To rhyme or not to rhyme, that is the question. Sorry about that Shakespeare. I have been writing poetry off and on since I was a teenager – more off than on until I started college as a nontraditional student in my early forties. It was then I took my first English class since high school. English 101. The professor, Vivian Pemberton, suggested I submit an essay I’d written to ICON, the literary magazine of the Trumbull branch of Kent State University. In the essay, “Saying Goodbye”, I wrote about my son’s last hours of life the year before. It was accepted and every semester after that, I submitted not essays but poems. Most of the magazine contained poetry, a few pieces of art work and the occasional essay.

So what is poetry? Robert Frost said “Poetry is the kind of thing poets write.” It’s not that Frost couldn’t have expounded at length, it’s that poetry is not always easy to define. It eludes simple explanations.  It’s a form of writing that creates an emotional response, a piece of work that makes some connection to the reader. To be better understood, a poem needs to be read and studied to allow the poem to grow in your mind. It is much like music in that respect. Some poems are as simple as a well-known tune with no deeper meaning. Others have more depth and only develop more meaning for a reader the more often they are read and studied.

Much of last month I spent on writing new poems or editing and revising older poems for The Ohio Poetry Day contests – about 30 different contests under one blanket. For a flat fee of $10.00, a poet could enter as many of them as they chose or were qualified to enter. A few contests are only for Ohio poets, but almost all are open to anywhere in the English speaking world. Some poems come from as far away as Australia, the UK, Canada, and include many states other than Ohio. This year I entered twenty-one contests a day before the deadline of May 31^st. Did I ever mention I’m a terrible procrastinator?

Although writing poetry seems far different from writing prose like blogs and the mysteries I write, they do have elements in common like finding the perfect word to convey a feeling or a picture, or to adequately express an emotion. Some poems are easy to understand and relate to, especially the rhyming or humorous poems. Others take more time and reading to understand what the poet is trying to convey and just as many can be interpreted in different ways to fit the reader’s interpretation.

             

Of course, that is where poetry varies from writing prose in which the author wants the reader to get what they’re saying and not have to reread and ponder the meaning of a sentence or paragraph. Mysteries especially need to keep the reader eagerly reading and not pausing in thought, although I’ll admit to enjoying a particularly good and evocative description of either a person or a scene in a well-written mystery especially if it’s well done. In Jane Langton’s book, Divine Inspiration, I love her simple offbeat descriptions like “After the fire Mrs. Frederick came forward with her arms full of money. ‘The best,’ she said to James Castle, ‘Get the very best.’” This is so much better than saying the very rich woman to describe her, isn’t it?” This book - as in all of Langton’s books - is filled with descriptions that are almost poetical like her description of this receptionist. “The dragon glared at him.  Little streams of smoke leaked from her reptilian jaw.” Because it has a musical theme, I found “catapulting counterpoint” and “the lingering scent of perfumed sopranos and clean-shaven tenors,” -quite delicious descriptions. In fact, it’s her descriptions and humor as well as her plots and rich characters that make Jane Langton one of my favorite mystery writers.  

Although writing a poem seems simple, after all how can writing a page or two of lines even begin to compare with a chapter of a novel a writer is working on? In truth, except for the occasional short poem that almost seems to write itself, it takes a lot of work to write a poem. I can spend as much time, and often more, on writing one poem as I can on writing a short story or chapter in my current work in process. I’m not talking about the numerous revisions and polishing, of course.  But just like my mysteries, my poetry goes through numerous revisions and rereading so that months or years later, I’m still apt to make changes here and there. I also believe writing poetry is a good discipline for the mind because the difference from prose makes it challenging. Some people work crossword puzzles or Sudoku to exercise the brain, I choose poetry.

Do you write poetry?

What other things to you use to exercise your brain?