Secrets of Poetry part 3

Hello again! This is the third part of the Secrets of Poetry. Since we have already looked at the mechanics of poetry and the gritty stuff, now we will move on from how to write poems to exploring some of the different kinds of poems we can write.

Types of Poems

Free Verse

Depending on how you look at it, free verse can be the easiest and hardest kind of poem right. The definition of free verse is that there are no particular rules, either for rhyme, meter, stanza, or subject. Of course, this makes identifying free verse a lot harder, as some free verse poems can look very similar to normal prose broken up and worded poetically (which, you could argue, is exactly what it is). I personally like more structured poems compared to free verse because they have a tendency to sound better and are easier to read out loud (this is because meter makes it a lot easier to perform poems, and rhyme makes it sound nice). However, that hasn't stopped me from accidentally writing plenty of free verse poems, and when you don't have a pattern in rhyme or meter, you could have subtler patterns in the subject of your poems instead. Take this one:

One Small Moment

One small moment

It changed everything

Dragged before them all

Accused and condemned in one fell moment

Destined to die

One small moment

It changed everything

Shown up as my true self

While my lover walks away unfettered

Deepest injustice

One small moment

It changed everything

All masks stripped away

Everyone shown in a clear, cold light

Driven by hate

One small moment

It changed everything

I'm just a pawn to them

An excuse to defame the great teacher

Despised guilty

One small moment

It changed everything

There in the spotlight

Accusations made, verdict awaited

Deny nothing

One small moment

It changed everything

Words in the dust

"Throw the stone if you are sinless"

Daring to hope

One small moment

It changed everything

Mercy extended

"I don't condemn you. Go and sin no more"

Delivered forever

One Small Moment is a poem based on John 8:1-11, which is the story about the woman caught in adultery who was taken before Jesus. The Pharisees and teachers of the law wanted to know whether Jesus advocated to stone the woman, and he didn't answer but bent down and wrote on the ground. When they pressed him, he told them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And then, one by one, they all left, and Jesus told the woman he didn't condemn her and commanded her to “Go and leave your life of sin.”

Despite this being a free verse poem, I still had a lot of fun hiding different patterns within the poem. Each stanza has five lines, in the first two lines are always the same. The fourth line almost always has 10 syllables, and the fifth line always starts with a word that starts with D. The last line usually has only two words, which usually add up to four syllables. But, since this is a free verse poem, there are plenty of exceptions.

Of course, this is only one example of free verse, and free verse can go just about anywhere because of its lack of structure, so feel free to experiment.

Sonnets

Sonnets! Sonnets are my personal favorite kind of poem, because I like the rigidity of their structure, and the sonnets I write almost always turn out well. It's also probably one of the more famous kinds of poem, since Shakespeare wrote many sonnets. He also wrote all of his plays (minus a couple passages) in blank verse, which has a similar structure (iambic pentameter, though with no line limit or rhyme). Sonnets are poems 14 lines long, each consisting of iambic pentameter and with the rhyme scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG. I find it helpful to mentally break up the lines into four stanzas: 3 four-line stanzas with an ABAB rhyme scheme each, and a final couplet stanza that rhymes. Sounds too crazy? Let's look at an example:

Israelites In the Desert

How long, we grumble, must we eat this mess?

Of manna we are sick and long for meat

If truly we're the people God has blessed

Then surely He'll fulfill our yawning need

O Moses, what direction are we going?

Or must we languish here another day?

At least in Egypt cooling wind was blowing

Where is this promised land we're meant to stay?

A burst of light erupting from the sky

A flaming witness to the higher call

The answer given by the Lord Most High

The promise He will still not let us fall

Repent, O Israel, for we are wrong

To doubt the Lord our God's right hand is strong

It doesn't look quite as intimidating written out, does it? The thing about iambic pentameter is that it's actually quite an easy meter to use, since we speak in imperfect iambic meter a lot of the time. Also, depending on how stricter being with the sonnet form, you do have a little wiggle room, especially at the beginning of a line. The rhyme is also pretty easy to work with, because in my experience when we write rhyming poems, we use ABAB rhyming a lot.

The final couplet breaks the ABAB pattern by rhyming with itself, and it provides a sense of completion. In this case, it's Israel telling itself to repent because God was right after all. Too bad they start complaining again soon!

If you find the idea of a super-structured poem daunting, I'd encourage you to try it, because I find working within limits actually boosts my creativity rather than hampers it. If you don't want to try sonnet, you can try other structured poems instead.

Shape Poems

Breaking away from using rhyme and meter as the structure, now we look at syllables and words. Shape poems are poems that don't have to rhyme, but instead limit the amount of syllables or words per line to create a shape. Some shape poems count the words, and some count the syllables. There are many possible variations of shape poems, whether you have an increasing amount of words per line, or each stanza has so many syllables.

Lost

Lost

Willing wayward

Choosing selfish pathways

Delighting in the world

Morals chosen from hand-picked truth

Hurting others in favor of self

But none of this leads to satisfaction

What point is there in this twisted way?

Going searching for an adequate answer, finding only bondage

But a voice cries: "One Way, One Truth, One Life!"

The difference from all the others is this: He died.

