Conclusion

In conclusion, I would just like to thank anyone who looked at this blog. I've had fun creating it, and I hope you enjoyed yourself in it's reading.

But now, the time has come for my personal answer to the big question.

What makes a good poem?

In my opinion, a good poem must be thought-provoking. You must be able to read it over and over and over again, and get a different meaning out of it every time. It must stay with you long after your read it, a lingual shadow that constantly lingers at the back of the mind. And above all, it must reach past your mortal exterior and touch your very core, stroking, jolting, or tenderly embracing your soul.

What makes a great poem?

A great poem is written from the heart, TO the heart.

This may be the end. But at the same time, it is only the beginning. Despite the end of the project, poetry will never die, sprinting off into the future and lingering in the past.

As we watch the sky blaze in its garments of fire
We remember our legacy, swell with desire;
Though our journey is through, there's no need to forget
A great past lies behind us, with more to come yet

~ Adam B.

What Makes A Good Poem?

0So what DOES make a good poem? This is the big question that I am trying to answer with this project. Naturally, no matter who you ask, the answer will be different. So in actuality, there is only one way to find out what makes a good poem, and that is to ask yourself. In the meantime, however, I have here some answers given by others. Perhaps they will change your outlook on good poetry.

~~~

What is a good poem?
A good poem is a slip-of-a-thing
that celebrates language, that takes
you on a short journey and touches your heart,
turns on your imagination, or tickles your funny-
bone somewhere along the way.

~ Nikki Grimes

~~~

A good poem suprises your senses, shakes you awake, stirs your emotions, and startles your imagination. Each poem is an action of discovery. Poetry helps us widen our vision and our hearts.

~ Joan Bransfield Graham

~~~

A good poem stays with me. I like the way it hangs out somewhere in the back of my mind coming to the front on occasion to remind me it's there.

~ Valerie Lewis

~~~

What makes a good poem? A good poet.

~ X. J. Kennedy

~~~

What is a poem?

Hard work.
Emotion surprised.
Throwing a colored shadow.
A word that doubles back on itself, not once but twice.
The exact crunch of carrots.
Precise joys.
A prayer that sounds like a curse until it is said again.
Crows punctuating a field of snow.
Hard work.

~ Jane Yolen

~~~

A poem is a picture made of words.

Good poems can tell us what we already know in our bones but had never seen or heard or even put into words before. For a poem to be good it needs the element of surprise. That comes to the reader both in content, line break, sound, and voice. You read the opening line, are carried (or jolted) to the last line, and then wonder, how did I get here? There you are standing in this new place but feeling that, yes, you too, belong here.

A good poem is like a simply wrapped package that appears unremarkable at first glance. Until you read it. Then stars glow where there was never light before. Something sparkles. It might be you. It might be the dark. It might be the woman two rows ahead of you on the bus.

Good poetry gives us ourselves as if we've never had who we were before. It also gives us each other, shortens the gap between one and another. And good poems give us the world as if for the first time.

A fine poem needs mystery too; it doesn't say everything. If you were to compare a poem to a simple math equation, say 1 + 1 = 2, then a poem is butterfly + jagged scar = his warm breath on your neck. It's another way of knowing that makes perfect sense, but not logical, linear, rational sense. It's the way the heart knows, and the soul, the logic of dreams. It's how we know when we love or when we are afraid.

Poetry works on us not only through content but through sound. And for a poem to be well written it must remember that element as well. It needs to sound right. There's not just one right sound, but many, and each poem has its own that needs to be incorporated in order to be a thing of strength and beauty.

