Everyday Canvas

On Writing and Poetry

Prompt: When I took scrapbook classes, the instructor said we can't scrapbook every event or moment of our lives. Can the same be said about writing?

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Yes, of course. In fiction, we need only to include what is relevant to the theme, the plot, and its conflict and characters. Unneeded descriptions, scenes, or actions only crowd the story and hinder its progress.

With non-fiction, also, when writing an article or an essay, one would write within the framework of the subject, thesis, or the impression one needs to impart on the reader. For example, if you are writing a science article about deep-space exploration, you can’t suddenly mention the anatomy of a rhinoceros, thinking they both have to do with science.

Prompt: April is National Poetry Month. Write about poetry and poets.


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During the earlier days and in the old world, people wrote poems in a single mode and called it verse. During the romantic period, only the lyric poetry was deemed to be the true poetry. (To tell the truth, I agree with that to a degree.)

Later on, was born the lyrical prose, which we call prose-poems.

Poetry, however, does not live on lyricism alone, as some hard-core meter-and-rhyme-loving folks insist. Thus, they assign a set of rules to poetry and call it prosody. Prosody is the theory of a language system assigned to poetry, which theoretically determines the structure of a poem or its form, which can be organic or external and formal.

Aside from prosody, a poem can be--in context—dramatic, lyric, or narrative.

As for me, lyricism matters. Sound matters. Even rhythm matters to a degree, but what matters the most is the meaning. I don’t care how well constructed a poem is, if it lacks in meaning or if its meaning is distorted due to flawed form use. Unless the poet is a seasoned formal poetry writer, a poet can make a fool of himself. I should know!

I have written formal poetry, from time to time, and still do, but it isn’t my favorite way to write poetry as I find it constricting when it comes to meaning. In free verse, the words that express the right, lyrical meaning and the sound are more available since my choices are not limited by the requirements of syllable count and meter.