The skeptics say you must give up freedom

Freedom's never free; you're always serving something

Choose a good Master who cares

Choose a loving Savior

Choose the Resurrection

Choose God

Jesus

This poem, Lost, focuses on words instead of syllables. It starts with one word on the first line and adds one subsequent word all the way until it reaches ten ("But a voice cries: 'One Way, one Truth, One Life!"), then takes it all away one word at a time until you reach one again. The message and story of this poem also reflects this change from being lost to found; the first half of the poem describes being lost, and the second half describes being found.

Another way you could make a shape poem is to do something like this:

A Walk by the Sea

Walking

The cliffs

Nowhere in sight

Wondering

Deep questions

Doubting my safety

Foggy

Mist-shrouded

Cold, damp, grey

Waves

Lapping, sighing

Sounds in the silence

Sandy

Seashore texture

Under my feet

Soundless

But not

Everything is muffled

Alone

Yet not

God is with me

Light

Piercing through

The lighthouse beacon

Foghorn

Sounding warnings

To sailing ships

Direction

Lost, found

Guided to home

Home

Safety, security

Warm voice welcome

Each stanza moves from one word to three, rather than one pattern over the whole poem. There's two exceptions, but shape poems are not a very strict form and one or two deviations are okay if you like. Other shape things you could do involve increasing your words / syllables by a specific pattern (even numbers, odd numbers, a mathematical formula if you so desire!), choosing your words so that they actually do make a shape (because words vary in length and tend to ruin the effect), experimenting with words and syllables, and many more! There's lots of permutations to try, as well as adding in more patterns and / or restrictions of your own!

Acrostics

Acrostics are a really ancient kind of poem — even some of the Psalms (like 119 and 145) are acrostic poems! The beginning letter of each successive line spells out a word, phrase, or even the alphabet. Acrostic poems are relatively easy to make, since the only requirement is that the beginning letters spell something, and the stanza are usually (but not always) broken up into words. Like other poems, though, you are totally allowed to add your own rhyme, meter, or other patterns to it as well.

Running Home

Rueful regrets

Undermine my confidence

Not wealthy

Not happy

I am

Now

Going back

Home

Once

More

Entering forgiveness

This poem is actually the original inspiration for my song Running Home. Me, Jasmin, and a friend were writing poems over church lunch. When we wrote acrostics, I decided on the words 'Running Home'. When we finished and read our poems out to each other, I thought of a tune and chorus that could go with my poem, and voila, Running Home was born. The original acrostic became verse one and the pre chorus. (Fun fact: the second verse of Running Home is also an imperfect Running Home acrostic.)

Question & Answer Poems

Question-and-answer as a literary device actually pops up in several places, including songwriting, music (some musical phrases are "questions" with their subsequent "answers"), and even poems. Basically, a question and answer poem asks a question (or questions) and then answers it. Because of the way questions and answers work, question and answer poems can easily become dialogue poems (where two or more people take turns speaking).

Questions From A Six-Year Old

Where is the space between sea and the sky?

Does it reach forever to kiss heavens high?

Why doesn't it come to me when I must hide?

Where is the space between sea and the sky?

There is the line between Heaven and Earth

Stretching its arms around our world's great girth

No need to hide, child, for I know your worth

Horizon, the line now gone bordering Earth

Why won't the moonlight come over the rise?

How come King Solomon dreampt, and was wise?

Will anyone see me if I close my eyes?

Why won't the starlight come over the rise?

Hills cast the shadows that make the sky dark

God gave him wisdom, and now it's his mark

I still see you outlined in firelight sparks

The hill blocks the starlight and makes it seem dark

How does the mommy bird hatch her white eggs?

Why was I made with two long skinny legs?

When God made creation, did He make my pegs?

How does the mommy bird hatch her white eggs?

The mother bird may be a stork or a lark

Your legs aren't skinny, they're thick like tree bark

When God made the world, He made wood for your pegs

The mommy bird hatches by sitting on eggs

While question-and-answer poems generally tend to ask the question and then immediately answer it, this poem alternates stanzas instead of lines. It's also a dialogue poem, because the child asks questions in one stanza and then the mother answers in the next. Pretty simple to understand, right?

Other Kinds of Poems

Of course, these are not the only kinds of poems out there. From strictly structured poems to those with only one or two restrictions, there's many different styles to choose. Some of the ones I haven't mentioned include:

Sestinas, a complex kind of poem where each stanza ends with one of six words. There's a rigid order to the end words for each stanza (Stanza one: etc.), but other than that you're free to choose. However, making sense while sticking to the same six end words is harder than you might think!

Haikus, which are rigidly structured short poems based on syllable count. The first line is five syllables, the second seven, and the third five again. Haikus usually have some reference to nature within them.

Epics and ballads, which are generally longer poems telling an extended story. They may or may not be set to music, and they will probably have some form of consistent rhyme or meter to make their story easier to tell. Since ballads used to be the way to tell a story / preserve history without writing, it was important that they were memorable.

Limericks, those five-line funny little poems that are one stanza long and have an AABBA rhyme scheme. They're easy to remember because of their rhyme (and usually their meter too) and should be fairly easy to make.

All those other poems that you know have a specific structure but you don't know the name of it! I have a lot of these poems because I don't start with a structure in mind but then a rhyme scheme and meter appears.

Well, that's it for this post. The fourth and final post in this series, giving different suggestions for inspiration writing poems, will be coming soon!