~ Patrice Vecchione

~~~

~ Adam B.

World Renown: Keats

NUMBER FIVE: John Keats (1795 - 1821)

On Leaving Some Friends At An Early Hour

GIVE me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heap’d up flowers, in regions clear, and far;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,
Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:
And let there glide by many a pearly car,
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,
And half discovered wings, and glances keen.
The while let music wander round my ears,
And as it reaches each delicious ending,
Let me write down a line of glorious tone,
And full of many wonders of the spheres:
For what a height my spirit is contending!
’Tis not content so soon to be alone.

~ Adam B.

World Renown: Eliot

NUMBER FOUR: T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)

The Hollow Men

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

~ Adam B.

World Renown: Dickinson

NUMBER THREE: Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

A Bird Came Down

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, splashless, as they swim.

~ Adam B.

World Renown: Frost

NUMBER TWO: Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~ Adam B.

World Renown: Shakespeare

NUMBER ONE: William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

Sonnet #18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease has all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or nature's changing force untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owns't;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

So long as men can breath, and eyes can see
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

~ Adam B.

World Renown: Best of the Best

Poets, like anthing else, have their own form of "celebrities." The elite of poetry, the following five people (and poems) are the best of their kind. They have enthralled and captivated readers for many centuries. Some of them are familiar. William Shakespeare is widely recognized as the da Vinci, Michelangelo and Van Gogh of the poetry world, all rolled into one. The talent of some other poets on this list, including Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson, only emerged within the past two centuries. Either way, the five people on this list have indisputably earned their right to be there. They have always been, and always will be, the best of the best.

The next five posts will list from 1 to 5, in my opinion, the best poets in existence.

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Sonnet

The sonnet...perhaps the most beautiful of all poetry styles. They usually contain stories of love and/or philosophy. Shakespeare, perhaps the most highly esteemed of all poets, wrote 154 sonnets in all, all of them with a specific layout.

English (or "Shakespearean") sonnets consist of fourteen lines. Three quatrains, followed by a concluding couplet. The rhyming scheme is as follows.

A-B-A-B

C-D-C-D

E-F-E-F

G-G

For example:

Dizzy summer day's delight

Impassioned by her fervent stare

Heat by day and fire by night

Enslaved by an angel fair

Blinded by her casual beauty

The world dimmed and forged bliss

Fulfilling neither pride nor duty

Merely the thirst for her half-hearted kiss

Winter lapsed in peals of thunder;

Turned to hail what once was rain

And though this heart was torn asunder

Broken memories remain

If she would but release mine heart

The ice would fall, the cold depart

~ Adam B.

Word Art: Poetry and Art

Is poetry art?

The answer is an emphatic yes!

According to Webster's Dictionary, art is "the conscience use of skill and creative imagination especially in the in the production of aesthetic objects."

Even though when people think of art, what usually comes to their heads are images of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent Van Gogh, poetry is by definition a type of art, because of the "creative imagination" involved. Even though poetry is not usually meant to be visually pleasing (with the exception of shape poetry), no one can deny that it is a form of art.

What happens, though when you combine visual art with written art?

This painting by artist Gary Wick is called "Rocky Shore Hawaii 02." A fine work of art. Now try reading the quatrain poem "the Gift" (featured in the previous post "Styles and Techniques: Quatrain"), when it is placed next to this artwork.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rolling beasts of liquid thunder
Bequeath their gift to ashen sand
The heart and hand of wooden flame
A silent trade from sea to land

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The feeling of the poem changes, correct? I know it does for me. The visual accompaniment gives a different meaning to the words. This is proof that visual art can indeed manipulate one's outlook on poetry. Many poets illustrate their poems with the intent of influencing their readers in how they interpret the written words. However, this is not always a good thing. Many poets would rather have their readers give unique, personal meaning to the words that they spin together. Personally, I think that the more thought-provoking a poem, the better.

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Quatrain

