Resources for Poets: Articles on Writing Poetry is a wonderful site full of endless material and links. The information that I read ranges from "How To" information for beginning poets to tips for educators. The first article that I read, Alex Keegan's "A Cool Dark Guinness and Something About Adverbs" was an enjoyable as well as informative read. After reading so many articles by "Know-it-all-writers," it is refreshing to read something that has a valid point and support, but it is written with a voice that I almost feel like I could open my mouth and talk right back. I never before thought about the idea of overusing adjectives and adverbs. Whenever I attempt to write poetry, I immediately feel as though I need to find the most elaborate descriptive words I can and inject them into my writing. This article suggests letting the verbs or nouns stand for themselves, and his point is backed by excellent examples of when modification is good and when it is more effective to not flood a work with frilly words. I love Keegan's first example, "Would you rather drink a cold, dark pint of Guinness or a Guinness? And would you rather make slow, delicious love or have a quickie?" Obviously, a cold dark Guinness sounds more appealing than just a Guinness and as for me lately, a quickie sounds better than the thoughts provoked by "slow, delicious sex." I apologize if that was too much info.
For anyone out there that have a phobia or are new to criticism, I recommend reading "How (and why) To Take Criticism." My feelings are easily hurt when my work is criticised because it feels as though that person is calling me failure, is saying that I cannot write, and is calling my baby ugly. I learned that it is okay to feel these things because a critic is reaching your innermost person, your creativity. It was comforting for me to read that not everyone will like my style, but it doesn't make it wrong. Someone out there eventually may enjoy my poetry. It is important to not lose yourself because of criticisms that have an alternate motive or want you to practice poetry as they do.
I was overall pleased with the majority of articles on this site, but I really did not understand why McCaffery's "Pitfalls of Personal Poetry" was a part of such a great resource site. He basically complains about reading too many biographical-like poems that are over the same topic. He particularly points out Anne Sexton. For example, she wrote a poem about abortion. This topic may be overdone, but it was a concern and taboo topic for people of her time. In my American Literature class, one important thing that I teach my high school students is that people write about what is important to them, which is usually what is going on whre they lived and during their time I get, "Miss I thought this was English class. I just left my history class." I especially get this when we get to the American Revolution, and my classes have to read diaries and journals from this time. Back to McCaffery, he can point out over done topics in personal poetry, but what about other poetry types, such as Haiku, aren't they all about the same topic pretty much? What original topics are there really?
By the way, for any teachers out there. Check out "Online Poetry Classroom (for educators)."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Thanks for pointing out that article about criticism. It took me a while to get past that feeling, that crit of my work is personal crit. We writers tend to invest so much of ourselves in our writing that it can be difficult to separate the two. At this point, I really appreciate constructive criticism because it makes me step back from my work and try to look at it through an objective eye. Maybe that criticism is valid. Maybe I could make my poem better by taking that advice, or maybe it's not valid, and I can just ignore it and go on about my business. :)
I love your thoughts on the overuse of adjectives and adverbs. I spend so much time teaching my students the art of using the thesaurus, and they desperately enjoy inserting "big" words into their essays, but sometimes it is too much! At times, the simpler word is best. An active verb doesn't necessarily need an adverb to follow. That is easy for me to preach, but I need to remember it when I write poetry. Many of the poems I read and enjoyed this week had a simplicity about them that make them all the more beautiful. Too many descriptive words can often simply be "clutter."
Post a Comment