What is Poetry?

There are many definitions of poetry. Coleridge said that, "Poetry = the best words in the best order." Pasternak, more poetically, said that it is, "the crunch of jostling ice floes, it is two nightingales duelling." Basically, and more mundanely, poetry is prose written down in specific line order on a page. "If prose is walking," someone said, "poetry is dancing." The language poets use, the words, are under a stress that gives them beauty and meaning. The poet gives the reader, in few words, a story and a feeling, an emotion.

Here's a little exercise for you. Take a blank sheet of paper and a pen or pencil. (Don't use your keyboard; you need to feel the pen or pencil slipping over the paper.)

Now, close your eyes and picture your mother's room, your baby's room, your boyfriend's room - the room of anyone dear to you. When it's clear in your mind, write: In my ...................'s room...

Don't stop now, keep writing what you see or feel about that room, and don't worry about line length, rhyme or rhythm just yet. Break the lines where you feel it is right, and begin a new line. Keep going until you run out of things to write.

When you have finished your first draft, look at what you have written. Is there anything in there that brings something back to you, some forgotten memory, some feeling? Rewrite it, focussing on that one point. Keep it short.

For your next draft, you will look at the words you have used. Are they the very best words for that thought, for that feeling? Is there a metaphor you can use to convey the thought without stating it so clearly? What words can be cut out without affecting the whole? How do the line endings work and are the pauses in the right places. Look now at rhythm; rhyme is not necessary but even free poetry must have rhythm. Tap out the rhythm as you read the words to see how it fits ... dah, de dah, de dah, dah....

Keep writing and rewriting until you feel that it is as polished and as fresh and new as you can possible make it. Compare it with your earlier drafts before deciding that this is your final draft though. Sometimes, in the constant redrafting, the freshness of those first thoughts and words can be lost.

When you are happy with it, make a clean copy and send it out to find a home in some anthology, or book of poetry.

The little Apostrophe looms large

The apostrophe looms large in the eyes of many writers, and it's such a little thing. I see its misuse everywhere, in my newspaper, on the internet, on menus in restaurants, and on signs, and am so grateful that we don't use accents in our written language. Why am I still writing about the humble apostrophe? Because it's part of our language, and part of the way we communicate, so it's important that it is used correctly. (See previous post about its and it's.)

I saw a sign a few days ago, on the window of a real estate agent, that proudly proclaimed, "You're home is in here!" Soon afterwards, I saw another sign, on another window: "Come in; your welcome" was boldly writ upon the glass. The message that both of these businesses were communicating was not what they intended it to be.

Where and when to use the apostrophe can be confusing but if we remember that the apostrophe is replacing a letter, (if it is not indicating the possessive), we will make less mistakes.

By using the apostrophe, we make a contraction, that is, two words joined together by the apostrophe. For example:

You're is a contraction of You + Are, so the sign in the real estate agent's window was actually saying: You are home is in here, which of course doesn't make sense. It should have read: Your home is in here!

The sign in the other window should have read: "Come in; you're (you are) welcome."

As always, we can test ourselves on the use or not of the apostrophe by looking at what we have written. If there is an apostrophe there, read it as the original two words. If it fits the sentence, it's okay; if it doesn't, take it out. On the other hand, if you don't have an apostrophe there, and you mean the one word to fill the place of two, you need to insert the apostrophe.

I'll discuss the use of the apostrophe with the possessive in a later post.

The dreaded ITS

A knowledge of grammar is important in writing, but once you know the rules it's okay to break them, as long as you have a good reason for doing so. Incorrect use of language should add meaning to the story you are telling. Of course, only use 'correct' grammar in dialogue if your character would speak that way. It's rare to find someone who speaks correctly and grammatically all the time, even university professors!

Usually, the apostrophe is used to indicate either the possessive, or to stand in for a missing letter. The former is a lengthy discussion in itself, so let's just look here at its use in the latter. The word its for instance; increasingly of late I've noticed that people are becoming more and more confused about when to use the apostrophe with this word.

The word it NEVER takes the possessive, so when you see it's, you know that it's a contraction of it is.

When you read through your work, stop and take note of every instance where you have written it's. Read the sentence again but this time, instead of saying, it's, say it is. Does it fit? If so, then using the apostrophe there is correct. If not, delete the apostrophe. If there is an its in the sentence, perhaps you mean it is, and so should add an apostrophe.

Here are a couple of examples:

Wrong: The dog was guarding it's [it is] ball.

Correct: The dog was guarding its ball. (Remember, its does not take the possessive.)

Wrong: Its a long way to the beach.

Correct: It's [it is] a long way to the beach.

This same exercise works well for any contracted words but be careful, for example, using there's [there is, singular] when you really mean there are [plural].