Poetry
This week: Visual or Spatial Verse: Part Five Edited by: Red Writing Hood <3 More Newsletters By This Editor
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"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words."
Robert Frost
All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry.
G.K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)
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Visual or Spatial Verse: Formatting Poetry to Create Added Depth, Part Five: Spiritual Forms
No matter how you format your poetry it creates a visual by the way you choose things like line lengths, syntax, punctuation, fonts, poem length, stanzas, etc. All these choices and more create a visual; however what I will explore in the next few months is the genre of shaped verse that creates a particular visual for the reader—meshing art and the written word. Today I will share some forms that are reminiscent of the spiritual.
We are winding down this series, and in the final part I’d like to share the spatial forms created by WDC members. Please send me the name you gave your created shape form and details on creating it like alignment (center, left, right), meter, rhyme, etc.
Altar Verse
Altar shaped poems have been around for hundreds of years.
MUST HAVES
--Must use words to create a shape. In this case, the shape is an altar. However, altars can vary in shape, and which one you pick is up to you.
--Topic/theme: This should somehow be tied to an altar.
--Alignment: Usually center aligned.
COULD HAVES or WHAT IS THE POET’S CHOICE IN ALL THIS?
--Line count.
--Word count.
--Meter.
--Number of stanzas.
--Rhyme.
The Joybell
MUST HAVES
--Alignment: Centered.
--Line count: 6
--Meter: Syllabic, and in the following order: 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 4
--Number of stanzas 1, unless it’s a chain.
--Rhyme: Unrhymed.
COULD HAVES or WHAT IS THE POET’S CHOICE IN ALL THIS?
--Topic/Theme.
Tree of Life
The Tree of Life was the brain child of Christina R Jussaume and was created within the last fifteen years.
MUST HAVES
--Number of stanzas: 1
--Number of lines: 19
--Rhyme: Unrhymed.
--Alignment: center.
--Meter: syllabic, and in the following order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4.
COULD HAVES or WHAT IS THE POET’S CHOICE IN ALL THIS?
--Topic/theme is your choice, but should be about something in nature, something spiritual or something uplifting.
NOTE TO REMEMBER: One of the biggest pitfalls I see with this type of formatting is a great urge to create a visual that somehow this becomes the driving force and the poem suffers for it. Either the careful word choice is scrapped to make sure the specific shape is adhered to, or the use of metaphor and simile and other tools to create a depth of meaning are lacking because the focus was all about the shape. As in anything in life, the key is balance. Remember, you are creating a poem. Don’t let the formatting take over. Instead let it enhance and entrance the reader.
SOURCE NOTES:
Berg, V. J. (1977). Pathways for the poet: Poetry patterns explained and illustrated. Milford, MI: Mott Media.
http://the.a.b.c.of.poetry.styles.patthepoet.com/T2Z.html
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Theme: Poems about trees of life (some shaped, just not in the format listed in the article above), altars and bells (and one just mentions dumbbell, but I really liked it so I included it, too).
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Comments on last month's newsletter:
No comments or feedback on my last newsletter, so I'll take advantage of this space this time to ask a question: I enjoy using the many poetic tools in our tool box. My favorite is metaphor. What's your favorite poetic tool to use?
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