- Home
- Steven Hammon
Poetry Anatomy Page 2
Poetry Anatomy Read online
Page 2
strong beginning, middle and end, helps a poem in a powerful way. It doesn’t have to be story based, or a sequence of events. There are many ways to start.
You can have a hook line with sparks intrigue. You can give a summary of the poem. You can establish a state of mind. You can establish a mood. You can hint at the deeper meaning. You can have a line which means something at the start but after reading the poem, repeating it at the end gives a whole new meaning. The possibilities are endless but it’s good to focus on this structure since it can dramatically improve your writing.
My next stanza deepens the experience of love and adds more information about it. After that, I focus on how valuable it is and the extreme importance it has. A bit of a metaphor there in the last line too. The last line sums it up. Embrace it and receive it and let it flow through you.
Contents
Mother of Nature
The mother of nature is here
She gives us the life we share
Her forests are cleansing the air
Her life giving force full of care
The giving of nature won’t cease
The waters of oceans are clear
They surround this beautiful sphere
It’s gorgeous for all of the year
The birds have a beautiful call
It sooths the soul with its peace
Your joy levels always increase
It’s always a strong stress release
The gifts flow like a water fall
They’re given free to us all
Footnote:
This is one of my most recent poems which I finished only about a week ago.
I took a new perspective on this one since at this stage, I didn’t want to just reformat the elements of other poems in a sense. So here I have made it more about mother nature as a person. So here we have a personification of nature as 1 living entity.
In the first stanza, I am introducing the mother like aspects of mother nature. How a mother gives us life through birth, and mother nature gives us life through air.
After that, I go onto the beautiful aspects of nature which are given to us. I know I neglect the aspect of mankind destroying nature and the destructing aspect of nature’s fury, but this subject is not about the negative. It’s a positive view of Nature’s Beauty. So that ends the Octave with the beautiful personality of mother nature. Her nice side.
In the third stanza, I have turned it onto how this effects us and how powerful the beauty of nature is for our lives. It begins the Sestet by connecting this magical power with our spiritual selves. The couplet at the end sums up how freely we can experience it.
The middle of a poem delves into the core of the subjects and elaborates on the concept. You want to back up your subject with other examples or views or substance so that you bring more understanding to the reader. You give them a deeper experience and take them into the essence in ways they may never have even dreamed of.
Contents
Dreams You Can See
Dreams that you can see
Core desire destiny
Reason for your birth
Gifted to the hilt
Overflowing blessings spilt
Purpose spawning worth
Always doing right
Never giving up the fight
Sacrifice some more
Learning all you need
Practicing until you bleed
Then one day you score
>Footnote: The Haiku
Japan. It’s incredible where many different parts of the world influence many different aspects of art. I love the fact that there is so much diversity and that we can delve into all of this new skill, harnessing the techniques that we can use to further our creative knowledge.
Thanks to Japan, we have a new structure. The Haiku.
This incredible new way of constructing poems is rather interesting and if you wanted, you could play with it and tweak it into your own style.
We have here, 3 lines. The syllables for each line are set in stone. We have 5 syllables in the first line, then 7 in the second line, then 5 in the third line.
As usual, I have added a rhyme pattern to it. This pattern is very common in song lyrics, but usually it’s more like a ballad in songs. They usually have 2 short lines that rhyme in a small couplet A, A, then a line twice as long with a second rhyme word, B. Then we have another couplet with the same sort of rhythm and length of the 1st couplet but with a different rhyme, C, C. Then another line which is about the same length as B, with a B rhyme. I’ll point this out later.
All that changes here, is that my lengths are set in stone. My rhyme pattern is:
A A B C C B D D E F F E
Contents
Love is in the Air
Love is in the air
It’s a bond that you should share
Shared with all your heart
So much more than lust
Born and bred and raised in trust
Can’t be torn apart
Shared it’s so much more
They’re the one and you are sure
Thankful every day
With the perfect one
You’ll be blessed with so much fun
More than words can say
Footnote:
Remember before how I said I used Love is in the air? Here is where I have repeated that line. You may have also seen other areas where I use the same line and words but just manipulate them to fit seamlessly into the new poem as if it was designed for it.
