?poetry?

[readingqueen]

thats good sam. sometimes repetitivness can make a poem boring, but in this case i find it the exact opposite. i like how you don't only have bad things in it. it's refreshing how you mixed the nice stuff to not know. like lieing or failing a test or being stupid. you've expressed your (your friends?) emotions well here. and that, i think, is one of the most important things.

"It was my turn to save you, that's all. Now I want a few weeks off..."

it's not dying for a friend that's hard...no, what's hard is finding a friend worth dying for.

[db_pr]

Yeah that's good! I am gonna enter that one on a contest but I added a lot more! I don't have it right now but I'm gonna put it here at 2:30 PM...

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." -Bilbo Baggins (The Fellowship of the Ring: J.R.R. Tolkien)
"Not all who wander are lost"- J.R.R. Tolkien
"Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself." - (Yogi Berra)after being told he looked cool

[db_pr]

[readingqueen]

wow db thats really good. i mean it, i wasn't writing anything like that 3 yrs ago! the only thing u need to do is check your puncuation, there are a buit too many commas, but your teach. can help you with that. this really is awesome, you've got talent.

"It was my turn to save you, that's all. Now I want a few weeks off..."

it's not dying for a friend that's hard...no, what's hard is finding a friend worth dying for.

[papercrane]

Ok, Sam:
The rhyme isn't as important as the meter. If your poem doesn't flow and has no cadence, it might as well be prose.

For instance, read this line out loud:

Across the wild wooded path

It should read--
ta-TA, ta-TA, ta-TA, ta-TA.

That's iambic. Now, if you have beats all over the place, the whole thing is off.

Also, make sure your lines are even.
Er, making this up as I go along:

Outside among the dark pine trees
The snow falls, swirling in the breeze

Awful, I know. But my point is the lines have the same meter and the same number of feet. So it flows more smoothly than:

Among the pine trees
Snow swirls in the breeze.


"That's right," he said. "We're philosophers. We think, therefore we am."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
*Look kindly upon the decaffienated one*
http://pub15.ezboard.com/ftimeheartf...opicID=3.topic

[Sam]

[Birdhead]

... but meter is kinda subjective. My poems have no meter. And there are so many _strange_ meters... which as a general rule I don't get on with. In fact the last poem I wrote with any sort of meter broke meter deliberately. Mostly mine are pretty freeform. (In fact I originally tried to write it as a sonnet in iambic pentameter. Gave up V quickly indeed and shifted it to something more silimar to Tennyson's Lady of shalott...)

And then there's stuff like
Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

-Robert Frost, From Tree at my window.

Haha, but nothing is quite as bad as dactylic hexameter. (Virgil wrote in this but the only examples I could give you are in latin, so there's no point.) Dactylic hexameter is when each line of your poem is comprised of six "feet-" that is, groups of syllables. (NOT the same as words, please note.) There are two common sorts of foot: *thinks hard* dactyls and spondees. (Oh latin people: check this. I could be wrong.) A dactyl is long-short-short; a spondee is long-long. The last group is always a spondee. In some places there are things called "caesura;" little break type things. (Won't explain where to put them as we learnt this wrong and I haven't learnt the new way properly yet.) There are about a million and one rules and, tragically, I have to know many of them in order to "scan" the Aeneid...
(More, and more coheerency, on dactylic hexameter and scansion can be found here)

Anyway, That was a very long way to say a very short thing; there are lots of different types of meter and although if you want your poetry to be read aloud meter is very helpful, it's a pretty free form and is not an absolute neccisity in poetry. Though because it's hard, I guess it's good practise...
A very brief example of some of my favourite stuff I've written without meter:

The air is breathing
the sun is in love with the birches
glowing through the leaves
this is what sun-kissed means
the perfect moment
after rain.

T

"We are philosophical geniuses [sic] who will one day rule the world!"
--Agent M
Ahahahaha, Ahahahaha, Ahahahaha!

[readingqueen]

whoa that is a lot of vocab.... i don't know any words or phrases, but i do have my opnion. i think that with freeform like Bird had at the end of her post, it doesn't matter how long or short the lines are. but when your rhyming, i do think it's better when it flows. i don't mean that they have to be the same length, because i don't count my syllabels either. and my words don't always EXACTLY rhyme. but if you are going for the rhyming thing, i think you should at least have it relatively measured. You can just say it out loud if it helps. but like i said b4, the free form is exactly what it says. go all out. it doesn't matter if your lines are the same length, that's not what it's about. i don't write rhyming poetry anymore, i think it just limits the amount of emotion that you can get in free form. well, gg, bye!

