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inkingaboutwords-blog · 6 years

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Lesson 1: History And Scope

1) Foreword

Inking About Words is a free online poetry course covering all kinds of poetry. No previous knowledge of poetry is required. Its purpose is to mentor budding poets in the local scene of Wellington, Aotearoa. People from outside of the greater Wellington region are welcome to use these resources for their personal education, but are asked not to submit to the workshops. Inking About Words is the creation of Vex Chat-Blanc, and is run in association with Poetry in Motion, Wellington, and with the support of the Wellington community. For further information see the FAQ.

The course comes in the form of a large informative post each month, with small posts of additional content throughout the month. Hopefully every mid-month there will also be a guest post from a local poet expanding further on the topics covered that month. I want people to know what they're in for, so here's a run-down of what to expect from the monthly posts:

A brief foreword

An index that doubles as a checklist so people who feel competent in covered topics can choose to skip/skim those parts

A few sections of writing describing some practical skills, poetic devices, poetry formats, and general theory

Small breakout paragraphs with tips, examples, or sources for further reading

Some encouragement and suggestions for practicing skills covered that month

I intend to be open to workshopping some poems submitted by people relating to that month's topics. I'll post rules for how that will work each month.

Mostly sincerely, Vex

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2) Index

1. Foreword

2. Index

3. Lore

3.1 Poetry by Definition

3.2 History of Poetry

3.3 Geography of Poetry

4. Forms

4.1 Free Verse

4.2 List Poems

4.3 Found Poetry

4.4 Blackout Poems

4.5 Spam Poetry

4.6 Google Poetry

5. Devices

5.1 Simile

5.2 Metaphor

5.3 Analogy

5.4 Allegory

5.5 Parallelism

5.6 Correlative Verse

6. Skills

6.1 Inspiration

6.2 Drafting

6.3 Assessing

7. Suggestions

7.1 Find Some Poetry

7.2 Find Some Poets

7.3 Make Bad Poems

7.4 List Everything

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3) Lore

3.1) Poetry by definition

If you're not new to any kind of educational works, you know to expect that we begin with a boring waffle about the 'true definition' of the topic - starting off with a dictionary definition before painstakingly pointing out all the ways the definition isn’t precise enough.

For poetry, I'm fond of this definition from dictionary.com, which gets progressively more vague with each step and frankly sounds like a poem in its own right:

noun 1. The art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts. 2. Literary work in metrical form; verse. 3. Prose with poetic qualities. 4. Poetic qualities however manifested: "The poetry of simple acts and things." 5. Poetic spirit or feeling: "The pianist played the prelude with poetry." 6. Something suggestive of or likened to poetry: "The pure poetry of a beautiful view on a clear day."

Of course, a dictionary definition really fails to encompass the breadth of poetry. But we don't need a good definition to do the ground work. I just thought it would be good to begin these lessons making sure everyone is thinking about how loose the definition can be, because having that perspective gives you a lot of room to experiment with the boundaries of what can reasonably be called ‘poetry’.

Further watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F7quI-MbzY Further reading: https://www.britannica.com/art/poetry

3.2) History of poetry

If you’ve studied English Lit before, you’ll likely be familiar with the works of some white dudes. But perhaps one might imagine a world of Hemmingways and Byrons to be a bit dull, so I’m going to expand the horizons a little.

An important thing to keep in mind about poetry is that it predates literacy, so while existing written work has been dated back all the way to about 2000BC, using written word as the academic yardstick to measure poetry might be a bit naive, given the oral traditions of hymn, prayer, chant, song, mnemonic, elegy etc. are known to date back further.

On a more modern scale, it’s useful to look at poetry’s applications. While many of these are not new, studying our forebears (that is, the proverbial giants on which we stand rather than the ferocious beasts that stand before us, but you can imagine either as you choose) gives us perspective on what we may wish to repeat or improve upon to have words with impact, rather than simply having words. Such applications I’d like you to consider:

Using poetry to define new concepts

Expressions of affection

Bringing whimsy to the mundane

Speaking out against injustice

3.3) Geography of poetry

Literature is one of the most universally important cultural artifacts. For us to truly understand poetry, we must understand its existence in every culture provides us with a wealth we could never have amassed alone. Studying to create this course really drove home this point for me as I read lists of devices transliterated from other languages, many of which described rules unique to forms from relatively small regions. The point is, poetry doesn’t belong to one culture. It especially doesn’t belong to the academia who study its theory but aren’t a part of its applications. Many cultures, whether that be regional, religious, class, generation, social rights causes, artistic movements, or anything else; include poetry as part of their identities. As a result, poetry can be a powerful way for people to connect to their peers.

