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What do you do when you want to write poetry? I hope your answer is “I start writing.” Even writing a bad poem is better than waiting for the “right words.” You can always throw it away, and the process has begun. You’ll start to find the words sooner than if you had just waited. Here are some more ways to get started.

Sing A Poem

Try a little experiment - alone in the basement if you must. Describe something, then describe it again, singing instead of talking. You’ll notice the words you use change. Your sentences will generally be more rythmic. It is also easier to rhyme when you are singing.

Singing comes from the right side of the brain. This is the side that handles pattern-recognition. When you sing, you access this part of your brain, and you’ll get ideas or patterns of words that are difficult for your analytical left-brain to create. Try it.

Start With Poetic Materials

You can create poetry by listing words most likely to result in decent poems. Look for emotional content, for example. “Love” and “worship” have more poetic potential than “like,” right? Scan a book, pick out powerful words, and write them down. You may want to write words that rhyme with them alonside. Then start using them.

Say something dramatic, like “I sing of death,” or “Your eyes called out.” Try to let it come from somewhere deep inside you. Then start explaining what it might mean. This will almost certainly give you material for a poem.

Play with short verses, long verses, rhyming and non-rhyming poems. Try haiku. Try writing down your thoughts as fast as you can, without stopping. Don’t worry about quality at this point. You just need to get that creative mind working. Then, when you find gems in all the dirt, you can start polishing them.

Steve Gillman has been playing with poetry for thirty years. He and his wife Ana created the game “Deal-A-Poem,” which can be accessed for free at: http://www.dealapoem.com

Tags: poem, poems, poet, poetic, Poetry, poetspoem, poems, poet, poetic, Poetry, poets

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Do you remember, from your early education days, how you used to select colors from the Crayola box to color inside the lines? Maybe later on, your grade school teacher, to stimulate your imagination, asked you what any one color looked like, or smelled like, or tasted like.

Poets, too, use their colors to trigger their thinking in similar ways. Most of the time, colors may be used as symbols implying intangibles or concepts.

Here is a short list of color implications in poetry during the recent centuries:

green = jealousy, rebirth, money

purple = royalty, enlightenment, fantasy

pink = happiness

brown = earthly qualities

orange = curiosity, wisdom

gray = depression, defeat, monotony, boredom

gold - happiness

red = anger, danger, war, seduction, passion

black = sorrow or death

white = purity but also death (implied from shroud)

blue= sadness

Aside from their symbolic and impressionistic use, the application of colors has added to the poems’ visuals.
” Sea waves are green and wet,

But up from where they die,

Rise others vaster yet,

And those are brown and dry.”

From Robert Frost’s Sand Dunes

Using colors in poetry goes a long way back in written history. Roman and Greek poets, like the poets of other races, used colors for their strong connections with emotions. For example, Homer used the color of bronze to imply power, and in Roman poetry, certain color combinations especially purple and gold hinted at royalty while red and white meant conquering and other concepts. Virgil alone used over 500 color words in The Aeneid.

“I myself gave him (Ulysses) a sword of bronze and a beautiful purple mantle, double lined, with a shirt that went down to his feet, and I sent him on board his ship with every mark of honor.” From The Odyssey - Book XIX

“And scarce their walls the Trojan troops defend:

The town is fill’d with slaughter, and o’erfloats,

With a red deluge, their increasing moats.”

From The Aeneid - Chapter 10

Later on, Dante used colors vividly to paint his Inferno’s image in the readers’ imaginations.

“Upon a yellow pouch I azure saw

That had the face and posture of a lion.

Proceeding then the current of my sight,

Another of them saw I, red as blood,

Display a goose more white than butter is.

And one, who with an azure sow and gravid

Emblazoned had his little pouch of white,”

From Inferno, Canto XVII by Dante Alighieri

Shakespeare, too, has used colors frequently and also the word color itself by attaching it to other nouns to further paint dramatic word pictures.

“SIR ANDREW

Ay, ’tis strong, and it does indifferent well in a
flame-coloured stock. Shall we set about some revels?”
From the Twelfth Night - Act 1, Scene III, by William Shakespeare

During last couple of centuries, the use of colors in poetry has become more subjective; although, the colors were also applied with their actual identities.

