The first thing someone who is into poetry need to know is that poetry is simply a collection of poems. Many people make that mistake to define poetry as POEM. Poem is the expression of the innermost feeling of a poet/Poetess. Poem has no general accepted definition rather each poet/poet, has the license to define poem according to it's mood.
Poetry has classical form which in the ancient period one has to stick to it, but nowadays, poetry has improved that modern poets do not follow the rules of classical poetry rather they prefer free versed poetry.
One's definition of Poetry, is determined by what brings one into poetry. Hence, the question "why come into poetry becomes Paramount". From ones definition of Poetry, one can know what brought one into poetry. For me, a poem is the short story of things or objects encoded in little writing which I have thought about and reflected upon.
From my definition, you will decipher that my aim of coming into poetry: To Tell a story, in detail but short because it is encoded.
In essence, you must have a personal definition of Poem. It's is good, before you define poem from your own perspective, you know what others said is poem. For instance, many people define poetry as:
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.”
1. Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be ‘the expression of the imagination’: and poetry is connate with the origin of man.
2. Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.
3. Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it.
4. All high poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which contained all oaks potentially.
HOW TO IMPROVE IN POETRY WRITING
People who come into poetry, might just be attracted by a poet's poem or might have come across poetry page on Facebook and likes what is being done there, thus, decides to start poetry. Something normally happens at the middle when this newbie has started writing:
1. Idea seems not to be coming
2. Idea might be there but how can I own it down?
3. Even if one has started writing, in the middle he gets confused.
These are challenges newbie in poetry faces.
WHY DO PEOPLE FACE SUCH CHALLENGES
This is because they just enter into doing poetry without knowing things in poetry. There are many forms of poetry and each poem you write falls under these forms. Knowing these forms of poetry will help you know where you will be driving to. But before we talk about these forms of poetry, it is important we note the following:
1. Vocabulary: Here you are to build your vocabulary by learning new words and what they mean. The more vocabulary you know, the more easily expression will be for you. To add to you vocabulary, you have to buy a dictionary, at least, a pocket dictionary and be using it to check words which sounds new to you. You must also be a good listener when people are talking most especially people known to have oratorical prowess, note the words they use and check them up in the dictionary. Try to use those words when speaking or writing to make it sink into your brain.
2. Read: you have to cultivate the spirit of reading most especially poetry Anthologies. This will help you see the different forms of how people write their own poems. After that, do not copy someone's poem or what I call panel beat someone's poem (changing few words from someone's poem and adding your own words) but the aim of reading is to help you develop your own Poetry skill peculiar to you alone.
3. Perfection: When you feel that the ideas in your mind is not perfect as it ought to be or is not good for others to read, becomes your first step of failure. Many people complains to me that they have idea in the mind but they do not think it is worthy to be writing don or even for others to read. Now idea you know in poetry writing is bad. Poetry is about how do you feel. In psychology, feeling is relative. Hence, it is unique to the individual undergoing the process. So, what ever you feel is good and good, just write it the way you feel it. The surprise I normally get is that when I ask those people to just put that which thy think is not good down, I is over that it is unique in it own way.
TERMS USED IN POETRY
When we talk about term used in poetry, we mean different words or terminologies that is lexical to poetry. In other words, it means the words which serves as poetry vocabularies. Such words make one to be more acquainted to understanding different forms of poetry because one encounters such words in those forms of poetry. Hence, it is very Paramount to discuss some terms used in poetry, before discussing forms of poetry. These terms include:
1. Persona: Every poem has a speaker that voices out what is happening or what is going on. The speaker is the person that talks to the readers about the situation or mind of the poet. He is a communicator that communicates the message of the poet to the readers. For such reason, the persona is also called the speaker and it perform a function of a narrator if it were to be in a prose. The Implication of this is that the poet/poetess does not always talk in a poem, he or she speaks through the persona/speaker. In analysing a poem, instead of saying the poet says in line one of stanza, you say, the speaker says in line one of the First stanza . The speaker/persona is like the mouth piece of the poet/poetess.
2. Poet: from the etymologically understanding, a poet is someone who makes sequence but it has come to mean nowadays, a male writer of a poem. It will interest you that it was in the twentieth century that the demarcation of having poet for a male writer of a poem and Poetess as the female writer came to be. All poem writers were previously called Poet.
3. Cliches: It is refered as a word which has lost its meaning because it is overused. A phrase or expression can also be clinched if they are overused. Such words, when used by a poet, does not draw any passion from the reader again because they are familiar with it. Poets are advices to restrain from using such words when writing poems.
4. Prothalamion: The prefix 'Pro' entails before while 'Thalamion' means marriage celebration. Prothalamion is a poem or song that Celebrates marriage that is yet to happen. One can say that it is a poem or song for premarriage Celebration. The term was cooked by edmund Spenser.
NOTE: The poem or song that celebrates marriage or wedding proper is called epithalamion.
5. Nostos: It simply means a poem that tells about a returned journey. It include the expression of how the journey began, what happened in the journey and finally the arrival back to the base of the journey. If a journey is made and there is no returned, a poem made about the journey cannot be called Nostos.
Example:
Dike is mighty man in valor,
A warrior of the costal city.
The town roar as he wakes to battle;
Only that he lacks the blessings from the palace.
His guns gathered with his charm.
Put together he visited the palace for the blessing.
The gods are aware that he is present.
The meeting point with his fear is at Thera.
There they fought
Dike went
He saw
He fought
The fight was a good fight
He conquered
Victory he brought a home
Festival and joy was the morning tea
A week was the joy and forever.
