Does anyone here know about or care anything about poetry?

[RagingInMiami]

I just wrote an anti-bush poem for my class.

[ffm172]

1. post it

[RagingInMiami]

3. I'll post it, but first I want to point out that I had to follow certain

poetic techniques that the professer required of us. I had to follow certain "pantameters", but I was free to choose the topic.

[Heidi]

2. Hit us with your political poetry, RagingInMiami!

Like Ross Perot, I'm "all ears."

[RagingInMiami]

4. Here it is

Removed because I don't want this floating around on the internet before I turn it in to my prof. Thanks for all the feedback.

[ffm172]

5. a good one

gave me chills. And that is always a sign that a poem got through to me :thumbsup:

[Fridays Child]

6. That is VERY good work.

I'm impressed. :thumbsup:

[RagingInMiami]

9. Thanks

The professor is a pretty picky, he's published several books of poetry and fiction. He's pretty accomplished. Here is his site.

www.jameswhall.com

[Heidi]

7. Wow!

That reads like excellent rap, or the beat poetry of the 60s and early 70s. I'd give you an "A+."

[RagingInMiami]

10. I have until 5 PM eastern time on tuesday to turn it in

so I'll continue working on it, cause there is always room for improvement

[Celeborn Skywalker]

8. Great poem!

:thumbsup: :kick:

[hfojvt]

12. pretty cool. I like it.

but I cannot figure the rhyme scheme, and it seems like there could be another verse or two.

also, shouldn't it be "whores tell" rather than "whores tells"?

[RagingInMiami]

14. Yes, it's whores tell, i'll fix that

As far as the rhyme scheme goes, modern poetry is not supposed to have such solid rhymes as in nursery rhymes. It is viewed as "amateurish" according to the prof.

[hfojvt]

16. tell it to Tennyson or Dante

to me, if it ain't rhyming, it ain't poetry, just quasi-poetic prose, but I understand that Professors are always right.

[Dogmudgeon]

21. Rhymed poetry's problem

It's very easy to make it sound rinky-dink, especially in the English language. So when a beginning poet is forced to stray from strict rhymes, it is easier to look for other valuable things in the poem. The resulting poem isn't crippled by a poor sense of poetic sound.

Yes, it is easier to write rhymed poetry in languages other than English. Just about any other langauge, in fact.

Aristotle's Poetics is required reading for any poet, no matter what course of study or self-study is pursued. It's all about the poetry of sound, and may explain why English is such a difficult language in which to write credible rhymed poetry.

I personally love rhymed poetry, but I started off in songwriting; and I've done some translation, too. But it's a lot tougher than it seems. English makes you work your poetic ass off for a good rhyme. And that's not so bad.

--p!

[Dogmudgeon]

13. Excellent poem

But ...

It's not in strict meter (follow link, it's about 30% down the page). And where it does follow meter, it's tetrameter, not pentameter.

Pentameter -- which you said was one of the requirements -- is a poem with five metric "feet". Tetrameter has four metric feet. The example below will illustrate the tetrameter you use (the underscores should be breve marks, shallow U-shaped marks that are also used to indicate short vowels in English).

A Texas clod who swears he’s god
_·'··_··'····_···'······_····'

The "Metric Foot" you use here is the Iamb. So it's Iambic Tetrameter.

If your prof is strict, you may have to write another poem to conform to that rhyme scheme. But if s/he is looking for content, it's quite good as it is. (Of course, note any criticism you're given.)

Writing more poems, anyway, is always a good idea!

Good luck -- you already seem to be more than halfway there as a poet, no matter what the assignment stipulates.

--p!

[RagingInMiami]

15. we were required to have an iambic pentameter for the first three lines

Here is the assignment he emailed us. I still don't have everything he asks for, which is why I still need to work on it.


In one poem of no more than 20 lines use all of the following:

1. Take any word from previous line and use it as the first word of the next.
2. Start two lines with the same word.
3. Start one line with the last word used in the previous line.
4. Make the first three lines iambic pentameter
5. Use one onomatopoeia: A word that sounds like what it is:
(plop, hiss, fizz, buzz, sizzle, squeak)
6. Use one paradox, as in the oak line above.
7. Use one oxymoron: a phrase that combines two contradictory words.
(Such as: “thunderous silence� “freezing sun� “lively corpse�

8. Use one off-rhyme: the last words of two lines use the same consonant or vowel in the last syllable only

[hfojvt]

17. I think you can remove line 20

and thus get down to "no more than 20 lines". It has an echo effect if you remove the 2nd "But never tell us anything".

[Dogmudgeon]

18. Not too shabby

The first three lines are too short.

"A Texas clod who swears he's God" needs two more syllables to be a pentameter. It's already Iambic.

Here's a deliberately bad example of an iambic pentameter:

"A Texas clod who swears he's good as God"

You're pretty close with the rest of it. I suspect that old Jim wants the class to improve its craft. Writing poems (or songs, or essays, or painting pictures) to a set of rules can be very productive, since it also forces you to wring art out of the rules. If you follow all the rules and get a good poem out of it, you've mastered another chunk of poetic craft.

--p!

[RagingInMiami]

19. It's a creative writing class where we spent the 1st half writing fiction

And we're just now getting into poetry. The good thing about it is that no matter what he says about it this week when I turn it in, he is giving the class a chance to improve and revise all our written work by the end of the semester.

So I'm going to work on this some tomorrow, but if I don't get it down perfectly, I'm not going to worry about it. I know he doesn't like bush so he might like the poem anyway.

[RagingInMiami]

20. by the way, thanks for your feedback

[FreepFryer]

11. Some great anti-Bush haiku:

From: http://www.democrats.org/blog/display/00010163.html

I pledge allegiance
to the United States of
Halliburton, Inc.

What Roves the hallways
of the Bush America?
Some say it's treason.

YOU ARE EITHER WITH
deficit rich guy tax breaks
US, OR AGAINST US.

Please watch what you say.
Patriots don't criticize
The Republicans.

New attacks each day.
Over one hundred more dead.
Mission Accomplished?

No child left behind,
Clean skies, healthy forests and
Iraq. Pants on fire!

There should be limits
To freedom, he said. And now,
We see he meant it.

Screwed the country bad
Two thousand four awaits him
He'll go just like Dad.

Preppy cheerleader
Pretends to be working man
But nothing's working.

Watch fat cats choke down
$2,000 hot dogs.
Hand me a pretzel.

[izzie]

22. We had to learn and speak it in school when I was a kid

Snow bound was one. and Charge of the Light Brigade for some reason. We were told it was good for the mind. We were all very good at little 'dirty' ones.We did great with Longfellow. We had to learn a lot of his.