Ars Poetica -Poetry Friday

Ars Poetica

This poetry form is less concerned with rhyme, or the counting of syllables, and refrains. In fact, Ars Poetica, has nothing to do with structure. Rather, it's focused on the content of the poem, because Ars Poetica is the art of writing poetry about writing poetry.

A Walk In Search of Poets

As I walked alone
Upon a Shelley Beach
Browning in the summer sun
I heard Lord Byron’s ghost
Whisper gently in my ear
Get yourself a mentor
A muse to light your fire
And to make your words explode
-A poet you admire.
You should not wait Longfellow
If you want to get your Wordsworth
Follow your chosen Plath
This very day.

Alan j Wright

This Isn’t a Real Poem

What I’m writing right now
Isn’t a real poem
It’s just me

Sitting in a café

Making it look like

I’m doing something

Quite important.

Something profound

While waiting

For my wife to arrive

Following her expedition to the shops.

I might stop now

Put an end

To these word games

And order a coffee.

Alan j Wright

Uprisings

I have a place

From where my poetry arises

A quiet, ancient place

Deep within me

Where words are born

Then drift up

Before bursting into the light

Of conscious consideration

As they spread across the page

With deliberate intent.

Alan j Wright

And then there's this little offering:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=89YKF8zuUgs&feature=share

It's Poetry Friday yet again and this week's host is Heidi Mordhorst from My Juicy Little Universe. Heidi has a poetry feast in store for visitors this week. Such a rich offering...

Poetry Inspired by Images and Objects

There are many ways pictures and photographs can be conscripted to support the writing of poetry. Allow me to share a few ideas with you: Old photographs are a great source of inspiration. Cynthia Rylant explored this idea with great success in her book 'Something Permanent' where she employed the Depression era photographs of Walker Evans to add a new voice to the starkness to the lives of people experienced under extreme circumstances. I have used this strategy to spark many individual poems. In ' I Bet There's No Broccoli On The Moon,' I used a photo I had taken in 2004 while living in New York to inspire a poem. The poem was based on a story related by a friend who grew up in New York. I regularly combined poetry and pictures in my writer's notebook, drawing on inspiration from the photograph and my personal memories. We can also utilize existing cartoons and illustrations to create ekphrastic poems. I frequently use the illustrations of Jim Pavlidis to co...

Opposite Poems

O pp o s ite P oem s In his book, ' How To Write Poetry,' Paul Janeczko presents the idea of opposite poems. Paul suggests they could also be referred to as antonym poems. This is wordplay and it's fun to try. Here are some examples Paul provides to help us see very clearly how these short little poems work. I think the opposite of chair Is sitting down with nothing there What is the opposite of kind? A goat that butts you from behind Paul Janeczko You will notice the poems are written in rhyming couplets. They can be extended so long as you remember to write in couplets. Paul shows us how this is done. What is the opposite of new? Stale gum that's hard to chew A hot-dog roll as hard as rock Or a soiled and smelly forgotten sock You might notice that some of Paul's opposite Poems begin with a question. The remainder of the poem answer the question posed. Opposite poems are a challenge, but it is a challenge worth trying. N...

Powerful Poetry, 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston

This week, Poetry Friday is hosted by Janice Scully @ Salt City Verse where Janice shares some original words and offers us a taste of Thomas Carlyle to ponder. I encourage you to join a host of poets from all around the globe and visit Janice's page... Almost two years to the day, I wrote a post featuring the poem 'Refugees' by Brian Bilston. The poem was included in Brian's first book of poetry, 'You Took The Last Bus Home.' A very powerful Reverso poem and technically brilliant. A Reverso poem can be read from top to bottom or bottom to top. It will often express opposite opinions depending on which way you read it. Such poems really make us think. A Reverso poem is like a picture turned upside down, a frowning face upended to reveal a smiling one. The poem read in reverse, contradicts itself with an opposing message. In 'Refugee' Brian Bilston focuses on a societal issue that tends to polarize feelings and the opposing views are clearly in eviden...

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