http://www.writers-online.co.uk DECEMBER 2018^59POETRY WORKSHOP
It’s all too easy to be disconsolate if you have entered for a
few poetry competitions and have not won a place. Always
remember that a great many people enter these so your poem has
to have some element that attracts it into the winners’ category.
Check that you followed the stated rules for submitting to
a particular competition. Okay, so you followed these exactly
and you are sure your theme is an original one, as is the title
and opening line. All of this can help you achieve your goal of
becoming a winner.
So, what might have prevented your poem from being
amongst the winners? Your poem merits careful scrutiny. Be
totally honest with yourself. Was it a good enough poem to
submit in the first place? Are you sure that the punctuation was
correctly applied? Were the images you used strong enough?
If a rhyme pattern or traditional pattern used was it followed
regularly in lines throughout your poem?
Read the poem aloud. Yes I know you have done this several
times, but this time listen to the lines slowly and carefully. Is
it meant to be read with a sense of rhythm in the lines? Even a
small juxtaposition of sounds can carry a rhythm. Repetition of
short, sharp words in a line can create a fast pace, as inCloud heaped on cloud, black cloud
and rain, rain, rain continues
into the dark, black night.These three lines achieve a fast, rhythmic pace. This is all good
if it achieves the required affect in a poem you may be intending
to send to a competition. However,the theme of your poem
may not be helped by the creating of a fast pace. Maybe slowing
lines with the use of double syllable words may be the effect you
want for that competition poem? For example, the theme of a
particular poem may be sombre, as in the following lines about a
particular place in a dull spring.Water, like pewter, silver dull,
blackthorn’s Easter blossoming and rain slants
needle-wise into our faces, so that we gasp
toiling up Prawle Point...Double syllable words in these lines create a slower pace which
creates a slower rhythm. Check the theme of your poem to
establish whether a fast or slow pace is necessary. It’s something
to remember when entering a poetry competition.Give your poem a winning edge by paying
attention to pace, says Doris CortiPoetry
in practice
Exercises
- Write 10 lines to the theme of happiness. Fast pace each line
by using short sharp words.
•. Using double syllable words, write a poem that has a more
sombre theme.
NOVEMBER 2019 59substitution, where the first foot of a line is reversed to
give a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one, and
then an immediate return to the iambic pattern of an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. This hint of
syncopation lends itself to a more conversational delivery
than you get with strict iambic pentameters.
Mike Rathbone points out that he has a preference
for writing in rhyme and metre, using more traditional
patterns, but that he’s happy to use free verse when the
emerging poem would fit more naturally into that style.
His ease with both styles is demonstrated by the way he
uses slant rhyme internally, in addition to the full rhyme
at line ends.
The poem’s opening line has neat alliteration in strike a
small stone with my spade, and the random reasons, glaciers’
glide, shattered shingle and ripple rounded continue the
technique through the piece. Slate and striated bring in
assonance with the poem’s first rhyme, and assonance also
appears in solid rock, plates / gave, ice / glide, it / ripple / in
and so forth. There is consonance in crushed / solid and
fling / yapping, and full consonance in seas / sediments and
some / stream.
All of these combine to add to the poetic effect of the
writing – and of course where a single example of such
sound similarity could be mere coincidence, multiple
examples show design.
The precision of vocabulary is another of the joys of
this poem. The slate grey may be a familiar image, but
striated with a lighter shade has precision while sounding
much more interesting than ‘with lighter stripes’. The long
age of ice has more appeal than ‘ice age’ would. Scattered
the shattered shingle is a phrase you have to keep saying
over to yourself – it’s exact, specific, and sounds amazing.
There’s a pleasing touch in some of the expressions,
too. The idea of being Informed by education is far more
interesting than being informed by a teacher, and makes a
dry little sideswipe at the whole concept of education. The
image piled up the plates describing the action of the eruption
is just what we say about collecting dishes together, in a
mock-debasing glance at the force of the volcano.
The touch of black humour at the end of the poem is
another irresistible factor. There’s a fraction of a second of
suspense when the reader is told That time has come. The
lifting is slow and solemn... and then the pace zips along as
the final line elicits a guilty laugh.
There is just one small suggestion that the poet might
consider when completing this piece. The use of upper
case letters to start each line – at one time an essential
factor when writing a poem – is no longer seen as
necessary. While it is not incorrect to start every line with
a capital, using upper and lower case letters as you would
in a prose passage, just to start a new sentence, seems to
give the poem better flow and creates an easier read.
Before its appearance on this page, In the Garden was
aired in a poetry workshop situation. This is an excellent
opportunity to get feedback on a work in progress, and
elicit suggestions for improvement. It paid off. The
completed version is a fun, fascinating and delightful
poem, of which the poet should be proud.