Grimsby Poets Forums

I have always loved poetry, and indeed love to read the messages here.

I would love to write my own, but can never get the verse to rhyme, does the poem really need to follow in such a precise way ?

Sorry if I sound a little lame here but the only experience that I have of writing such verse is when I was at school back in the 70's when each sentence had to sound something like the "there was an old lady from...."

Hi Greenblob. There are really no rules to poetry, many do rhyme it but many these days do not. Hopefully some words that have some interest and read nicely !? Do have a try and post for us.

GB,

Rhyme is probably one of the hardest aspects of poetry to master.

And it seems ironically, thats the route many people choose when first attempting to write poetry.

Arguably rhyme leans itself toward archaic content, old fashioned concepts. I can't think of many contemporary poets who use rhyme, or are known for it.

Basically what I'm saying is forget about rhyme for the moment and concentrate on your ideas. Perhaps set yourself some goals, say write about a tree in your garden, or a journey on a train. Include various aspects that you think may be of interest to others, may spark their imaginations. The way the tree looks at night compared to day, the way the scenery changes on your train journey from terraced houses to the countryside etc. There are many ways to start writing and many things to avoid, I'm just learning myself so I thought I'd throw in my two penneth.

http://www.poetrymagic.co.uk/ - I found this a useful source.

http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?C02A175 This looks like a great OU course

cheers
K

An example of a major modern poem without rhyme, though not to everybody' taste maybe, is Allen Ginsberg's 1956 "Howl" and the book sold over a million copies, and it starts like this ;

Howl

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking
in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall .........

Here's a few of my favs whilst we're at it:

Days

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

-- Philip Larkin

I Say I Say I Say

Anyone here had a go at themselves
for a laugh? Anyone opened their wrists
with a blade in the bath? Those in the dark
at the back, listen hard. Those at the front
in the know, those of us who have, hands up,
let's show that inch of lacerated skin
between the forearm and the fist. Let's tell it
like it is: strong drink, a crimson tidemark
round the tub, a yard of lint, white towels
washed a dozen times, still pink. Tough luck.
A passion then for watches, bangles, cuffs.
A likely story: you were lashed by brambles
picking berries from the woods. Come clean, come good,
repeat with me the punch line 'Just like blood'
when those at the back rush forward to say
how a little love goes a long long long way.

-- Simon Armitage


Full Moon and Little Frieda

A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket --

And you listening.
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming -- mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm
wreaths of breath --
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk.

'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!'

The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed.

-- Ted Hughes

Hi Greenblob

Have you had any luck with your poetry writing?

Poetry does not have to rhyme. Take a look at my
first poem on ‘Just my poetry’ If you need any help
let me know and I will help where-ever possible.

There is a writers group that meets in the Grimsby
Library. Attend one evening, you will be made
welcome and they are a friendly lot and I’m sure you will
get lots of help and advice.

Silky