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Objective
In this lesson you will
learn what a poem is, some types of poems, and some strategies for starting
to write a poem.
What is a poem?
Audre Lorde describes poetry as "distilled emotion." Alice Fulton
describes it as a "model of the way the world works." We all use
language to communicate: we speak and we write. Poets also use language
to communicate, but not in the same ways as in regular speech and writing.
The primary purpose of language as we see, hear, and write it in textbooks,
on the news, and in essays is to convey information. Those words serve a
primarily utilitarian function, but a poet uses language the way a painter
uses paint or a musician uses notes. The task of the poem is to use the
sounds, textures, rhythms, and images of language to evoke emotional, aesthetic,
and intellectual responses in readers and listeners. Poems have ideas and
places and aunts and bathtubs in them, all of which are important, but the
pictures painted are secondary to the way the language paints them.
What are some types of poem?
Poems are as
varied as beetles — and there are at least 450,000 species of those! The best
way to learn what the possibilities are for poems is to read poems — lots
of poems. There are, nonetheless, some general categories that you can keep
in mind as you read and write. First, let's look at categories that reflect
the way a poem is built — its form.
Fixed Forms: A fixed form poem is one that fits a traditional
set of rules about repetition, meter, rhyme, and other patterns. Some examples
of formal poems are sestinas, sonnets, villanelles, and ghazals.
Open Forms (a.k.a. Free Verse): An open form poem is one
that does not fit a traditional set of rules. It still works with repetition,
meter, rhyme, and other patterns, but it creates its own set of rules for
how to use those tools.
Within the broad categories of open and fixed forms are
some other divisions that reflect what a poem's relationship is to its subject
matter.
Narrative: A narrative poem has the elements of a
story (see Chapter
1, Lesson 16, Writing Short Stories 2: Techniques: Editing and Revising), characters, plot, setting, and action. It tends
to include events "out there" in the world, though its subject can
be (and frequently is) concerned with emotions and other inner experiences.
Lyric: A lyric poem meditates on one subject. It tends
to focus on internal experiences without a strong storytelling component.
Hybrid: A hybrid poem isn't exactly a type. Rather, it
is a reminder that these categories — narrative and lyric — are not rigid.
Poems can have moments of each or may exist in both modes at once; poems may
exist in another space that is neither narrative nor lyric.
These poem categories
can help you as you think about the poem you are creating. You might decide
that you like the challenge of writing within a form, so you might set out
to write a villanelle. Perhaps, part way through your villanelle, you will
discover that the poem no longer fits that shape. It wants to take a detour
and become a more narrative, open formed poem. As you begin to have a feel
for what the possibilities are in poetry, you will have more options in your
own writing.
How do I begin a poem?
As you set out
to write a poem, you will move through two crucial stages: Getting Started
and Revising. In this lesson, we will focus on Getting Started. When you are
ready to revise, you can visit Writing Poems 2: Techniques and Revision
Getting Started: The Creator
Beginning can
seem like the hardest part of a poem, but once we let ourselves write, the
beginning is the easiest part. As poets, we have two minds: the creator and
the reviser. The creator generates material; the reviser shapes it, making
the tough choices about what stays and what goes. If you let your reviser
start working before your creator has a chance to finish, you will have a
hard time getting started. Below are some tips to help you start your poem,
but the most important thing to remember is to turn off your reviser, telling
this inner self to come back later when your creator is done doing his work.
The best — and
possibly the only — way to start a poem is to start writing. Here are a few
techniques you can use to get your creative energy flowing.
- If you are stuck, do something
you don't usually do. Write in the bathtub or in longhand, write outside,
write for 20 minutes without stopping. Don't worry about grammar or eloquence
or spelling. Just get your ideas and images on paper.
- Find a "writing outfit"—
something that makes you feel outrageous enough that you can get away with
writing anything— a feather boa, a floppy hat, liederhosen, a chiffon ball
gown from Good Will. Make yourself into a character who can say anything and
get away with it. (You might want to keep this persona away from friends,
teachers, parents—the people who will remind you that you can't say just anything!
The point is to keep your creator protected from the censors— internal and
external.)
- Get a special notebook
that you use for writing, perhaps even a special pen.
- Write in a new place: a
coffee shop, the bus station, the library, a park.
- Keep a list of words, images,
phrases, and ideas that appeal to you. You may not use all of them, but when
you are stuck for a place to begin, you can use an item from your "seed
book" as the starting point for a new writing session.
- Pick a beginning line from
a poem you admire. Then, write a poem of your own that uses that line as its
first line. (When you revise, you'll want to cut the borrowed line and keep
only your own.)
- Describe the people around
you, the smell of the grass, the music booming through the floor from the
apartment below. Let yourself keep writing.
- Write nonsense because
you like the sound of the words next to each other. Write until you surprise
yourself. And then keep writing about the surprise.
Frequently,
we start writing with an image or place that inspires us, but as the poem
keeps going, it moves away from that initial image, what Richard Hugo refers
to as the "triggering town." Don't be afraid to let your poems wander
from what they originally seemed to be about. Trust the writing to find it's
own meaning, separate from the triggering subject.
Exercise
In the space
below, write without stopping or worrying about grammar or correctness. Write
for ten minutes about a place you associate with a person who raised you —
mother, grandfather, foster parent, sibling. Keep the person who raised you
in mind, but don't write about him or her directly. Instead, describe that
place that you associate with him or her — your mother's office, your father's
garden — in as much detail as you can, and let those details show us how you
feel about that person.
After you have
generated some material to work with, you are ready to think about how to
revise it. How does the mass of words in front of you become a poem? You job
now is that of a sculptor: you have hacked marble out of your mind's hillside,
now you must shape it into a work of art. Your reviser can come out of hiding
now.
Summary
In this lesson,
you learned what makes a poem and some types of poems. You also learned some
strategies for getting started on your own poem. The best way to keep learning
about poetry is to keep reading it and to experiment with imitating or responding
to what you read. You can also keep your creative mind sharp by trying various
writing exercises and experiments. There are many good books of writing exercises.
You might start with The Practice of Poetry by Robin Behn and Chase
Twichell.
  
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