Notes on Writing Poetry
Some magazines automatically reject rhymed, even if it’s good. (They call it a jingle.).
Many classic poets unrhymed.
14-16th century English mostly rhymed.
Since then, blank verse more the norm.
Nothing stands out more awkwardly in amateur writing than bad rhyming.
My cat, she loves the rats—
The rats that ate my hat.
He loves America,
He plays the harmonica.
Bad meter comes in second.
Roses are red, violets are blue,
I miss you so much that I don’t know what to do.
The Poem
Blank verse
Blank refers to lack of end rhyme
Lines of consistent length, meter
Usually iambic pentameter—To be or not to be.
Free verse
Varies in line length
Has irregular meter or rhyme that’s not metrical
The Poem
Some elements in poetry.
repetition.
His loving kindness endures forever.
parallelism.
Key in Biblical poetic books.
Luke 1:46-47 – My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
inclusio
Genesis: Evening, morning, day
chaism
The son goes out
I will say “I have sinned”
Father runs to meet son and show compassion
Son says “I have sinned”
The lost gets found.
Poetry
Toughest writing to get published.
Low paying markets
Regular poetry column in Writer’s Digest
Book recommendations:
The Poet’s Handbook, Judson Jerome
2005 Poets’ Market (Writer’s Digest)
Footnote to All Prayers
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiest thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.
Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.
–C.S. Lewis