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MJT2-0
May Member 2022

MJT2-0

Posts: 234 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Poetry - The Elevation of the Soul
Hello, one and all, and welcome to my short summary of poetry. This passage is designed to be solely an introduction: what I shall reveal to you is but a ripple on the surface, for, with poetry, there is always a great, mysterious ocean that lurks just beneath. But hopefully, by the end of my monologue, you'll have a firm foothold whence to continue your poetic studies.

Now, for any guide about anything (and especially one addressed to beginners), it is essential to look at the goal. And the goal of poetry (most poets will agree) is this: to 'elevate the soul', as Edgar Allan Poe once put it. It's that same feeling you get when you listen to some passages of music, when Goosebumps arise on the arms. That feeling i* what all poets aim to create, but you can only usually find this in the best works of the best poets. And it's not one of these things that pretentious theorists jus* write about – this feeling: you've probably felt it yourself before.

The question that naturally follows this is how poets create that feeling. If I knew the complete answer, I'd be the greatest poet in existence. But there are still some basic things with which even the most amateur poets can work and get a powerful effect from a piece, and, in the remainder of this essay, I shall describe them to you.

18-Jun-2015 18:39:54 - Last edited on 18-Jun-2015 21:52:52 by MJT2-0

MJT2-0
May Member 2022

MJT2-0

Posts: 234 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The first thing I want to stress is about rhyme. Not all poems have to rhyme. Often, if you're a beginner, writing a poem that rhymes is a good way to lock up your true feelings and say the exact opposite of what you actually mean. But when you do come to a poem and want to add a rhyme scheme, there are a few guidelines that you should take into account. The main is, don't waste a rhyme. If you only have one word in a line that rhymes, you want to use that word as best you can. Choose an interesting word for every rhyme. Don't ever rhyme 'ghost' with 'toast'. Don't go anywhere near that. If you have to change a whole line just to get a good rhyme and start writing about toast, it's not worth it: either find a better couple of rhyming words or don't rhyme at all – I really can't stress this enough. The worst thing reading over poetry is people who have rhymed for rhyming's sake. It's a million times better just to break the rhyme scheme or spend an extra half an hour finding a better couplet.

You might just have gawked at 'half an hour'. If you did, consider yourself slapped. Around the face. Twice. This brings me on to my second point: good poetry takes a long time to write. You can't knock up a decent poem of length in ten to fifteen minutes. It takes some poets years to complete works. Expect to spend at least three or four hours if you want to write a good poem. Obviously, you'll get quicker the more you practice, but, for now, take your time.

Something that goes hand-in-hand with this is compromise. Or, should I say, the lack of it. Do not compromise on a single word. This goes back to the point I made about rhyme: you have to keep working until you find a way to say what you want with the least compromise.

18-Jun-2015 18:43:31 - Last edited on 18-Jun-2015 21:51:52 by MJT2-0

MJT2-0
May Member 2022

MJT2-0

Posts: 234 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Don't ever sit back and say, 'It'll do,' because it just won't. Luckily, though, there are things you can do to help you combat compromise, and the main is having a large vocabulary! You can go about achieving this in your own way, but I recommend reading older texts and making a point of looking up words when you don't know their meaning. It is very effective and a key to appreciating poetry.

My next point regards wasted words, and that you definitely, definitely shouldn't. Poetry relies on building an effect in a short space of time – on creating intense emotion – and central to that is making sure that every word counts. If you have needless words or words there because they 'sound nice', then you're wasting your time writing that poem. Go through and be very critical at the end of composition and take out every wasted word, replacing them with ones that contribute to that overall effect. Again, this is central to elevating the soul.

Those are the basics, and you'll find that, no matter how much poetry you read, every good poet will adhere strictly to those guidelines. Before I end this guide, though, and bid you a fond farewell, I should like to post a sonnet by a particular Mr. Shakespeare. In all the literature I have read, this one is possibly the greatest specimen of why poetry remains one of the great art forms.

18-Jun-2015 18:43:37 - Last edited on 18-Jun-2015 21:52:10 by MJT2-0

MJT2-0
May Member 2022

MJT2-0

Posts: 234 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow's*;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow's*:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Thank you for your time, and good luck!

-- Torpeh

18-Jun-2015 18:43:42 - Last edited on 18-Jun-2015 21:52:25 by MJT2-0

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