Outta the Blocks, cont’d…

More Overcoming…

e.)  To rhyme or not to…: This one always ends up in a hair-pulling contest. There is a time and place for rhyme, in whatever patterning one may choose. Simply put: it depends upon the intended audience and just as importantly, what is the mood and theme of the “poem.”

A sing-songy couplet end-rhyme piece is probably not the correct tune to write and read for Aunt Fuzzylip’s funeral eulogy—but just try and convince the hoards and hoards of basic writers out there who feel they are achieving something monumental, simply being able to cement two rhyming lines together.

Equally displaced: a long, boring, complexly formed ode to spring in seven degree temps on the high school football field kicking off the season finalé game. Snoozeroonie.

f.)  Frogs in a Stew Pot: Starting off that “poem”with a definite impetus, having deep-sixed the antiquated practice of all caps down the left margin and reconsidered tinkle-dink childrens’ rhyme, let’s try to develop writing in a form that is easily digestible. Writing in a form acceptable (palatable) to the initial poetry novice or reader wanting a comfortable poetry encounter.

Free Verse: a style, adaptable, direct and rich with possibilities. An open form, eschewing consistent meter or rhyme patterns (musical patterns)—following instead the patterns of what can best be described as, natural speech. Key being, “natural speech” (conversational) patterning.

Free Verse Caution: Given the quantity of poorly written free verse available, the author needs to use care in developing lines that, yes, fit their conversational patterns, but more importantly, comfortable patterns fitting the readership’s awareness of what is, ”regular.” Watch out using too many contractions; know the dialects, terms and slang of any particular situation or region of which you write; conversational patterns still have an internal meter, allow line breaks that utilize these tension (breathing) points, easing the transition from one line to the other without compromising thought flow. Keep the visual format in mind as well as what the piece “sounds” like when you read it. Not everyone mentally “sounds” thoughts the same, so the final written version must control the end product you wish to convey.

Free verse, too easily (and most often) collapses from the weight of unskilled writers thinking any slop that might fall from their mind out onto the paper constitutes “poetry.” Their thinking, not organized and developed, thus their written results are a rubbish heap of words and self-determined spatterings best kept in a notebook and never shared.

Bank Verse: Flows nicely. Probably the major examples of English poetry written since the 16^th Century fall into this category. Metered, non-rhyming lines (traditionally written in iambic pentameter.) If you’re trying to gently dip the frog into the water before boiling, before the accidental poetry reader actually realizes he’s up to his thighs in a poem—this might be the form to cook him with. Blank verse requires a certain amount of chiseling and sanding in order to be considered “poetry.” When reading, a casual curiosity seeker will often pause mid-scans and think: hmmm, this is a poem. The style allows, when carefully written, for wonderful displays of crafting skills and poetic examples without overwhelming, seeming to ease itself into a reader’s being without screaming “poem!”

Max tdc