What is a Poem?
While this seems like a simple question the answer is very complex, especially today. It seems that everything and anything these days passes for poetry, from Haikus, to prose poems, to sonnets to things undefined.
This is the beginning of a book that is going to teach people how to write poetry. In particular, it is an effort to reign in the wildness of poetry and bring it back to more traditional grounds. Today the world of poetry is simply out of control, wilder than a Grateful Dead instrumental when tripping on LSD.
I have very little respect for modern poetry as I see it portrayed, where at best I relegate it to associated words. I read so many poems and after I am done I asked the befuddled question ‘What?’
So to answer the question, “A poem is a piece of literature that communicates something in the brevity of words.”
What is communicated depends solely on the poet. It could be simply words that tantalize the ears as in this tongue twister. “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” Everybody when they hear those words spoken recognizes something audibly.
Poetry is an art. If a picture is a thousand words than a poem is a thousand pictures. Poetry can be both simple and complex and sometimes both. When poetry is done best it communicates a lot in a limited amount of space, as in my favorite poem, “Ozymandias.”
Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Sheley
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
The poem uses the elements of structure, rhythm, rhyme, imagery, and symbolism. The poet paints an unforgettable picture in your mind and delivers a clear and obvious message. Contrast this poetry with the majority of what passes as poetry today. To write poetry like Sheley takes talent.
There was a time when poetry was far too structured and Walt Whitman blew the doors open. The agents of Chaos have reigned supreme and it is time, for the sake of the art, to gain control. There is a very simple method in recapturing the world of poetry for the better and that is by success. Today the number of poets cannot be counted. Yet how many poets of today are household names? Where are the modern Robert Frost’s or Langston Hughes?
A great poet can be appreciated by everybody who is willing to take time to read their poem. Simplicity in poetry is something desired. Poetry is designed for the masses, not simply other poets. Shakespeare wrote in the common language of the day his art accessible and enjoyed by all. Today poetry, in the form of song lyrics, still attract tremendous attention.
At age twenty when I dropped out of engineering school, I began to pursue writing. I lost much of my very early stuff but a collection called “A Day’s Weather” survived. Almost thirty years later I self-published this book of poetry and it is available today. I would like to share a couple of pieces. The premise of the book is to go through a day’s weather and express each aspect poetically.
Refreshing
Hey will you be my friend
We’ll be loyal to the end
We can share our toys
Laughs innocent boys
They are guiltless when they
Forget their father’s way
Colt arise
Open your eyes
Life has just begun
Soon you will run
Nuzzled by mother’s nose
How graceful a horse grows
Walking in but a day
Soon galloping on his way
Gittup, gittup and run
Life has just begun
These two poems are collected under the category Refreshing, as in a refreshing wind. While it is far from Sheley there is innocence to it.
This next poem of mine I wrote for a young lady at church. She wasn’t even a teenager yet but now I believe she has children of their own. It was a fun thing to do because I sketched a couple of funny pictures illustrating the events of the poem.
Mischief
By John Kaniecki
The imp’s eye shined like a diamond green
He came to the fariee with thoughts so mean
Perhaps I’ll play a little game he thought
The Fariee Queen will never know she’s caught
So Oliver the imp took out a harmonica blue
And in the sky with wings dark he flew
He flew to a cloud in the heights on high
That was the imp with the green diamond eye
The Fariee Queen she gazed at the little brat
Wondered what he was up to and all that
The imp oblivious to the gaze of the queen
Thought quite cleverly that he was unseen
Oliver took out his magic box full of dust
The color of red when metal does rust
Well he shook his hand and let the dust fly
And it filled all the highest reaches of the sky
The queen, Jackie was her name (such a beaut)
Took out her horn and began to toot
The imp confused at the magical mystery sound
Flew in circles certainly not heavenly bound
The more of the story if one does exist
Is that the imp felt he could not resist
Mischief is like that my beautiful friend
I’m afraid that’s all but it’s not the end
So I ask you, do these poems work? Is there something communicated? When you read the poems out loud does it have an effect?
If you would like to participate I would ask you to share a poem that you wrote that clearly communicates something. Next up we are going to look at sonnets.
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