WRITING POETRY -- LESSON 05:
POETRY WRITING CLASSES


POETRY CONTENT?

*   A POEM IS A LITTLE TEXT REVEALING A BIGGER PICTURE
*   A POEM TELLING YOU IMPORTANT TRUTHS
*   A POEM STATING SOMETHING IN A NEW WAY
*   A POEM OF SUBSTANCE AND STATURE
*   A POEM DEMONSTRATING THE POET'S UNIQUE VIEW



Poetry by nature tends toward the symbolic and cryptic because you have fewer words to work with.  Symbolic and cryptic writing must be done carefully with a high focus on understandability by the reader audience.  Poetry potent content comes from this cryptic and symbolic writing style. 


*   A POEM IS A LITTLE TEXT REVEALING A BIGGER PICTURE


A nine line poem can state more than a 180 page novel!  One only has to read Emily Dickinson to realize this.



A Book

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

--Emily Dickinson



A fourteen line poem by the female mystic Mirabai:

Unbreakable

Unbreakable, O Lord,
Is the love
That binds me to You:
Like a diamond,
It breaks the hammer that strikes it.

My heart goes into You
As the polish goes into the gold,
As the lotus lives in its water,
I live in You.

Like the bird
that gazes all night
at the passing moon,
I have lost myself dwelling in You.
O my Beloved - return,

--Mirabai

At the heart of great content are words placed next to words in new ways.  All the words above were known to millions but not arranged in this way!  Each poet is a Poem Director and their vision will determine their poems.




*   A POEM TELLING YOU IMPORTANT TRUTHS

Great and good content poems tell you things that will continue to be relevant.  Often this results from a new poetry movement like the Romantic's movement. 



















*   A POEM STATING SOMETHING IN A NEW WAY
































































































*   A POEM OF SUBSTANCE AND STATURE

Substance and stature can surface from a poet's style and language. 



























*   A POEM DEMONSTRATING THE POET'S UNIQUE VIEW






















 
*  POETRY MOVEMENTS OR SCHOOLS


Poetry styles change and shift over time for a variety of reasons:
ClassRaceReligionPolitics
Region      Languaage tone      ImageryMusic

Below are a few important poery movements:

Greece’s poeticProvencal literature    Metaphysical poets Imagist
Romantic poetsTranscendentalists    NegritudeConfessional
Beat movementFuturism    Modernism     Objectivist
SymbolistSurrealism  Slam      Dada
Gothic           Poet Transcendelism


SO GET OUT THERE AND PUT PEN/PENCIL TO PAPER
OR COMPUTER KEYBOARD TO SCREEN AND WRITE YOUR POEM!






This page was last updated: July 2, 2011
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The World Is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

                           --William Wordsworth
           How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

                 --Elizabeth Barrett Browning
                City Trees


The trees along this city street,
Save for the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound as thin and sweet
As trees in country lanes.

And people standing in their shade
Out of a shower, undoubtedly
Would hear such music as is made
Upon a country tree.

Oh, little leaves that are so dumb
Against the shrieking city air,
I watch you when the wind has come,--
I know what sound is there.

                           --Edna Millay
She Proves the Inconsistency of the Desires and Criticism of Men Who Acuse Women of What They Themselves Cause

Silly, you men-so very adept
at wrongly faulting womankind,
not seeing you're alone to blame
for faults you plant in woman's mind.

After you've won by urgent plea
the right to tarnish her good name,
you still expect her to behave--
you, that coaxed her into shame.

You batter her resistance down
and then, all righteousness, proclaim
that feminine frivolity,
not your persistence, is to blame.

When it comes to bravely posturing,
your witlessness must take the prize:
you're the child that makes a bogeyman,
and then recoils in fear and cries.

Presumptuous beyond belief,
you'd have the woman you pursue
be Thais when you're courting her,
Lucretia once she falls to you.

For plain default of common sense,
could any action be so queer
as oneself to cloud the mirror,
then complain that it's not clear?

Whether you're favored or disdained,
nothing can leave you satisfied.
You whimper if you're turned away,
you sneer if you've been gratified.

With you, no woman can hope to score;
whichever way, she's bound to lose;
spurning you, she's ungrateful--
succumbing, you call her lewd.

Your folly is always the same:
you apply a single rule
to the one you accuse of looseness
and the one you brand as cruel.

What happy mean could there be
for the woman who catches your eye,
if, unresponsive, she offends,
yet whose complaisance you decry?

Still, whether it's torment or anger--
and both ways you've yourselves to blame--
God bless the woman who won't have you,
no matter how loud you complain.

It's your persistent entreaties
that change her from timid to bold.
Having made her thereby naughty,
you would have her good as gold.

So where does the greater guilt lie
for a passion that should not be:
with the man who pleads out of baseness
or the woman debased by his plea?

Or which is more to be blamed--
though both will have cause for chagrin:
the woman who sins for money
or the man who pays money to sin?

So why are you men all so stunned
at the thought you're all guilty alike?
Either like them for what you've made them
or make of them what you can like.

If you'd give up pursuing them,
you'd discover, without a doubt,
you've a stronger case to make
against those who seek you out.

I well know what powerful arms
you wield in pressing for evil:
your arrogance is allied
with the world, the flesh, and the devil!

     --Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
          1651-1695 Mexico


You Foolish Men


You foolish men who lay
the guilt on women,
not seeing you're the cause
of the very thing you blame;

if you invite their disdain
with measureless desire
why wish they well behave
if you incite to ill.

You fight their stubbornness,
then, weightily,
you say it was their lightness
when it was your guile.

In all your crazy shows
you act just like a child
who plays the bogeyman
of which he's then afraid.

With foolish arrogance
you hope to find a Thais
in her you court, but a Lucretia
when you've possessed her.

What kind of mind is odder
than his who mists
a mirror and then complains
that it's not clear.

Their favour and disdain
you hold in equal state,
if they mistreat, you complain,
you mock if they treat you well.

No woman wins esteem of you:
the most modest is ungrateful
if she refuses to admit you;
yet if she does, she's loose.

You always are so foolish
your censure is unfair;
one you blame for cruelty
the other for being easy.

What must be her temper
who offends when she's
ungrateful and wearies
when compliant?

But with the anger and the grief
that your pleasure tells
good luck to her who doesn't love you
and you go on and complain.

Your lover's moans give wings
to women's liberty:
and having made them bad,
you want to find them good.

Who has embraced
the greater blame in passion?
She who, solicited, falls,
or he who, fallen, pleads?

Who is more to blame,
though either should do wrong?
She who sins for pay
or he who pays to sin?

Why be outraged at the guilt
that is of your own doing?
Have them as you make them
or make them what you will.

Leave off your wooing
and then, with greater cause,
you can blame the passion
of her who comes to court?

Patent is your arrogance
that fights with many weapons
since in promise and insistence
you join world, flesh and devil.

       --Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
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This page was last updated: July 2, 2011