Poetry as a teaching tool

"Theodore Roethke said that "Form is not regarded as a neat mould to be filled, but rather as a sieve to catch certain kinds of material", which seems to me one of the most profoundly true statements about art anyone's ever made, and why people who think that it's not poetry unless it rhymes and scans, and it is poetry if it does, are so wrong: they're mistaking the sieve for the meal. But traditional poetic forms are very clear, well-proportioned sieves."  Emma Darwin on her blog, This Itch Of Writing

It is my firm belief that, more than any other teaching tool, poetry can teach a writer how to use the language well.   

But one of the tendencies of those not too familiar with poetry and its myriad forms is to presume iambic pentameter or other unsubtle (and, in my opinion, rather sledge hammer-like) rhyming schemes are what defines that genre.  And if that's what you think makes poetry, I can see why you might scoff at my premise. 

Poetry, however, is a distillation of language.  It takes a lot of know-how and understanding of the underpinnings of word meaning and the interplay of sound and texture and even what the words look like on the page.  It's painting with words, but painting that lays the brush strokes in the reader's mind to evoke all the senses. 

As that's something we seek to do in great prose writing, it behooves we writers to learn something about this ancient form. 

Ask.com has a rather good definition:

One of the most definable characteristics of the poetic form is economy of language. [my emphasis]  Poets are miserly and unrelentingly critical in the way they dole out words to a page. Carefully selecting words for conciseness and clarity is standard, even for writers of prose, but poets go well beyond this, considering a word's emotive qualities, its musical value, its spacing, and yes, even its spacial relationship to the page. The poet, through innovation in both word choice and form, seemingly rends significance from thin air.

Economy of language... Yep, that's pretty much it in a nutshell, and you can see how learning to hone your writing ability in that regard can be an invaluable tool for the prose writer.

And, if nothing else, discovering poetry will open your eyes to a vast body of literature.  And training your poetic ear really is a great tool for your writerly toolbox.

Poetry links.

Sites about poetry:
Poets.org Lots of information and links here.
Dmoz' list of poetry organizations.  Rather comprehensive.

Information on poetry forms: 
51 Poetry forms
Wikipedia's poetry forms page, which has well over 200 links to varying poetry articles
Poetry Base/ Poetry Gnosis: A Resource for Learning & Teaching Poetry 

Miscellaney:
The Pose Poem defined.  Prose poetry is an interesting cross between prose and poetry in that it has the sensibility of poetry and the structural rules (more or less) of regular writing. 

Poets I particularly like:
Robert Frost
Mekeel McBride 
Billy Collins
Langston Hughes
Shakespeare
Brian Turner

Comments

[laughingwolf]

i love poe's poetry... :)

[Charles Gramlich]

Well said. I grew up disliking poetry in high school because it too often seemed we were taught that the "Mold" was more important than the words. When I discovered free verse I truly began to love the language. Dylan Thomas is my favorite poet and he is the one who really awakened me to the possibilities of feral language.

[Robin]

I used to memorize poems that made my heart quicken. That was before I got old and lost brain cells. Now I have to keep space open for important stuff, like "don't forget to pick up toilet paper on the way home".

[writtenwyrdd]

"feral language"...I love that, Charles!

That should be the title of an anthology...

[writtenwyrdd]

I've never been into memorization of anything like that unless forced, but I love to read Frost because his meter is so subtle you often miss it. He's the master of metered and rhyming poetry if you ask me.

[Robin]

I agree. One of my favorite poems is, "The Road Not Taken." I didn't memorize it, though. But I did memorize Jabberwocky for fun. How weird is that?