A quatrain is a poem consisting of four line verses with a scheme of either full or half rhyme. Here are a few of the possible rhyming schemes in a quatrain.

1. A-B-A-B
2. A-B-B-A ~ (envelope rhyme)
3. A-A-B-B
4. A-A-B-A, B-B-C-B, C-C-D-C, D-D-D-D ~ (chain rhyme)
5. A-B-C-B ~ (half rhyme)

Quatrains can be traced back to ancient civilizations such as Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, and they continue into the 21st century, where they appear in several languages. Here are a few examples of modern quatrains.

Tyger, tyger, burning bright!

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry

~ From William Blake's "The Tyger"

The circles of the stormy moon

Slide westward toward the River Plate

Death and the Raven drift above

And Sweeney guards the hornéd gate.

~ From T. S. Eliot's "Sweeney Among the Nightingales"

Series of quatrains are most often combined to form one whole poem, including in the cases above (the two examples I provided are excerpts from larger works). Of course, quatrains can stand alone as well, as in the example below.

Rolling beasts of liquid thunder

Bequeath their gift to ashen sand:

The heart and hand of wooden flame

A silent trade from sea to land

~ "The Gift"

One of the most common and beloved styles poetry of today, quatrains are a technique that will certainly not become extinct anytime soon. In fact, when people think of the word "poetry," quatrains, or something like them, are usually what comes immediately to their head.

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Monorhyme

Before I give you the definition of a monorhyme, try to figure it out for yourself. Mono means one. The words monorail, monologue, and monotone are all examples. And of course, you know what a rhyme is. So, from these clues, we can deduce that monorhyme means one rhyme...and that's exactly what it does mean. A monorhyme is simply a poem in which every line has the same rhyme.

Pilgrim's Prayer

Past the meadow, 'cross the sea

Lie lands of opportunity

A home to both the brave and free

Long I've prayed, and now I plea

As I approach on bended knee

That you will sail away with me

Pack your things and quitely flee

Lock the door and leave the key

Long I've talked with God, you see,

"If just us two, myself and she

could find a place to worship thee

My weary heart would burst with glee

I knowing that we finally

Had reached a land of liberty,"

Don't be fooled. These are much harder to write than they look.

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Free Verse

Free verse is an irregular form of poetry that does not necessarily follow the rules of rhyme and meter. Free verse is almost the same as descriptive writing, except that the poets can choose where to put line breaks. If this is done in an artful, insightful manner, then free verse poetry can create an atmosphere that mere prose can never hope to achieve.

Violet

Tiny violet

all clad in itself

an infinitesimal speck

raw, naked beauty

in a parched field

in a parched land

in a parched world

WE

the conceited architects

of our own destruction

in the acquirement of our dreams

we have lost our realities

in all of our brilliance

our limitless understanding

we have not achieved

will never achieve

that which the young violet

knows not it possesses

for only in the understanding

that we see nothing

that we know nothing

that we are nothing

will we truly gain

that which we believe

we already have

This is one of the most common styles of poetry today, though it only began to be recognized as poetry within the past 100 or so years. Free verse is probably my favorite type of poetry, for there are no limits to how and what we are allowed to express. I have been writing free verse for awhile now, and will continue to write it, hopefully for a long time yet.

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Haiku

The haiku is one of the best known forms of poetry in existence. They are always in present-tense, and they usually consist of observations on nature or seasonal changes. They are exactly three lines long, with the following layout.

Line 1: Five Syllables

Line 2: Seven Syllables

Line 3: Five Syllables

So each verse has 17 syllables in all.

Here is an example of a haiku, written by the Japanese poet, Matsuo Basho. The following is probably the most famous of all haikus. Obviously, the English translation is not exactly 17 syllables long, but is to be expected: When words transition between Japanese and English, they do not always correspond.

古池 や

蛙 飛込む

水 の 音

furuike ya

kawazu tobikomu

mizu no oto

old pond...

a frog leaps in

water's sound

Haikus are beautiful and in economical spacing can pack perspective on nature and it's wonders. Anyone can write a good haiku.

clouds swim silently...

great white fish in the ocean

that is the spring sky

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Epitaph

Epitaphs are brief little poems that are inscribed on tombstones. They praise deceased people, and they usually, but not always, are comprised of rhyming lines.

Here lies Dan, beloved of all

He held himself while others crawled

But now he's gone, the prospect's black

We're pretty sure he won't come back

