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TJMF Publishing - Open Mike Cafe Editor's Desk Staff Editor Patty Zion |
Part Three of the Series, Poetic Heroes
Diversify the Classics
By Patty Zion, Staff Editor
This week, we continue our practice of learning from classic poetry and its stylings. Now that you have identified your personal poetic heroes and maybe even copied a rhythm and rhyme scheme, we're going to try doing the opposite action.
Find a classic metered poem that you enjoy and comprehend, and rewrite it as free verse. Be sure you fully understand the essence of what the poet is expressing, as this will allow your own work to have maturity and meaning. Much of the beauty of traditional, rhyming verse is its ability to help us look at things in a different way. While the classic poets always speak to the truth we already know, they also carry us along on a verbal wave of new understanding.
Read the classic poem many times, considering the denotations and connotations of the chosen words. Look at the way the phrases and words are juxtaposed. Remember that skilled writers often place the most important words at the end of a line. They sometimes choose a word which might sound like another word with a different meaning. Study any layered meanings in the words. They might also select a word because of its sound - enhancing the meanings with alliteration or other poetic devices.
Once you are aware of the many nuances in the work, you can begin to create your own version.
For my own exercise, I chose to emulate this poem:
Daffodils by William Wordsworth
I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company!
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.
-----
Spring Brass by Patty Zion
(inspired by William Wordsworth’s Daffodils)
Wandering, I felt cirrus floating within
and above, shadowing my high land.
Suddenly, thousands appeared near the lake,
dancing with gust and squall.
Daffodils, Milky Way of twinkles,
rivaled the sparkles of the bay, glee-full of life.
Sun chrome as far as the view
reflected from my brown iris,
leaving only a seed within.
For gold is the color of coin
and reminiscence;
in the new millennium, I fill
my couched mind
with bulbs,
daffodils and nuggets.
-----
In my rewrite, I sought the full meaning of Wordsworth's words. The daffodils, to him, were implanted images. He did not completely appreciate or understand what he had seen until years later, when the image kept reappearing in his mind. My poem seeks to recreate this idea through the use of the yellow or gold color and the idea of coins or nuggets of thought.
Sometimes, this type of exercise will produce a poem which is useful only for your private collection. Other times, you may surprise yourself by writing a successful piece of poetry when you copy the ideas of a master. In either case, you will benefit most when you carefully craft the words to conform to what someone else has already said. This allows you to concentrate on the exact words needed to revisit the original poem's concepts. You will come one step closer to word-master status.
Exercise:
Choose one metrical poem by a favorite poet. In sentence form, write the ideas you find expressed in the work. Then, rewrite the entire poem in free verse style. Do not use rhymes or set rhythms; instead, use the freedom of modern style to make the statements your own. Select each word with care and precision.
Once you have finished the poem, seek feedback from a trusted friend or fellow poet. Ask about the messages and images this reader sees in the poem, and then compare this to the original poem.
Your portfolio will be one poem richer, and your approach will be suddenly diversified. As you come closer to feeling the intent of the masters, you will feel like a fellow traveler on this path of poets.
Staff Editor Patty Zion welcomes your editing questions and comments. You may reach her by e-mail at