Introduction to From the Ground Up

From the Ground Up

"Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world,
and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar."
Percy Bysshe Shelley

"The essentials of poetry are rhythm, dance, and the human voice."
Earle Birney

"Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."
Thomas Gray

So, you want to write poetry. You sit down to the keyboard and pour out your heart in words stacked in lines with a few dashes or a few . . . and a lot of !!! all full of emotion and you label it "POEM." Not so fast.

Your first poetic effort may actually turn out really well. Miracles happen every day. But more likely, your poem will lack something. As with any skill or craft, learning the basics is always a good idea.

Preparing the Ground

Look at it this way. When you want to grow a garden, the first thing you have to do is prepare the ground. Weeds and grass have to be removed. The soil needs to be dug up and compost and fertilizer added. Then it needs to be cultivated to make the soil nice and lose. All this, and you haven't planted one seed. Oh, and don't forget watering.

Compare a poem to the vegetable you want to grow. It will be the result of all your preparation. You don't want it to be stunted and wimpy; you want it something you can be proud of producing. So, you take the time to prepare the ground.

"From the Ground Up" is a poetry class for beginners who do not have any educational background in writing poetry and want to get started. By the end of the course, you won't be writing like Robert Frost or Emily Dickenson, but you will be familiar with some of the basic terminology and be able to produce a structurally good poem.


Reading Poetry is Major Part of Learning to Write Poems

As with any writing skill, the more you read the better your own writing becomes. The internet is a good source for poems to read. Here is one site you can use: http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/

If you know the name of a specific poem or poet, one of my favorite sites is http://www.poets.org

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