Poetics

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Poetics

Tom Spencer

How Does A Poet Grow?

The critique said, “This isn’t poetry; this is a mishmash of disjointed thoughts that provoke emotions.” Maybe it is poetry presented in the wrong way to the wrong audience.

I have seen volumes of poetry, prose, and disjointed words that are professed to be poetry. I have judged contests with specific guidelines. I have critiqued chapbooks.

Although I don’t have an MFA or a BA in literature, I am considered a fair poet by most of my peers. I have published two collections that have sold rather well. I peruse those collections and find adequate poetry in their presentation. However: most of the poems I have published would not pass my collective criteria of what good poetry should be for publication as I see that criteria today. Poets must grow with their presentations as well as their compositions. If they do not grow they become mired in the doldrums of repetition.

How does a poet grow?

Why is it necessary to expand my style when I am pleased with what I have done so well?

A poet grows by addressing subject, plot, theme, and structure from different foundations.

You may be an excellent sonneteer or a profound free form poet; however you need to explore your subject matter in more than one form. Writing on the same theme in different forms will expand understanding of your theme. When you return to the original form to edit you may find that a different order of structure, or rhythm, may enhance the impact of your theme.

I have often found that a free form poem in an iambic meter of a four-six-four or a four-six-eight beat will transform easily into a five-beat fourteen-line English sonnet. To accomplish this transformation you will need to:

rearrange the words,
eliminate articles, or
add or change the syntax to bring it into conformity to the sonnet structure, however, it can be accomplished.

It is also possible to take a quatrain structured poem, select two lines that have great impact of the poetic theme, and transform the poem into a villanelle using the unselected choice context lines as center verse linking lines. Yes it does take some work, but the rewards in enhancing your ability to work with words and rhythms are unlimited.

Working with words to present emotions or a theme in a way that will impact on your audience is a necessity to entering and winning publication or legitimate contests. Knowing how to change your poetry into the form that will best please the editors and judges is a must, if you want to be more than just another submission.

Read the publications you are submitting your work to. Know what has been selected for publication. With a little work, most poems can conform to the audience preference.

The same is true in writing groups and workshops. If you are new to a group, listen in one or two times and get to know what is the generally accepted form and make your first few presentations in that form in order to gain the privilege. Make your work work for you. Once you are established, you can drop a sestina, cinquain or another exotic form on your established audience and receive acceptance to the broadening of their horizons.

I recently needed a poem for a sonnet contest that I was urged to enter. I knew the publication and remembered the work that I had seen published before. I selected the following completed poem and reworked it into a non-traditional sonnet.

Here is the poem I gleaned a sonnet from:

Sport Mentality/by Tom Spencer

Blind man walking
a sightless world
Wheel chair rolling
Curbside gutters
Black man trapped
Ghetto prison
Couch potato
In a sports caste world

I hear the fear
Danger drawing near
Towering temple traps
Wheels on the stair
Servitude of souls
Brilliant minds confined
Complacency
The ravages of sloth

Laws are made
Enforced by man
Justice blind
Collective closure
Of narrow minds
Bunkers built
Reinforced by time
Bigotry grown hate
Colonize the world
Has raped the hinterlands

Arrogance
Fosters revolution
Force of war
A momentary solution

Here is the non-traditional sonnet gleaned from a free form poem:

Sport Mentality/by Tom Spencer

Blind man walking in a sightless world
wheel chair rolling in a curbside gutter
black man living in the inner city
white man laying on a living room couch

I hear the fear of danger drawing near
Towering temple traps - wheels on the stair
Servitude of souls - brilliant minds confined
Complacency - the ravages of sloth

laws are made - enforced by man - justice blind
collective closure of the mind – bunkers built
reinforced by time – bigotry grown hate
Colonized the world – raped the hinterlands

Arrogance has fostered revolution
Force of war - momentary solution

This sonnet was published. The original free form poem has never been submitted, however, it would be considered a new poem if submitted because of the change in the structure with little change to the theme.

So remember to expand on your work by expanding the forms your work and thoughts are presented through different structures.

Until we meet again, may the winds bring you the seeds of thought.

Sincerely, Tom Spencer