Poetry Exercise #1 (updated Jan 4), Join In! Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hi all!  

Let's start our first interactive class with an abbreviated definition of poetry characteristics:

Poetry communicates and conveys feelings in a concentrated form. It uses language to create sound effects and word pictures, to set up associations in the reader’s mind, and to make striking comparisons through figures of speech.

Jox's take: Poetry conveys emotions and ideas in a concentrated form. It employs language creatively, both as imagery and for its tonal qualities. It is the purest form of writing.


In our first class, we will read a few lines from a famous poem.

The exercise is twofold:

• First, write down your first image and emotional reaction.
• Second, write a few lines with your own feeling and figure of speech to match the lines of the famous poem.

From the works of Alice Meynell, "Builders of Ruins", first stanza:

We build with strength and deep tower wall
that shall be shattered thus and thus.
And fair and great are court and hall,
but how fair--this is not for us,
who know the lack that lurks in all.

To view entire poem, click here.

Things to keep in mind:

• Is there a set metered pattern (of stressed and unstressed syllables)?
• Is there a set rhyming pattern (repetition of similar sounds)?
• Is there a set rhythmic pattern (the sense of movement attributable to the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables)?

Let's start now. Please ADD REPLY to this tile.
GOOD LUCK!

~Cleo