Poetry Forum

Poets; rhyme; meter; poems; form; content; alliteration; free verse; thoughts; recommendations (PG Tips); dactyls and doggerel.

Take it away Heinz.

I am not sure I believe in too much prosody and not enough content. However, most good poetry has some sort of rhythmical pattern something that will give the poem a form and structure. I don't much care whether its quantity in Latin, alliteration in Anglo-Saxon poetry, sprung rhythm in Hopkins or free verse in Eliot etc. Without some restriction a poem often becomes a fat lady with no corsets. To illustrate the importance of rhythm speak the following two lines

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day
and Shall I liken thee to a summers' day

Some people have the gift of writing in a rhythm that is not tedious but for many poets manque ( Sorry I haven't an accent on my keyboard) Anyway beginner is better. My advice is to study prosody and then,if you wish, ignore it.


P.S. I am a new boy. Does this count as criticism?

Poetry to me is everything, its spirit lives within me, I’am unable to work because
Of this fever, it neutralized everything, I know it sounds foolish, silly, but when I’am out,
I have to get back home and write; many anomaly drive the current of writing with-in me, it is nothing for me to write 5000 words in a sitting, but the venereal desire dose fall into the abyss when the critiques come in; it can be quite a noxious set back? But on the other hand I also love them because they are the counterbalance that drives me.
One would call it a hypochondriac, calling eccentric habits, poetry. One is never satisfied you the prognostic’s one is driven to do more, another lamination after lamination ect ,ect, fold upon fold. Until your peers see the design of a new monoplane, and that monoplane is able to fly in front of those peers. One is still quite invalid until there is a brake through. The abyss of failure is always lurking on the edge of success. Poetry is like pasta, macaroni, spaghetti, ect, ect, tool