Bearing poetry

[avram]

It’s odd. I’ve written poems before (not terribly good ones), but I don’t have a firm grasp on how to do it. Usually raw inspiration takes me far enough that all my conscious mind has to do is fill in the blanks. But then, I usually write parodies, where I’ve got a scaffolding to work with.

The idea that popped into my head on the way back from grocery-buying isn’t a parody. It’s a realization of a connection between a couple of widely-separated events in the life of a biblical character, and a touch of sympathy with how that character must have felt. I’ve got a few images, and a rough idea of how to use them as repeating lines, and I’ve done enough research to know that neither the villanelle (my repeating lines don’t rhyme) nor the triolet (much too short and constrained) is the right form for it. I may not go with a formal form.

And it’s a bitter thing. It’s probably not doing me good to dwell on it.

So, any of the habitual poets out there have any advice?

Comments

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- if you don't choose a traditional form, choose a dominant rhythmic scheme (iambs, trochees, whatever) at the very least. That will make it sound like poetry. I wrote a piece of blank verse at the age of 16 which, while not really very good, is still lovely to hear:

I shall weave you a necklace of bright stars, to wind about your dusky throat.
I shall forge you a crown of sunlight and moonbeams to rest on your long dim hair.
And wrapped in a gown of emerald silk, which shall catch on the grass as you walk,
You shall go out in the night like the queen that you are to be seated amongst the stars.

All the art in that is from the rhythms.