 Drama: April 04, 2018 Issue [#8817] |
  Drama
This week: Drama in Poetry Edited by: Joy  
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“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
Sarah Williams
“I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.”
Sylvia Plath
“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”
Walt Whitman
"Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air."
Carl Sandburg
"If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry."
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. Since we are celebrating poetry this month, in this issue, we’re going to examine how drama and poetry can unite successfully.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
Drama is action. It usually arises from conflict and is expressed in some kind of a dialogue. In poetry, it is usually expressed in verse, using poetic tools.
A good poem isn’t dull. It uses human action or other strengths that are essentially human. This is the loose definition of drama in poetry. Most of the exciting poems have some kind of a drama instilled in them. For example, when Langston Hughes ends As I Grew Older with “My dark hands! // Break through the wall! // Find my dream! // Help me to shatter this darkness, // To smash this night, // To break this shadow // Into a thousand lights of sun, // Into a thousand whirling dreams // Of sun!” he is injecting drama into his poem.
Then, there is dramatic poetry, like that of Aeschylus, Shakespeare, and Christopher Marlowe. This kind of poetry is meant to be recited or put stage, as it usually tells a story or refers to a situation.
Edgar Allen Poe starts his poem Eldorado with ‘Gaily bedight, // A gallant knight, // In sunshine and in shadow ,// Had journeyed long, // Singing a song, // In search of Eldorado/ and ends it with ‘He met a pilgrim shadow-//"Shadow," said he, // Where can it be- // This land of Eldorado?"//--// "Over the Mountains // Of the Moon, // Down the Valley of the Shadow, // Ride, boldly ride,"//The shade replied- // "If you seek for Eldorado!" This type of poetry is called dramatic poetry as it involves speech and action.
Closet drama, dramatic monologues, and rhymed verse are the different kinds of dramatic poetry, in addition to what is in plays and llibretti for the operas.
Closet drama is a verse drama intended to be read on page but not performed. It was brought to life around the eighteenth century. Lord Byron, for example, wrote basically this kind of poetry. He starts By the Rivers of Babylon We Sat Down and Wept with “We sat down and wept by the waters // Of Babel, and thought of the day // When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters, // Made Salem’s high places his prey; // And ye, oh her desolate daughters! // Were scattered all weeping away…”
In a dramatic monologue a speaker addresses a silent listener. T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is such a poem, and it starts with this stanza. } “Let us go then, you and I, // When the evening is spread out against the sky // Like a patient etherized upon a table; // Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, // The muttering retreats // Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels // And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: // Streets that follow like a tedious argument // Of insidious intent // To lead you to an overwhelming question ... // Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” // Let us go and make our visit.”
Rhymed Verse in dramatic poetry is when several characters speak in rhymed lines and in blank verse. Here is an example of rhymed verse when Coleridge writes in his poem Monody on the Death of Chatterton, “Thee, CHATTERTON! yon unblest Stones protect // From Want, and bleak freezings of Neglect! // Escap'd the sore wounds of Affliction's rod, // Meek at the Throne of Mercy, and of God, // Perchance thou raisest high th' enraptured hymn // Amid the blaze of Seraphim! “
If you want to try your hand in writing dramatic poetry or inject drama in your poetry, you might begin by reading and imitating the old masters, but if you wish to skip doing that, then, I suggest:
• know your goal and subject very well,
• capture a feeling and try to generate a response in your readers
• use the five senses and action
• use narrators and other characters inside the poem,
• use figures of speech (metaphors and similes) wisely,
• use concrete words more than the abstract ones,
• minimize what is ordinary by avoiding clichés and sentimentality,
• use rhyme and blank verse, only if you wish.
May all your words move your readers and may all your writing turn out to be fresh and stunning!
Until next time! 
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 This Issue's Tip: When using characters speaking in your poetry, try every possible point of view to make the poem as imaginative and dramatic as possible.
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Feedback for "Where to Begin to Fine-Tune Your Story"
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Quick-Quill 
Other weak segments in our stories may be the scenes. The question to ask for each scene has to be, “Is this scene complete in itself in the way that it progresses the story forward, rather than taking up space and repeating what is already said?” It is a good idea to cut out the scenes that repeat the action or dialogue and add nothing to the flow. this set me back. How many times have I read a scene where a character is repeating or telling someone else information the reader already knew. What's the point? The cop saw the dead body. Now he's telling his cop buddies all about the body, so what? Unless one of those cops is the killer or sees a clue missed by the cop, leave the scene out.
Thanks for the input, and yes, unnecessary repetition is useless and bores the reader unless the writer has a scene at the beginning of a long novel and wants to remind the readers of the information in that scene. Even then, that scene should only be referred to and not reproduced in its entirety.
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