Poetry Techniques

I participate in writing subjects at Helium.com. I am able to exercise my writing skills, and discipline myself to compose information I may not necessarily think of on my own. Part of this writing is rating the other writers. It gives me a chance to see how others are writing, and their views on subjects.

I was reading an essay on Poetry Techniques. It was very long, and very well researched. I was somewhat amazed by the amount of information telling poets how to write. I understand timing, rhyme, false rhyme and certain techniques. I have used them for creative writing projects in college.

But poetry is more than being able to combine words and meter. At least, for me it is. Normally, when I write a poem, it springs from a thought. I have a poem “The Dancer”. This did take a couple of years to write, because what I had for the poem were the last lines “Old woman sits in a chair, Her future recedes”.

This came when I was camping. Relaxing in the sun, I was thinking about life, where it’s going, how it’s going to end up, I ponder a lot. I saw the woman in my mind, rocking on a porch, hands folding in her lap, looking at the trees. How did she get there? All of her life played before her, and she was smiling.

When I write, normally, I hear the rhythm. As I put the thought into words, the computer keyboard becomes a piano, the syllables are notes, the pauses occur in the phrase. I sometimes go over it a few times, but honestly, it more often comes out just the way it sounds. Sometimes, it’s really good. Like my poem WOE. When you read this, you can feel the slow march of the Israelites, the heat, and the despair. The pace increases, and you can feel the joy. This is a really good poem.

I have a dark poem published on Helium. Today its number 236 of 1,337. That’s good. This is one of my stronger poems; I usually don’t publish the dark stuff. There is too much of it out there these days. Sometimes I think today’s poets have a mindset that trouble and discontent are the backbone of poetry. I don’t share that view.

Poetry is a dance, a celebration of life. Life has darkness, but it contains real joy, and fun. I just had a poem on breathing come to mind. Aren’t you glad you can breath? Doesn’t the sun fill you with hope? Misery passes. It really does. Oh, you say, you don’t know about my life! But really, I know about mine. If I told you all the sad and awful things that have happened to me, you’d sit down and be thankful for your life. I once read in a book about the Tree of Sorrows. When the people died, they were allowed to march around the tree with others, and could pick a different life. In the end, they chose their own.

This is a fun poem: WORDS

Never is a big word
Always seems so huge
I stand and face such verbiage
I am thoroughly confused.

Sometimes seems so normal
Maybe is benign
Could be fills with promise
Someday passes time.

What about the real words
Like yes and no and do?
Could be sometime someday
Maybe always never, too.


This is the dark poem APPARITION

You are an apparition.
Whispering worthy words into my ear
Wooing me with woeful tales of regret
Leading me to your persuasive prison
Where it is cold and dark
And no love lives.

Cold hearts, I know them well.
They cast their spell
And stand inside their walls
Believing they can live
Without touching
And have without holding
All the while, their hearts are molding
And dying, and they are deceived.

But they can’t care,
Because their delight is like night
And their smiles are darkness
Eyes filled with promise and deceit
They live in heat
That burns and kills the sweetness

Then suddenly, they are surprised
By death.