Writing is one of the many services The Help provides. From article writing, blogging, manuscript, narrative reporting, translation, product reviewing, and many others – we take pride in what we do.
Another personal favorite I have is poetry writing. Let me share with you how my love for writing all started.
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In 6th grade I encountered poetry in assigned readings. I recall reading Christopher Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade, and Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee in high school. Classroom discussions of Faust, Beowulf, and other works led to a lifelong relationship with poetry.
Since then I’ve been writing poems; and have had the good fortune that some merited publication. Aside from a love of words, a certain guiding instinct propels someone to write stanzas, rhymes and even an entire story in verse. How does that happen? How does a poem come alive? Some discoveries –
1. Write the poem or thoughts that the muse brings at the first instance. That means no waiting because the muse’s visits can be fleeting. Write everything down without restraint. I constantly have a pencil on me and have whipped out any available piece of paper – notebook, bookmarks, and receipts – while in the middle of a conversation. For example, I wrote the following in June 2009:
Whistling flutes out of tune – Are my ears not attuned? Somewhere there’s a conductor.2. The first draft must have breathing space. Unfortunately, there’s no written rule on how long that space might be. Return to it in a week, a month, or a year, come back with new information. Elizabeth Bishop composed poems over months and years, pinning incomplete drafts on a notice board with gaps left for the right word, whenever that might come.
3. Revise, rewrite, and read aloud. Much like other art forms, a poem is never finished. There’s constant room for improvement.
Start from scratch – begin from words that come spontaneously. The first drafts may sound strange, pay attention to line breaks, make sure that images carry the poem forward, listen to the poems’ direction. Read the poem aloud, listening for the jarring sounds, eliminating digressing ideas. In many ways, writing poetry is the art of putting one’s soul on the page.
William Carlos Williams wrote, “It is difficult to get the news from poems, but men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” Great reminder of the central role poetry could have in everyone’s life!