Further reading: https://static.poetryfoundation.org/o/media/landays.html Further watching: The Bigger Picture Campaign

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4) Forms

4.1) Free Verse

Excuse me for starting with the obvious, but free/open verse is poetry that doesn't have any rules or restrictions. It's a good starting place to establish that your poetry can just say "idgaf" to all the rules. I can't really teach form without acknowledging that form itself is an opt-in sort of deal.

4.2) List Poems

One of the easiest forms of poetry is the list poem, which unsurprisingly is a list as a poem. You'd think that not just any list would do, but for real any list will do. Just write a list of things and decide how you want to make it poetic (You don't necessarily need to make a list of boring things poetic. It's more common that people make poetic things into a boring list, and that approach is fine too.)

Example: The Labor It Takes To Forgive by Uyên Thi

4.3) Found poetry

Poetry can be found among all sorts of text. Remembering that poetry is to give more meaning to a text through devices, it follows that the act of finding meaning in existing text can therefore create poetry.

There's lots of ways to create found poetry, many of which hinge on highlighting the absurdity of the world. One of my favourites is just to take things out of context. The removal or addition of context can create or change meaning in text.

Example: This couplet written using a truth or dare game on chewing gum wrappers.

Here's some other forms of found poetry:

4.4) Blackout poems

An erasure poem involves removing words or letters from a block of text, such as a page of a book, or a psalm, or an existing poem, such that what is leftover forms a poem. The most popular method, and a more common name, is the blackout poem, which involves using a permanent marker to blackout the other words. Many use the opportunity to also create an image that complements the poem.

Example: They Were Married

4.5) Spam poetry

Spam poetry is a form of found poetry that takes words or phrases from spam emails and forms them into poems. Sometimes they have messages, but more often they are an exercise in skirting the uncanny valley of coherency to highlight the absurdity of spam messages.

Example(s): http://www.spampoetry.org/our-favorites/

4.6) Google poetry

Another common form of found poetry is Google poetry - a form created by gathering the suggested search completions that google presents you with when you start typing in a partial search term. Many of these poems consist only of suggested search terms and are very short and in the format of a list poem. However, it is possible to create a poem that uses these search terms as part of a larger narrative.

Examples of short google poems: http://www.googlepoetics.com/ Example of larger narrative: Google Search For Black Lives Matter by Len Lawson

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5) Devices

5.1) Simile

A simile is an explicit comparison made, typically using a ‘like’ or ‘as’ statement.

Example: “A simile is like a metaphor”

5.2) Metaphor

A metaphor is an implicit comparison made by saying something entirely different to what you’re saying. Now, is that cheating? Heck yes. Poetry is 90% cheating.

Example: “You are an asshole”.

(Swearing is, after all, probably the most common use of poetic device.)

5.3) Analogy

An analogy is a phrase that uses one idea to express another. This can be a metaphor or a simile, and can be straightforward or subtle and indirect. On the internet, analogies are often (ironically) regarded as a false equivalence. The catch being that an analogy is used to explain a concept by relating it to an existing concept rather than say those concepts are the same.

Example: An atom is like a solar system in that it has planets (electrons) that orbit a large sun (the nucleus).

5.4) Allegory

An allegory is the story-sized version of a metaphor. A tale in which the actors are stand-ins for political figures, or social ills, or a child you want to send an irresponsibly indirect warning to. They tend to be used to send a moral or political message. Balancing the clarity of the message with consistency of the metaphor can be tricky. Most fairy tales are allegories designed to teach children about the dangers of the world around them.

5.5) Parallelism

Parallelism is the use of words that are similar in their construction, sound, or meaning. It often employs repetition, and is often used to compare two concepts. For example: “Like father, like son”. Parallelism is an umbrella term that encompasses many more specific poetic devices, such as Janus parallelism, which uses the multiple meanings of a word to join two different statements together in such a way that each statement uses a different meaning of the word.

Example: “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

5.6) Correlative Verse

Correlative verse uses two lists, and parallels the items between those lists. The way the lists are paralleled isn't constrained in any way, so that's up to you. That said, I think if you want people to appreciate it as a device, you have to use a parallel that will be clear to your audience.

