Rules for Poets
 

Cellarite kisrael (Boston Fireworks IOtD) has posted Rules for Poets on his site.

I think they should be required reading for all you budding Plaths. :p

For example;
#9 - The importance of a private memory doesn't justify art.
Or;
#13 - The world does not need another poem about a bad relationship. Save it for the diary.

Go read the rest. :cool:

"If it hasn't been edited, it is not a poem. It is a draft."

I'm taping that to my office drawer, only I'm replacing "poem" with "song".

I liked "If you use the word 'soul,' you will be shot."

shot thru the soul...hey! that sounds like a good idea for a - oh, wait.

:notworthy:

lol. I have torn up a piece of paper into tiny pieces, so bad was the poem I'd penned on it.

No one has written poems worse than the ones I wrote in HS. No one! :)

Ahem...I beg to differ. I wrote some truly awful shit.

I loved it all, except:
Which is wrong. Just plain wrong.
I have read (and posted here) beautiful sestinas - not my own, I don't have the discipline.
And an insistence that free verse is the only valid form of poetry negates many of the other points. And sadly soured me on the rest of it.

Free verse can be beautiful. But it is deceptively artful, and its very simplicity is what fools many would-be poets into thinking they can write.

There is a huge difference between rhyming doggerel and poetry.
And some of the most talented poets I have read employ verse and/ or specific form to great affect.

Oh we need a thread: your bad teen poems. I have them all! You would laugh and laugh! :lol:

i have none of them unfortunately. Or fortunately, depending how you look at it:P

Yes Bruce, Yes. 9 & 13 seemed to be the core of one of our past members opus.....
I will gladly contribute to the bad teen poetry thread. Can't say mine has improved much since, hence not sharing it here.

Oh noes, calling my bluff. Well, I'll have to find them.

I agree with Sundae about the rhyming one. That one is just wrong.

I wrote a poem about the rules for poets:

Your poem.
It sucks.
Because you used rhymes.
Your poem.
It sucks.
Out my soul. And mind.
Your poem
Reminds me
of my ex
who
was crap at sex
and we spent endless nights
working together
hearts beating as one
writing poems
about the burning sun
we wrote ten a night
and then we’d fight
and now he’s gone.

*Applauds* outstanding! Well done that manc!

Bravo, monster!

hehehe monster. Your bad is good.

All it needs now is a beret, a bongo drum accompaniment, and bad personal hygiene, and you're a professional poet!

Very nice... I'm reminded of a saying.... most English professors have a novel in them.

And that's a good place for it.

Yup. apparently everyone has a novel in them and is entitled to 15 minutes of fame.

Probably the most charitable act your average individual can commit is to donate their 15 minutes to someone needy and take their novel to the grave

Well, I don't have a novel.

However, there is a mediocre web comic in here somewhere. But don't worry; I'm slowly starving it to death.

Oh yes, I'm sure you have your very own Bob the Angry Flower in ya.

Poets (and lyricists), if you must rhyme, the following combinations are forbidden:

* yearn / spurn / burn
* love / dove
* people / steeple (Yes, I know there is nothing else that rhymes with people. You will need to rephrase.)
* baby / maybe

There may be others. The committee for the prevention of trite banality will make regular announcements. Thank you.

cry / die

unrequited / reunited

The Rembrandts did a lyric that makes me spontaneously vomit

Don't let me go, sweet Virginia
Darling let me in ya
In your heart

If they hadn't added that last line tag it would be unforgivable. And if they didn't have the most awesome and weird harmonies in it.

Whereas Neil Finn's audacity in I Got You was one of the first things that singled him out for me:

Look at you, you're a pagaent
You're everything, that I've imagined

Trust me - it's beautiful within the confines of the song.

Oh wow, one of my favorite songs that I never hear, then when I do I'm like...oh wow! :)

Somebody or other (Cole Porter? ??) did a lyric where the singer is bored with all the retreaded love songs, and sings... "la la la la Moon... la la la la June."

Oooh! And cowboy boots, chickens, and a vegetarian vegetable garden!

