  Poetry
This week: Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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"...the writing of poems....
the call of overhearing music that is not yet made."
Mary Kinzie, in A Poet's Guide to Poetry
Poetry is the lyrical rendition of the rhythm of sight, sound, touch, taste; of living, seen through the eyes of a poet and consigned to paper and laptop and keyboard until it can be read aloud. Yes, all poetry needs to be read aloud, to savor the rhythm in the words, and revive the images the poet conscribed to the pages of a book or computer.
I am honored to be your guest host for this edition of the WDC Poetry Newsletter.
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Greetings!
Today I'd like you to consider this scenario. For once, you have your place to yourself. Anybody else is out and you have at least one treasured uninterrupted hour to spend writing. A rare opportunity to wax poetic without petty or profound interruptions. You take a pad of paper and a pencil so you can move about as you are inspired. Great opportunity, rare chance, great opportunity....
And your mind is as blank as the page, no, not quite, there's a lot of nonsensical chatter, a bill to pay, who forgot to turn on/off something, those annoying birds outside, chattering, whatever. And when you touch the pencil's point to the paper, ready to commune with your muse poetic, you find he//she has also taken off, and the lonely dot of your pencil doesn't move. Seeking inspiration, you draw a blank.
If you tell me this has never happened to you, not ever, I won't believe you. I can beieve you've never had an hour uninterrupted, but not the other part, the dreaded closed door blank page. So, let's go with it, and open the door, releasing the words that need expression as a blank verse.
Blank verse flows well from common speech, and works to free the muse poetic either in passion or reflection (meditation). There is no end-rhyme pattern but there is an internal metric beat. Think how you tap your fingers to the downbeat of a familiar tune. Yes, as all poetry, perhaps more so, blank verse must be spoken aloud to feel the rhythm or passion of extended sentences and to hear the internal patterns or rhymes. Consider the plays of Shakespeare, Milton's poems (Paradise Lost) and the lyric poetry of Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost (Mending Wal).
 Blank verse does not have ending rhymes (for the most part) and can be composed of any amount of feet (rhythmic pattens) but are most familiarly the iambic pentameter. That is two beat syllables soft and hard, iAM iAM iAM iAM iAM (iamb 5 times in a line). And you will find, as in natural speech, other meters interspered - as inflection or exhortation occurs.
Blank verse, as opposed to free verse, however, does have a dominant meter - most often the iambic pentameter noted above, but if you read aloud (as all poetry needs to be read to be heard), then as in speech, you will find an occasional emphatic three-syllable beat anapest (I'm a PEST, I'm a PEST) or contemplative dactyl {DAC ty lic, DAC tyl ic), or troche (two consective syllables either stressed or unstressed). Blank verse also works with a contemplative or meditative dactyl downbeat. The naming of the meter and beat is defined by the main thread that's conveyed to the senses while reading aloud.
Blank verse, as the sonnet, is generally focused on an image and a contemplatie theme to resolve the image. Unlike the sonnet, however (other than no end-rhyme), there is not a strongly defined turn (volta) or summation. If such is present, it's more subtle in blank verse.
Blank verse does not contain end rhymes AND the images conveyed are not ended in each line. The verse focuses on a longer, more detailed contemplation and ejambment carries through to the next line, to stop where the thought or image would naturally conclude, while maintaining the rhythm into the next pentameter (using pentameter as an example (5 two syllable beats, for example, per line). Then, in the next 'line' you will find a stop in the form of a period or comma, before beginning the next thought. That's enjambment for you word sleuths
Although there is not customarily end-rhyming in blank verse, internal rhyme - within a line or to tie together an enjambed thought - often serves to focus an image.
Rhythm and cadence is also conveyed in blank verse by use of assonance - repeated vowel sound within a line or enjambed image, and alliteration - repeated consonant sounds within said line or enjambed image.
I see blank verse as similar to a story poem, but with meter and rhythm to convey passion or contemplative reflection.
I invite you to read - aloud - the bank verse poems envisioned by some of our members. You will see how versatile the metrical form can be and perhaps give it a try. I wrote my first just last week - and it was a lyric contemplation that helped me focus with depth.
My resources - "A Poet's Guide To Poetr," Mary Kinzie; (c) 1999 by the University of Chicago; and http://www.uni.edu/~gotera/CraftOfPoery/blankverse.html
Keep Writing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading |
For your reading (aloud) and reviewing pleasure ~ a sampling of both impassioned and contemplative blank verse
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Check out the following challenges, perhaps inspire a blank verse contemplative? or discourse in metric resonance? give the Muse Creative a pad and pencil
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Thank you for this welcome to your virtual world. I'd like to share a couple of comments in response to my last guest appearance exploring the 'Sonnet' with the hope you visit with these creative writers and listen to their 'little songs'
The fllowing comment and Sonnet submitted for your reading pleasure
By:runningwolf04
I am a HUGE fan of the sonnet and I've done a fair amount of research on the variations of the sonnet form and the history behind them, but I learned A LOT from your Newsletter! And the links to submission opportunities and contests were great!
Thank you for your kind words, and ~ I will be by your port for some good reading and invite again our members to do likewie
Submitted By: monty31802
You always do a fine newsletter Kate, I especially liked the remark about rhyming words when read aloud. Words that are used due to spelling often do not rhyme at all when read aloud and we write to be read aloud.
When word are spelled alike but do not rhyme used to be called 'Eye candy'...
Thank you  Poetry becomes poetry when I read it aloud, for me. FYI, today, 'eye-candy' has become more physically visual - referring to a person who's just too 'pretty'  for words.
Unitl we next meet,
Keep Writing!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading |
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Poetry: June 17, 2009 Issue [#3113]
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