About Me

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United Kingdom
I've been creative writing all my life, though with various haitus(es) along the way. IFrom 2010 I started this blog and enjoyed sharing writing and other information with everyone. illness and bereavement supplied the more recent hiatus.

Monday, 16 August 2010

Not Everyone's Cup of Tea



The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within
As small children my Mother gave us a love of Nursery Rhymes, Limericks and Verse, but it’s fair to say that school subsequently poured cold, murky water over my enthusiasm for Poetry. Stephen Fry put it so aptly in his foreword to Ode Less Travelled: ‘the dread memory of classrooms swollen into resentful silence, while the English teacher invites us to respond to a poem.’ (An inane grin of recognition still sweeps across my face when I read that line.)
Poems seemed obscure, elitist and altogether from another planet to me, until Pam Ayres came along in 1970’s to put a fresh take on verse. Then in 1990’s the BBC brought the Nation’s Favourite Poems into the fore and I was reminded again how much fun could be derived from them; that a mood and message could be put across to others in such a succinct way.


I only really started writing poetry in October 2009 when my course started. I recall an acquaintance adamantly asserting that there were no rules to writing poetry, so anything goes! It made me ponder the countless How to Write Poetry books there are available with a wry smile.


Happening upon Frieda Hughes’ Times Online Do’s and Don’ts of Poetry also helped immensely.


Oh and I also found the wonderful Living Iambic Pentameter website, which was a revelation:


Admittedly I'm still a novice at writing poems. They are more modern than romantic and I usually try to inject a measure of irony into them. However, I do enjoy writing them.




So do you like poetry? Write some yourself even?

6 comments:

  1. No need to modify anything - this is a lot of fun! LOL

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  2. Being a novice poet (As you say) you did a good job. Nice poem!

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  3. beautiful..

    welcome.

    A++

    your art is always entertaining.

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  4. Bless you all.
    I enjoyed writing this one and venting my spleen. :O)

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  5. I quite understand the sentiment of wanting feedback on one's work. I enjoy reading that there are those who sincerely, as do I wish for it, not solely for kudos. I enjoyed the message. I do not know much about the forms of poetry thus can't really help with that. However upon reading this, the beginning read as if it had a cadence to it that was lost midway through the piece, but that is from one who is not a learned poet just a lover of words.

    Enjoy the potluck!

    http://lynnaima.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/asmodeus-and-the-rapture/

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  6. Thank you for your lovely comments.

    Lynn, I'm interested that you think the cadence is wrong as the paired lines have a syllable structure/rythym, thoguh I am aware that some feel that the content gets samey towards the end of the verse. :O)

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