6. Imagery: You might be familiar or might have even told someone to 'just imagine'. This means just create a picture in your mind about this perticular thing. Imagery is a mental picture that the poet creates in the mind of the reader. It is made possible through the use of words or figures of speech like simile, metaphor, etc.
Example
"The man saw with his eyes
The bird like a horse
That works with leg that is four
And flies with a wing that is three".
From the example given, one will think of how a bird that is like a horse with three wings instead of normal two wings a bird has, will be. The use of imagery creates sensory impression.
7. Diction: it is the selected words a poet uses in his poem. Hence, these are words a poet chooses for his poem: it is a poets choice of words. The words a poet chooses is 'ad rem' to how he feels. To convey properly his feeling, a poet must be careful more than a dramatist or novelist in choosing words.
8. Mood: This is how a poet feels while Writing or a state of mind of the poet. Although, it is not easy to know the mood of a poet because he is not there with the reader but the choice of words he uses determines whether his mood is happy, sad, angry, loving, etc.
9. Theme: it is the main point of a poem. It is the central idea or the 'kpim' or message of a poem. The theme of a poem is got from the mood of the poet. The mood suggest or gives a clue to what the poem is all about.
10. Panegyric: In the normal parlance, a panegyric is praising of someone, what people call fettering. In poetry, it is a poem that praises someone's quality.
Example:
"If you have not met John,
You have not seen human being
For he is not only a man but a human,
Oratorial is his gifted,
Hospitality is his virtues
His voice is angelic
It is devine his handsomeness".
11. Poetic license: when one is said to have a license to drive a car, it simply means that you are authorized to use the car for you have been found worthy and satisfactory to drive. In poetry, poetic license is the freedom to use words the way you want it without owing apology to anyone. It enables poets to deviate from normal grammatical rules: It makes them masters of words and creators of words.
12. Epitaph: It simply means an inscription on a tomb. For instance, when you visit burial ground (cemetory) on the graves you will see something like the name of the dead, date of birth, date of death, etc. Such a thing is called epitaph. It can also be poetically written.
Example:
"I knew a man
John Eze was his name at birth
On the 22nd day of the Lord he appeared on earth.
1996 was the year I found the 22nd!
It was in August.
Very sad, such a sad I heard,
That John went missing not seen on the 5th of March in this year this I wrote".
13. Rhythm: It's a movement of sound or beat in a line of poetry or it is a strong repeated sequence of beat or sound.
Example:
"Peter talked about his thought
Forgetting that he is forged from the foam:
He has no form to enter the forum,
His shape is shapeless".
14. Meter: it the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. Some define meter as the fundamental rhythmic form of a line in a poetry. The focus in meter is in syllables and emphasis on the syllables.
NOTE: Meter is created by combining feet and the joining of meters creat a poem.
A syllable is a unit of pronunciation, having a vowel sound with or without surrounding consonants, hence, forming a part or whole of a word. Example:
Man= has one syllable (monosyllabic word)
Mango: man/go= has two syllables (diasyllabic word)
Water: wa/ter= has two syllables
Manager: man/a/her= has three syllables (trisyllabic word),
Tetrasyllabic= four syllables
Pentasyllabic= five syllables
Hexasyllablic= six syllables
Heptersyllabic= seven syllables
Octasyllabic= eight syllables
TYPES OF METER
1. Monometer: it consists of one foot
2. Diameter: two feet
3. Trimeter: three feet, etc
15. Foot: it is the basic unit of a meter or a formative unit of the meter in a poetry line and it has one stressed and two or more unstressed syllables. It is a measuring unit in poetry made of stressed and unstressed syllables.
NOTES: A stressed syllable is the part of a word that you say with greater emphasis or louder than the other syllables. Unstressed syllable is the opposite of stressed; it is that part of a word you say with lower voice or with less emphasis.
N:B:. Read about stress and unstressed words to understand better about stress and unstressed word or syllable
TYPES OF FOOT
In poetry, there are different types of foot and each has a peculiar sound:
1. Iamb or iambus: it is made up of unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. It sounds like 'daDUM'. Example..... Equate, destroy, belong, delay, etc. e, de, be, de, are all unstressed.
TYPES OF IAMBUS:
There are two types of iamb
(A) iambic pentameter: It is a line of poetry composed of give iambic feet
(B) iambic Hexameter: it is a line of Poetry composed of six feet
2. Trochee: it is opposite of iamb. It consists of a stressed a d unstressed syllables. It sounds like 'DUMda'. Example..... Tigard, highway, poet, garden, etc.
3. Spondee: it is the combination of two stressed syllables. It sounds like 'DUMDUM'. Example..... Facebook, makeup, handshake, bookmark, maskman, classroom, etc.
4. Anapest: it consists two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. It sounds like 'dadaDUM'. Example...... Understand, refectory, contradict, etc.
5. Dactyle: it has one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. It sounds like 'DUMdada'. Example.... Typical, elephant, monument, etc
FORMS OF POETRY
When we talk about forms of poetry what do we mean? It means the different visible shapes or configurations poetry takes or ways in which poetry exist or appears. It will interest you that, there are uncountable forms of poetry but we are going to discuss majority of them and also try and make example of each. You will be required at the end to make poems sequel to each form discussed.
1. Sonnet: it is simple a poem that is composed of fourteen lines. It is usually a lyrical poem composed in a stanza that has fourteen iambic pentameter lines linked by an intricate rhyme scheme.
Sonnet has two types namely:
☑️Italian or Petrarchan/Miltonic Sonnet- This type is invented by a fourteen century italian poet whose name was used to identify this poem. His name was Francesco Petrarcha which in english is known as Francis Petrach.
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