Most epitaphs are meant to be mournful. However, despite the fact that there is rarely anything funny in death, there are huge amounts of comical epitaphs. Many epitaphs are unintentionally, and occasionally intentionally, amusing. Apparently, the family stonecutters did not realize how future generations would look upon their attempts to venerate loved ones who had passed on. At the following link is a compilation of humorous epitaphs.

http://www.webpanda.com/ponder/epitaphs.htm

Naturally, epitaphs are not something to spend your free time writing. But I spent twenty minutes just reading and laughing at all the funny epitaphs at the link. If you get a few minutes, or need a laugh, I would recommend reading them yourself.

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Limerick

The limerick is one of the most recognized of all poetry styles. Short, humorous and/or nonsensical poems, limericks consist of five lines with a rhyming scheme of A-A-B-B-A. Lines 1, 2, and 5 are eight or nine syllables long, and lines 3 and 4 are five to six syllables long. Here is a silly little limerick that I wrote today...it's based on a true story!

There once was a lady of Lee

Who cried out with a hysteric plea

To her side we did rush

Her sobbings to hush

Once again, she had spotted a bee

Verses in limerick-form are often combined to create limerick songs, humorous drinking songs often containing vulgar or obscene verses. In fact, many limericks written in the 20th century are credited to drunkards!

Simple limericks are quite easy to write. You do not have to think hard about what to put in a limerick, because the ending result does not have to make sense. I wrote the "bee" limerick in around three minutes, and most of that was spent thinking of a topic.

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Shape

Shape poetry is one of the things that separates simple prose from poetry. Poetry can come in many different styles, but perhaps the most unique and inventive style is for the poetry to take on the shape of its subject. So if the the poem's subject is a fish, then the words and lines would be formatted in a way that the poem itself looks like a fish. Here is an example, entitled "Forest King".

Far away,

deep in the shadowy

wood stands a royal forest king,

so grand and majestic that even the birds

dare not desecrate its tangled labyrinths of

shining, shifting emerald. Long it has stood,

watching with unseen eyes the changes

the world has undergone. Silently

it weeps, longing for

day that

it knows

will nev-

er come

again. t-

he world

has chan-

ged, and it

is going to

stay as such.

Naturally, the color in this particular shape poem is not a necessity. I merely took advantage of my own creative freedom during its conception. Black and white is perfectly fine as well.

Personally, I love shape poetry. It is incredibly fun and surprisingly easy to write, and the complex shapes you end up creating may surprise even you. Though slightly unorthodox, this is one of my favorite types of poetry ever.

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Diamante

A diamante is a seven line poem that is put together in the following way;

Line 1: Noun or subject

Line 2: Two adjectives

Line 3: Three gerund form words (words ending with -ing)

Line 4: Four words about the subject

Line 5: Three gerund form words

Line 6: Two adjectives

Line 7: Synonym/antonym for subject.

Here is an example. This poem is entitled "Love".

Passion

Blazing, Fervent

Holding, Kissing, Loving

Partner, Child, Family, Friend

Smiling, Sharing, Caring

Gentle, Tender

Love

Some diamantes are arranged in such a way that the first half of the poem is about the noun or subject in line 1, and the second half is about a noun or subject related in line 7, usually an antonym of the original word. The dividing point is the space between the second and third words in the fourth line. The following is an example of this variety of diamante. It is entitled "Contrast".

Dark

Black, Cold

Veiling, Shrouding, Fearing

Shadows, Demons, Angels, Radiance

Blazing, Shimmering, Shining

Warm, White

Light

Diamantes don't have to be perfectly diamond shaped, so long as they follow the general rules. Either way, they are interesting and unique. I reccomend writing one yourself if you get the time.

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Clerihew

The clerihew is a lesser-known style of comic poem that has the four following properties. One, it is biographical and usually quirky. It shows the topical person in a unique and unusual view. clerihews often "poke fun" at famous people. Two, it consists of four lines of unequal length (for humorous effect). The third and fourth lines are typically longer than the first two. Three, the rhyming scheme is always A-A-B-B. And four, last but not least, the first line consists solely, or almost solely, of the subject person's name.

Clerihews are not mocking or abusive, but they often target well-known individuals and reposition them in an absurd or humdrum setting, often portraying them using over-simplified and jumbled wording.

Clerihew

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

(a Londoner, incidentally),

Made his living by just having fun

Writing silly poems like this one

I wrote the above poem about the creator of the first clerihew, Edmund Clerihew Bentley.

