Poetry: Notes (week 1, 2)

• Craft versus “Art”
• A poem is an affair between the spark and the mind
• Creative spark (genius)
• Commitment to regular writing is required
• Prose: written within the confines of margins
• Poetry: written in lines that don’t pay attention to (especially the right) margins OR a structure of lines and rhythmic energy and repetitive sound; a blending of statement and form that is intentional and clarifying
• Beat pattern (rhythm)
• Structure (lines, stanzas)
• Content (statement)
• Metrical Poems
• Set and specific rhyme scheme
• Set and specific patterns and line lengths
• Doesn’t use ordinary language
• Metrical poems have a musical quality
• Inflection helps release meaning – create tones and shapes
• Modern Poetry (aka. Free Verse)
• Think about writing
• Talk about writing
• Write
• Patience and diligence
• Breath
• Intake and flow, life
• Pattern
• Indicator of hidden things
• Repetition makes pattern
• Metrical verse was meant to be heard out loud
• Universal Images
• Imagination and intelligence are required
• The five senses
• Recall, organize, conceptualize, meditate
• Universal Themes
• Life and Death
• Love and Loss
• Nature (The Physical World)
• Poetry tries to marry the world of thought with the world of nature
• As the world of nature changes, we risk losing touch with older poems; our experience must in some way match the nature of the experiences of the author
• Human Nature—what does it mean to be human? why are we here?
• Imagery: the representation of one thing by another thing
• Figurative language: figure of speech, specific type of language; another term for imagery
• Detailed, sensory language
• Incorporates images
• Particulars
• Visual cue versus informational cue
• Needs an article to keep it concrete
• Sensory detail (as in uses the five senses)
• Develops texture