Just found a Pearl Jam cover of said song!
He mangles the words. Like with a combine harvester!
Sigh, ad-lib Shakespeare why don't you?
A good effort at the intensity though.

ETA

Subsequently found the real thing. Yes, of course it's dated now. But forgive the theatrics - it's still spooky-good paranoid songwriting. And he's my hero so shush anyway xxx

eye-am-bik pen-tam-uh-tuhr
 

Iambic pentameter


Ĭn sóoth,/Ĭ knów/nŏt whý/Ĭ ám/sŏ sád.

Ĭt wéa/riĕs mé;/yŏu sáy/ĭt wéa/riĕs yóu....


Simple sample! I feel I need a degree to get it!

Simple example

An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The rhythm can be written as:da DUM!


A line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM


It's possible to notate this with a '˘'(Breve) mark representing an unstressed syllable and a '/'(Forward Slash) mark representing a stressed syllable[1]. In this notation a line of iambic pentameter would look like this:˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ /


The following line from John Keats' Ode to Autumn is a straightforward example:[2]
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

We can notate the scansion of this as follows:˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ /
To swell the gourd, and plump the ha- zel shells


We can mark the divisions between feet with a |, and the caesura (a pause) with a double vertical bar ||.˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ /
To swell | the gourd, || and plump | the ha- | zel shells

A poem with stage directions. :haha:

There are five feet in a meter?

lol It says so. I guess it's not possible to have 5 left feet in poetry.
Like a caterpillar it just gets up and goes no matter the number of feet or whether I understand it or not. I'm trying.


The English word "trapeze" is an example of an iambic pair of syllables, since the word is made up of two syllables ("tra—peze") and is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable ("tra—PEZE", rather than "TRA—peze"). Iambic pentameter is a line made up of five pairs of short/long, or unstressed/stressed, syllables.A line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:da DUM (1) da DUM (2) da DUM(3) da DUM(4) da DUM (5)

So what is an iambic pentameter in the USA may well not be in the UK or Aus.

I guess dialects huh? I can't imagine writing one in Elizabethan English.

Rhyming poetry can also be problematic when it crosses the atlantic. Sometimes people hear me use a word and then say "oh that's why you used that to rhyme with....."

Interesting. I hadn't considered that problem.

I had to go look of course.

The methods for creating poetic rhythm vary across languages and between poetic traditions. Languages are often described as having timing set primarily by accents, syllables, or moras, depending on how rhythm is established, though a language can be influenced by multiple approaches.[29] Japanese is a mora-timed language. Syllable-timed languages include Latin, Catalan, French, Leonese, Galician and Spanish. English, Russian and, generally, German are stress-timed languages. Varying intonation also affects how rhythm is perceived. Languages also can rely on either pitch, such as in Vedic or ancient Greek, or tone. Tonal languages include Chinese, Vietnamese, Lithuanian, and most subsaharan languages.[30]

and then on and on it goes....More wiki about it at the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry

Mirror doesn't rhyme with queer in British English. Which really limits gay perv poetry.

Yeah but they get long dong and schlong to play with. So to speak.

IN A WONDEROUS CAVE

they're waiting in the valley
they're holding big white candles
a princess looks with fierceness
the cavern's filled with stones

beneath the stones are wishes
they're buried for exposure
five voices from the shadows
forbid the hollow's closure

a centaur stomps in fervor
a nymph is pale and sick
i'm standing in the darkness
i'm unawares, but quick

from stars a fallen angel
its cries a deafening pain
i'm standing in the darkness
i know not where i am

all eyes are now upon me
a thousand questions asked
misplaced, i lost my blessing
perhaps it was miscast?

tis easy, all beginnings
and hard to travel back
i'll straighten out the history
destroying hatred's past

i hid within dark corners
my thoughts upon the ground
then sudden were my eyes upturned
to bright fair, all around

the stones now crimson flowers
the cave walls silken threads
wishes bloomed as springtime
light and love now wed

where gone, the fearsome horrors
why came the gentle grace
how treked i to the cavern?
to know is not my place.

leave you, dear fragrant cavern
to arms of mars now shorn
set down my armor draping
my sword amongst the thorns

i'll fight the call to battle
and shear the feel of guilt
i must pursue ersarthyl
and ne'er lay hands on hilt.

hail venus, i'm through battles
another fight i make
restoring love's high glory
no blood shall i dare take

diana braced me firmly
and gave me lance of song
to touch those souls abiding
and right the suffering wronged

though i yet still the soldier
disarmed convention's way
my foes are not unhindered
their nature soon i'll slay

(c) Erik, 2009 23 March 7:23AM

That's amazing. Really beautiful.