“Up rose the merry Sphinx,

And crouched no more in stone;

She melted into purple cloud,

She silvered in the moon;

She spired into a yellow flame;

She flowered in blossoms red;”

From Ralph Waldo Emerson’s The Sphinx

“With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,

She stands before thee, who so long ago

filled thy young heart with passion and woe.”

From Divina Commedia by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Within the circuit of this plodding life

There enter moments of an azure hue,”

From Winter Memories by Henry David Thoreau

“In winter, in my room,

I came upon a worm

Pink, lank, and warm.”

From Emily Dickinson’s ‘In winter, in my room,’

So, next time you sit at your desk with your pen or in front of your computer to write poetry, think about using colors. Maybe you can add another dimension to their usage.

Joy Cagil is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/
which is a site for Poetry. Her education is in foreign languages and linguistics. She is a poetry enthusiast.

Tags: blue, color, emotion, Greek, green, image, paint, pen, picture, poem, Poetry, red, Roman, symbol, white, word, writeblue, color, emotion, Greek, green, image, paint, pen, picture, poem, Poetry, red, Roman, symbol, white, word, write

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Haiku poetry originated in Japan many centuries ago. Its popularity and form have spread throughout the world. Haiku is fun and easy to learn in its simplest form, and in its most sophisticated form it is an elegant expression of the spirit of a moment in time.

Basic

The haiku appears to be a very simple form of poetry. A person who might otherwise never attempt to write poetry can easily learn the simple haiku form in a few minutes and proudly produce several haiku expressions a few minutes later.

The haiku generally contains of 17 syllables written in three lines with minimal punctuation. The first line contains 5 syllables, the second 7 syllables, and the third 5 more syllables. The traditional subject of a haiku is a revealing moment in nature that is conveyed directly to the reader without judgment. One or two words indicate the season of the year to which the haiku relates. The traditional haiku is considered complete in itself and is not titled.

Less traditional haiku can be written about any subject that the author wishes. Free form haiku may have more or less than three lines and contain less than 17 syllables. It may use traditional poetic devices such as rhyme, metaphor, alliteration, simile, and others. The free form haiku may be humorous and cute, teasing and erotic, or it may have a didactic message.

Advanced

The traditional Japanese haiku is generally shorter than an English haiku because Japanese syllables are shorter and more numerous than English syllables. Some authors consider a three line format of 2-3-2 to be more consistent with the brief style of the Japanese masters.

The haiku of the masters embodies a certain spirit. The author uses the senses to create a meaningful moment, a revealing observation of everyday life that is not moralistic or judgmental. The poet tries to give the reader the means to experience the same feeling or perception that the poet had without actually explaining the feeling.

Present tense is normally used to reveal the haiku moment. The poet tries to make the moment fresh and immediate, as if the moment were occurring right now. The haiku has a strong presence.

Haiku masters generally create two or three concrete images which are juxtaposed and compared in the short lines. These images create an atmosphere that reveals the meaning in the haiku.

A spirit of lightness is created in haiku by using ordinary, straightforward words that are specific yet brief. Poetic devices such as rhyme, meter, metaphor, and others are not used by the haiku masters.

Minimal punctuation is common in good haiku. A comma used to effect as a pause may occur during or after the first or second line. Good haiku is not just a poetic thought cut up into three lines of a 5-7-5 syllable pattern but the haiku’s images naturally and organically flow into the desired form.

Conclusion

Writing haiku poetry is a fun and enlightening activity. Writing haiku is simple enough to encourage one to get started and the results are satisfying enough to encourage one to keep going. The further one goes in learning the simple subtleties of the form the closer one gets to becoming a master of the haiku.

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Garry Gamber is a public school teacher and entrepreneur. He writes articles about politics, real estate, health and nutrition, and internet dating services. He is the owner of http://www.Anchorage-Homes.com and http://www.TheDatingAdvisor.com

Tags: haiku, haiku poetry, haku, Japanese haiku, poem, poems, poet, Poetryhaiku, haiku poetry, haku, Japanese haiku, poem, poems, poet, Poetry

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