"It was my turn to save you, that's all. Now I want a few weeks off..."

it's not dying for a friend that's hard...no, what's hard is finding a friend worth dying for.

[Sam]

Ok, I get what you're sayding, but my teacher hasn't really gotten into metter so I don't really know how to do it. She just taught us how to label our rhyming, ex: my personal poem would be A B C B and my OUtsiders poem was A B B C D C, that is all she has taught us so far, and I got 100's on them.

~Sam (Hifun55) and Dog~
"It's hard enough to be what you are, Harder to be what you're not; It's hard to know what you need to get, harder to know what you've got" -Hilary Duff, Metamorphisis, Workin' It Out

[papercrane]

Sam: hehe, I don't think we're from dif countries...but we might as well be. Oh well. My point was that the way you write it sounded more traditional, and personally, if I'm not deliberately breaking up the rhythm to make it more...for lack of a better word, poetic, I try to pay attention to the meter. Congrats on the good grade!
Tui: Yeah, I know...I like non-meter (or whatever you call it) stuff too. Actually, much of what I write is like that. I'd insert an example, but I'm still using my laptop and it doesn't have anything on it! *beats head against wall in frustration*

"That's right," he said. "We're philosophers. We think, therefore we am."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
*Look kindly upon the decaffienated one*
http://pub15.ezboard.com/ftimeheartf...opicID=3.topic

[Sam]

Originally Posted in TTOGR by Papercrane:
re Duff: Sam, I think she's only big in America.
re Halloween: Did it start over here? For some reason I thought it started in Europe...

Are you SURE we aren't from diff. countries? You confuse me. But seriously I don't REALLY know what metter is, my teach. hasn't taught it yet. and Thanks

~Sam (Hifun55) and Dog~
"It's hard enough to be what you are, Harder to be what you're not; It's hard to know what you need to get, harder to know what you've got" -Hilary Duff, Metamorphisis, Workin' It Out

[papercrane]

I'm from America. The big beautiful commercialized United States of. More specifically, though, I'm from Michigan...the cold, hot, windy, snowy, slushy, unpredictable, mitten state. For some reason I thought you were from America too. But I might be wrong...
And, about meter: just make sure when you read it out loud, it has a steady beat of some sort. Unless you go for the free verse option.

"That's right," he said. "We're philosophers. We think, therefore we am."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
*Look kindly upon the decaffienated one*
http://pub15.ezboard.com/ftimeheartf...opicID=3.topic

[Sam]

I AM from America, actually Alabama, but you still confuse me. 'Cuase when you said the re Halloween: that was right after Skybluice said it started in the UK, so it is confusing. I think I get the meter now. I'm just a tiny bit slow, well actually I'm having an off week so more like a LOT slow this week.

~Sam (Hifun55) and Dog~
"It's hard enough to be what you are, Harder to be what you're not; It's hard to know what you need to get, harder to know what you've got" -Hilary Duff, Metamorphisis, Workin' It Out

[brokencello]

WOW!!!!!!! I loved readingqueen's poem on PAGE 1. That was sooooooo good! Yours was excellent too, db. And--I guess I'll try my hand...perhaps...
Sun is setting
On the skyline
Not outside
But in my heart
Loved once true
Loved too deeply
Never meant to be
Moon is rising
On the skyline
Not outside
But in my heart
Man is changing
Always different
Nothing like before
Moon is high
In the sky now
Not outside
But in my heart
Eyes are closing
Growing up in all the rest
Leaves me behind
Youthful
Lonely
Low against the red-orange sky

brokencello
the crinkled paper bag
"Life isn't like the movies, Toto."
--Alfredo, Cinema Paradiso

[readingqueen]

thank you for the praise bc . and your poem is amazing! i've only read two of your things so far:this one here and "random" and they're both FANTASTIC! you should put them into a contest (my fav. smiley)!

"It was my turn to save you, that's all. Now I want a few weeks off..."

it's not dying for a friend that's hard...no, what's hard is finding a friend worth dying for.