By How To Awaken A Poet In You?
Essential Elements Of A Good Poetry
I have come across many cases when poetry needs no rules. Poetry is a distinct voice that may emerge from the slight intuitive grasp or a reaction to a situation.
A word when it appears in the mind can take up the responsibility of a poetic burden. Yes, you heard it right. Words carry the poetic burden.
A plane paper contains nothingness, but when you need no rules you can start the journey with expression and can make it verbose all the way. Expression is the basic rule to write a poem.
One should not worry about being a good poet first. Being poetic comes out of good flow with words and also a serious inquiry and observation.
My book “The Poetic Burden and Other Poems” was formed out of my reaction to my feelings and worldview. I always enjoyed the technique of using ‘similes’ in poems. I was not aware that I would give birth to imageries too.
One can focus on one tool of poetry and the rest will be developed in the writings. Write as if you are satisfied with the words and lines once you finish a whole poem. Learn to edit on your own. This might sound strange. To be satisfied as a writer is difficult, but one must appreciate one’s own art. We think poetry is personal and that the feelings that emerge in the writers are unhealthy. But I want you to share poetry more.
Before getting published as a writer you should share poetry a lot. Publishing a book is just collecting your poems. Do not aim for the book, but focus on your daily habit of saying with the written words. One good point about publishing is that your writing goes under the editing process.
Not all poetry needs similes and metaphors. But I want to share with you that after publishing my first book I was aware that similes also use attributes.
When we say: My love is like a rose, it is also simile because we have used like (simile is the comparison of two different things with the use of ‘like’ or ‘as’) and have compared the love with a rose. There is more to it than the simple comparison. If we say: My love is delicate like a rose, we are describing the rose and attributing some quality to it (delicate is the attribute or the quality of the rose).
These techniques can take time to appear in your writings, but free verse also accepts similes without attributes. Well-established poets who write commissioned poems for different foreign universities have said to me that simile and metaphors are not always needed to write a poem and that there are no rules in poetry.
However, one should be conscious not to experiment too much in the beginning and poets should stay away from preaching like a religious leader or a saint. We can edit and frame the language as such so that it would not sound like preaching. The artistic way can lead to beauty, without definite preaching.
Dewdrops
Very silently
the dewdrops fall.
A movement in the leaf and
dewdrops tremble.
If I do not show urgency in writing the
dewdrops might dry and
the trembling season might fade away
without shaking the leaves,
Very silently.
In this poem entitled “Dewdrops,” I have used my own form of repetition. The beginning and closing lines of a poem are the same and the entire poetic discourse takes place in between the beginning and ending lines which are “Very silently.” This poem does not have metaphors of language yet it is a subtle representation and it talks about urgency between two distinct things. One good tool of poetry is a contradiction. When talking about silence we can also talk about how loud the earth is. We can always say that like heaven and hell we can create our own contradictions.
Silence
Tremendous changes can happen
Humongous events can occur
An awakening occurs although in silence.
How loud is the earth?
Is it like a city loudspeaker voicing its inner demons?
When I think on this loud earth,
Will my thinking create a ripple in the ocean of silence?
In the poem titled “The Serene Evening,” I have used the imagery of sound. I present the first three lines of the poem below. Personally, I was not conscious of the use of imagery. I was depicting a reality mixed with permanence. The sound came as an object of inquiry or depiction. This revealing process in poetry is thrilling.
The sound of crickets
in the evening
rings like a sweet buzz of permanence.
Let us talk about simile and metaphors. I have a single poem using both in a different way in the poem “Beat of Heart.” Here are first few lines from the poem. The poem was published in Republica.
Beat of Heart
Picking a metaphor from the old urban street,
Wet road resembles washed away tiredness
Fresh is nature after soaked clouds have disappeared.
Washed is the floating simile like a paper boat floating quietly in
exuberance,
Even after the rain has stopped.
Here in the poem wet road has been compared with washed away tiredness. However, the word resembles has been used. This can be one way of using the metaphor (Metaphor is a direct comparison without like or as). However, in some other cases, the whole description might be metaphorical. Anything which is not descriptive and sounds artistic in nature can be termed as metaphorical. The whole landscape of a poem can be metaphorical or the whole idea of a poem can be on a different plane rather than only having connotative and denotative meanings. There is also a simile in the above poem; the floating boat has been compared with the floating simile.
To show that the whole idea of a poem can be a metaphor I would like to cite my poem “The Road That Kept Moving.” In reality, we know that a road cannot move, but people and vehicles move on the road. But this reality can be altered in the poem. This is possible out of imagination and also keen observation. Imagination can also come out of thinking, but rather than that it should come out of your flow with the words. The surprise element can reveal a good poem for you later.
The Road That Kept Moving
When I am jammed in consciousness
The road that kept moving stops
My daylight noise lacks lustre and it
has become my nightful disquiet
Yes, the road that kept moving stops
on my observation again
My direction is outwards
Maybe I am way too in
to observe the road moving
I know somewhere out there
the world is divided
Yet the road keeps moving
To the unseen destination, they keep going
I shall try to step out and stop them
I shall be the passenger on the roadside
and step inside the moving whirl
Only if they stop I shall stop and not be
Jammed way inside
into the unmoving side.
Once I started to recognize the poetic idea that the road kept moving—it led me to think that somewhere out there the world is divided. There is a vantage point in poetry. The point from where the poetic persona observes thinks or imagines in a poem.
I also have a poem of observation for you all. The poem subverts the binary and states that black is also beautiful. The poem was born when I saw a blackbird (not a crow or a raven) sitting in a grey fallen bough of a tree. I have used contrast and comparison as a poetic device here. I consider contrast, comparison, and observation as poetic devices.
I believe poems should not be written in fragments, but the sentences should be complete. If it conveys extraordinary ideas it can always sound poetic in its wholeness. The idea in the poem mentioned below is that black is also a color and it can be colorful. I found a grey bough of a tree colorless in comparison to a black-colored bird. This observation can seem personal. The fact of observation that the grey bough is leafless and the blackbird is winged can itself provide a glimpse into poetic inquiry. Bird is lively and hence can carry that acknowledging capacity than the grey bough of a tree.
To the Black Bird
No, not a raven —
and I do not despise the color.
The leafless bough of a grey tree where you sit like an angel,
reminds me that you are enchanting in appearance.
You are colored and the grey bough seems to be faded and
colorless,
you are winged and the grey bough is leafless.
You are black but colorful,
grey bough is grey but faded and colorless.
I would like to state the essential elements of writing a good poem now. The rhyme and rhythm can also be essential elements of poetry, but we can write poems of new dimensions without rhyme. If we use correct words, the rhythm gets developed. The essential elements of good poems can be as mentioned below:
- Simile and metaphor (they help in words formation and further ideas)
- Imagery
- Imagination
- Observation
- Perception
- Philosophy
- Compare and Contrast (contradiction)
- Interdisciplinary elements (feelings of mutual love, peace, and humanity for all)
- Plight
- Abstract elements
A poem can contain a single perception throughout the lines of a complete poem. It need not adhere to already prescribed social notions. It has been said that “a poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.” Away from reality abstract elements can function or speak in poems. Reality can be sidelined or a new way of conveying it can be developed.
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