Clerihews are quick and easy to write, and they can provide you with a few minutes of entertainment when you are bored and have nothing to do. Whether you are reading them or writing them, clerihews are a fun style of poetry that can put a smile on almost anyone's face.

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Acrostic

Acrostic poetry is a style in which the first letter of each line, when combined, spell a word, usually the title.

Sunset

S hadows swelling

U nder vivid skies

N ever doth nature

S ee such beauty

E re the sun fades

T he world weeps

The actual rules of acrostic poetry are much better known than the style's name: though I was familiar with the general idea, I had never even heard the word "acrostic" until I began my research for this project.

Acrostic poetry can be fun to work with, and it is a good starting place for amateur and aspiring poets. Personally, I had fun writing the example. I'm hoping that I will have time to create more soon.

~ Adam B.

Styles and Techniques: Types of Poetry

According to Webster's Dictionary, the definition of poetry is "literature in metrical form." This is, of course, a very broad definition. Throughout history, poetry has taken on many different forms, most with specific rules that apply only to that particular style. In the following posts, I will give examples of 18 different styles of poetry, some well known, others slightly obscure. All, however, can be used to express yourself in unique and creative ways that everyday speech cannot begin to rival.

~ Adam B.

Timeless: History of Poetry

Poetry has been around almost since the beginning of human dialect. In fact, the earliest known poem, the "Epic of Gilgamesh," is thought to have been recorded at around 2,500 B.C, a time that experts believe is almost as old as speech itself. Most of the earliest poems were written to verbally record cultural events and relate stories. Experts believe that these poems, including countless epics that have been lost in the sands of time, were performed orally and through song prehistorically.

Most of the oldest poems are attributed to containing prayers and religious matter. In fact, histories about these people's menial, everyday events such as war and politics are extremely rare and incredibly valuable to historians.

With the development of writing, poems moved into a more developed form. Poetry styles with specific, sharply defined boundaries emerged, including sonnets and rhymes. William Shakespeare is a great example of a poet who specialized in sonnets, he wrote over 150 of them, each with a unique idea expressed.

Such was the main focus of poetry until the late 1800's, when, mirroring society, it moved on from the quaint, laid-out styles it had so naturally taken to and exchanged them in favor of free-verse. Free-verse is the non-rhyming and seemingly chaotic poetry technique favored by writers such as T. S. Eliot, Carl Sandburg, Ezra Pound and others. It is argued by many that even some of the King James translation of the Bible, namely the book of Psalms and the Song of Solomon, is actually a form of free-verse. Free-verse, though it is unrhyming and often makes little sense to the uneducated reader, is known to be particularly thought provoking. Free-verse poets pride themselves in sringing together words in such ways that they force the reader into looking beyond literal meanings and digging deeper into metaphorical and symbolical concepts.

Currently, poetry is a perplexing torrent of free-verse and structured styles. While I do not believe either will ever completely overpower the other, I do think that both will continue to battle for position in the hearts and minds of modern readers who have learned to appreciate them. Poetry itself, I am sure, will never die. As man lives, so will it live.

~ Adam B.

And Then There Was One...

Hello, and welcome to my blog.

This is the first post in what is to be an informative and inspiring project on the enthralling and seemingly supernatural topic that is poetry.

My name is Adam, and I am a student at Kihei Charter High School on the island of Maui, in Hawaii. Kihei Charter is a unique school that emphasizes learning, not through humdrum and largely ineffective lectures of typical teachers, but through hands-on experience. Kihei Charter is a project-based learning school, meaning that they believe that the best way to teach students is to assist them in completing projects. Giving students opportunities to work on educational projects that teach real-world skills is usually a much more effective teaching method than the "lecture and test" system favored by most schools.

For this particular project, which I happen to have planned myself, I will, over the course of the next month, attempt to answer the fundamental question: "What makes a good poem?" With this guiding question in mind, I will explore poems created by the world's greatest and best-known poets. I will experiment with creating poetry of my own using different writing methods. I will investigate how poetry fits into the world of both written and visual art. Over the course of the next month, I will also post random poems by me and others, complete with an analysis of each. At the end of the project, I will make a summarizing blog post that relates what I have learned and provides my answer to the question:

"What makes a good poem?"

~ Adam B.