"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
Recent Comments