LOVE TRAILING THE NORTH WINDS
(dedicated to Yvonne, raised to understand gentleness)

the north winds raced over the great plains and down mountain slopes,
in the valley by the atlantic coast i felt their sting,
they had appointment with pain near the caribbean sea,
i followed upon a giant cloud at their tail.

i flew low and gathered my beloved,
she took seat unclothed on the cloud, attired in majesty,
her love was glue; she could not fall,
i felt the strength of our bond.

we arrived o’er the isles and watched the great battle,
from the breasts of my beloved came nectar; we drank,
from my heart came rose petals, we ate
(winds fought the gray mists of sorrow born from dark waters),

zephyrs protected us with a mark upon our foreheads,
a secret symbol etched upon our brows,
we could not be harmed, both mark and bond were strong,
(neither did we have the power to grieve one another).

the noise of the battle was inaudible to mortal man so she composed music,
i wrote words to companion her creativity, thus was battle memorialized,
music and lyrics intertwined with love and beauty, for this was our way,
mortals heard beautiful symphony coming from the sky and grew angry.

the north winds sent mists back into the depths of waters,
then turned, smiled, and blessed us with a gust of wind,
and vowed never to let the spirits of division injure us,
we stayed awhile, seated upon the cloud, we had eternal reprieve.

we carved our names using sunlight onto a night sky,
i called her, 'Arwen"
she called me, "Water'
we named our bond, 'always'.

© by Erik, 15 Aug 2011, 1:27AM

PAST DON'T

i sang to the chalice of despair. it turned into a crystal cup of blue waters.
i placed my foot upon a golden rod and took up the branch of an oak tree.
i stumbled over the stones of Ulrithlim and fell into the lavender seas of the North lands.
i dreamed the horrors of battle and woke to the calm of the Duchess of Lent.
i was born on icy clouds and descended to the warmth of her thighs.

do not say you see me. I am removed.

i was torn; re-made as a unicorn bringing grace to Ahmaryl Forrest.
i never arrived on Earth but traveled there while bathing in Celerion waters.
i tasted the sweet music of Arvo, and now wish to dine in the heart of my beloved.
i have lived in all ways what you are, now i am that which you can not be.
i have composed songs of my death which no one can ever hear.

do not say you see me. i am a dove.

in my trying moments her hand was outstretched; oh my loving cousin!
in the midst of heavenly war the beauty of Runera appeared.
in the womb of a tempest I waited for green pastures.
In the kingdom of Neptune angry dolphins sought my life.
In an enchanting room of woods, i spoke with a queen.

do not say you see me, i am... much love.

(c) erik 2011 July 12, 4:02AM

Concerning Death Surrounding Life Surrounding Death

a basket full of crystal pears
around them sat a clutch of hares
three doves above, a show of peace
the gentle entrance to his sleep

five thorns were pointed to his grace
six angels thwart their fiery haste
nine steps it took so he may flee
ten thoughts that he come back to thee

the sullen children march in rain
the gray swords flank forbidding pain
but one was lost yet found his way
through much travail he kept at bay

great stoney cliffs ascend him high
he's fallen thrice from stormy skies
to darkened shadows fixed his gaze
perfecting battle fortress blazed

and rising to friend's pleasing songs
to arms that held him sorely wronged
despair's reduction sought his life
but turned around to dragon’s wife

thus triumph mounted golden steed
to charge full force through death and greed
emerging clean, all washed by tears
oh heaven take him; light appears

and now from golden cities far
ethereal brush he paints the stars
with sidewards glance sees love and kin
and envies not where he has been

oh... sacred... peace!

(c) erik, 4 Oct. 2011

thank you erik. well done sir.

very nice!:)