I read these with a modern rhythm.
V ^ V ^ V
V ^ V ^ V ^ V
V ^ V ^ V
Again I begin with the introduction of what the poem is about. It gives a basic definition of true love. After that, I am elaborating. I am expanding on the basics that many people already know.
I then turn into a new direction in a sense. Where it’s hinting at the avenue of one sided love. That one line instils the comparison between the two. God I love how much meaning can be portrayed in so few a words. This stanza also addresses how thankful one should be to find that shared love.
And then I wrap it up with how awesome this situation can be. If only we can find the perfect one, we will be one of the very few who grasp what “More than words can say” , truly means.
Contents
Sun Flowers Ocean Cliffs
Sun beams down its rays
Pinks and reds without the greys
Sunrise soaks my eyes
Flowers near the beach
All these colours skyward reach
Food for butterflies
Ocean mist wafts in
Soon the blueness will begin
Dolphins play around
Cliffs have water falls
Birds are singing blissful calls
Beauty sight and sound
Footnote:
Here again, I use a similar structure to one of the previous Nature’s Beauty poems. I even have it summed up in the title which is actually the 1st word of each stanza, in order. It’s interesting how the title implies only 2 visuals from 4 separate subjects in that manner. Sunflowers. The big yellow ones that birds love to eat. Then you have Ocean cliffs forged by the constant crashing power of those awesome waves. Obviously, these 4 subjects are the sunset, the flora and fauna, the ocean, and the mountain forest falls.
In the first stanza, I have again a line to introduce. I elaborate with the pink and red colours which are in other poems of the same set subject. I then have the metaphor of it flooding my eyes with the beauty of the sunrise. Rise has an assonance with eyes so in that sense, it works better than sunset.
I really love this next stanza. It ties in so much is such a perfect way. It introduces the topic of the stanza, and includes the awesomeness of the beach. Then I tie that in with the colours of the flowers being similar to the colours of the sunrise, in which the flowers are reaching up towards. It ties in so well. And then to have the rhyme of butterflies feeding on the flowers. It’s li
ke a perfectly fitting puzzle slotted together with a perfect fit.
This is in a sense, in chronological order too. I distinctly remember having it this way where the sunrise starts, connected with the colourful flowers reaching up to the colourful sky near the ocean which will soon be blue once the sun finishes rising. Got to include the dolphins ;) And then again I sum it up with the early bird calls creating the visual and audible brilliance.
Contents
The Day of Birth Gift
Given when you’re born
Seed to grow into your life
Greater future sworn
Hack a way through all the strife
Slice of life with your skill knife
Always seeking dreams
Even though it looks like hell
Never what it seems
Breaking through the prison cell
When you’ve got it you can tell
Don’t give up the goal
Even though you sacrifice
Strive with all your soul
If you follow kind advice
you will see it’s really nice
Power is within
Growing stronger greater more
Someday you will win
Started on the lowest floor
Rising to the top to score
Footnote: The Tanka
Japan. Thought that was a mistake? Nope. This is another poetry structure from Japan. They are good aren’t they?
But really it’s not that full on different from the Haiku. Here we have 5 lines. The first 3 lines are the same syllable structure as the Haiku. 5, 7, 5. The difference is the two extra lines per stanza at the end which are both 7 syllables. So we have a syllable structure of 5, 7, 5, 7, 7.
You will notice that I have a style of rhyme in these which is in a way like a quatrain, where line 2 and 4 rhyme, but also 1 and 3 rhyme, and then the extra line on the end which rhymes with line 2 and 4. I have used this rhyme sequence a fair bit and want to do more Limerick style rhyme pattern with the Tanka. You will also notice the reason why I chose this rhyme pattern. The 7 syllable lines rhyme, and the 5 syllable lines rhyme.
A strong metaphor start of the skills you are born to pursue. I then go into the other