Example: “The intern, the mistress, and the public, were not aware of the affairs of the state, or the heart”

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6) Skills

6.1) Inspiration

Finding inspiration is a thing most poets I know have trouble with, but to be honest, if you have something to say, about anything at all, you have a poem. Anything you can tweet can be reworked into a poem with the right application of poetic devices. Of course it's not as simple as that. Some topics are bland no matter how you state them. But if you find yourself with such a problem, consider some alternative perspectives on the topic: is there someone with higher stakes in the matter? Maybe you could write a persona piece (be wary of telling other people's stories though - it seems like an easy grab for evocative content, but I can guarantee you it's a trap. Your best work will come from your experience 99% of the time). Is the topic an easy allegory? What’s the smallest amount of words you can use to get your point across? Can the topic be expressed by remixing something that already exists? Would wild exaggeration make the topic more interesting?

6.2) Drafting

The drafting process is not a universal thing, and it’s okay to have a process that differs from what I’m about to outline. But there are two mistakes that are incredibly common among poets:

Believing a bad draft is a worthless poem

Believing a good draft is a finished work

Ideally, a first draft should be a train wreck of ideas that don’t consistently flow on from each other. It may not be cohesive enough to perform, and in fact that’s probably a good sign. Most forms of writing have an initial planning stage, and use the first draft to get the ideas from the plans into words, acting as placeholders for the more refined structure and vocabulary in later drafts. Poetry is typically easier to plan -after- the first draft. I recommend using the first draft as a way to collect whatever stanzas, ideas, and poetic devices flow freely out of your headspace when you first decide something might make a good poem. Don’t worry about what the end result will be, and don’t pre-emptively throw things out if they don’t seem good enough. Just ensure you write down everything that comes out before you start running out of ideas. It’s worth noting that many people get discouraged because their first draft turns out bad. The biggest favour you can do your self-confidence as a poet is to not expect a first draft to produce a poem.

6.3) Assessing

Once you have an initial draft, you can work on figuring out where to go from there. This is the point where you can plan a structure, choose a form, decide what message you want to convey, decide what lines to keep, decide what lines to throw out. Think hard about what aspects of the draft are good, and what aspects are bad. Consider where you can give it a better rhythm and where more complex poetic devices can be fitted in without disturbing the flow.

Tip: Think carefully about -how- you want to convey your message. Your draft may have some novel devices or particularly on-the-nose metaphors that will go a long way to making the piece unique among similar voices. This is normally what I recommend focusing on, as the most striking poems usually are the ones that hold an entirely new perspective for people.

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7) Suggestions

7.1) Find some poetry

I don't usually look for found poetry. You get the most out of it by developing a mindset that questions whether any given thing is poetry (which I do recommend working on, it will help you a lot to produce more content). But you absolutely can actively search for found poetry. Try the techniques described earlier just for practice.

7.2) Find some poets

You gotta know what you like. Better yet if you know why you like it. Find some poets you like across all genres, and jot their names down. If you need to discover new poets to do this there are good sites online that will help you out (and expose you to too many old white dudes, so don't rely on them too heavily if you can). I recommend choosing a variety of categories such as genres/topics that interest you, minority groups you want to see represented, poetic forms you like, etc and trying to find a poet you love for each category. If you want to take it one step further, use those categories to make a Punnet square and see if you can find a poet that fits each intersection of those categories. Be sure to include both page and performance poets.

7.2) Make bad poems

Try editing a draft into a intentionally bad poem. Aim to end up with something you'd be embarrassed to have discovered in a diary from at least 5 years ago. This will help you in a number of ways: you'll become more comfortable accepting the difference between a draft and a poem, better be able to identify mistakes/bad use of poetic devices, and become more comfortable producing bad work (it seems like an unnecessary thing, but I assure you it will help you out)

7.3) List anything

Just pick something to list and list it. Try to cover a range of topics from trite mundane things like shopping lists, to heavy existential things like reasons university is killing you. Lists make great drafts and typically bad poems. The unfortunate thing is they tend to make great drafts specifically for list poems, so you won't always get something you can work into another form. But once in a while a list poem comes out really well on its own merits. --- I juuust realized I said I’d explain how submissions will work at the end of the post. I really have no idea what an appropriate way to do this would be, so for now if you a) are from Aotearoa, b) want some advice (at the moment I’ll only be helping with the assessing step), c) are comfortable with your work being posted here, then fire through a submission.

#Poetry #Learning #Education #Wellington #Wellington NZ #Aotearoa #Poetry in Motion Wellington

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