| Author | Message | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 31266 Registered: 11-1998 |
. Dearest Membership -- Here is the fourteenth in The Poet's Note Card series. These Note Cards come from a book entitled The Mind's Eye: A Guide to Writing Poetry, by Kevin Clark. Mr. Clark is a winner of the Distinguished Teaching Award, is a university professor at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, and a widely published poet. This book on the teaching of poetry writing is concise, practical, and has been designed specifically for a college-level term. It includes a progression of lessons, example poems, and stimulating exercises. While most advanced poets already know these things, it doesn't hurt to review them. Or to learn them if you are a beginner to the craft of poetry making. I'll try to bring you a Poet's Note Card every so often. While you might not agree with every point Mr. Clark makes, I do hope these note cards serve to help those who are new to poetry by providing some basic foundation of information on which to build. Oh, and I do recommend that you acquire the book. It's an excellent textbook, especially if you would like to attend a college-level poetry writing course, but cannot for whatever reason. The link above (click on the book's title) will take you to the WPF BookShop and the Amazon description of the book. Thanks for reading! Love, M (Administrator) ------------------------------------------------- The Poet's Note Card -- #14 from The Mind's Eye: A Guide to Writing Poetry by Kevin Clark Poems Against Injustice 1. Because of preconceived ideas and/or clichéd language, the most difficult subjects to write about are politics, religion, sexual love, and sports. 2. All poems, including those about those topics, succeed best when held to an aesthetic standard, not a standard based on point of view. 3. Sometimes the best political poems are those that find a way to make the reader experience injustice. Such verse is sometimes called “the poetry of witness.” 4. In order to be convincing, it’s usually best to make sure your poem is validated by actual historical detail. 5. Another effective way to write the political poem is to make the reader feel culpability for the injustice. 6. Even – or especially – in political poems, it is best to discover the poem’s “idea” while in the act of writing the poem. 7. Try to stay off the soapbox. A political poem rarely works as a diatribe or a rant. 8. If you are employ abstract language in a poem, it’s often best to validate the use of abstraction by establishing a base of vivid images. The Poet's Note Card -- #1 The Poet's Note Card -- #2 The Poet’s Note Card -- #3 The Poet’s Note Card -- #4 The Poet’s Note Card -- #5 The Poet’s Note Card -- #6 The Poet’s Note Card -- #7 The Poet’s Note Card -- #8 The Poet’s Note Card -- #9 The Poet’s Note Card -- #10 The Poet’s Note Card-- #11 The Poet’s Note Card -- #12 The Poet’s Note Card -- #13 . | ||
| Rania S. Watts
Advanced Member Username: cementcoveredcherries Post Number: 1813 Registered: 04-2008 |
Dear M, Thank you so much, as you know this is one Poet's Note card I will definitely benefit from. I have really enjoyed this series, Clark is so thorough to address a number of topics with such a small summary. Cheers, Rania "I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again." ~ Oscar Wilde "You will hardly know who I am or what I mean" ~ Walt Whitman Cement Covered Cherry | ||
| Ingrid Ringel
Valued Member Username: adelphi Post Number: 264 Registered: 09-2007 |
Thank you for posting this. Good timing.It teaches me what I need to know for the revision of my holocaust poem. Ingrid |
