I believe in poetry. I love it. It makes me feel good to write it. It makes me feel good to read it. I love the thought that there is something inside of me that expresses itself in a much more primal way than the straightforward text of my ordinary prose. For me, poetry is visceral. It comes from a[......]
Category > The Poet's Haven
Believe in Poetry
Pain vs Poetry
Pain is personal. Pain is powerful. Pain is not original. Accepting the risk of hyperbole, I can say that all poets go through a pain period. All people, and thus all poets, suffer. You may be mistreated by a parent, rejected by a lover, betrayed by a friend or touched by death. These things happen,[......]
Experience Poetry in a Musical Style
Poetry reacts on us through sound — pitch, volume, consonance, assonance, rhyme and cadence, as well as through the process of visual translation from print on page to a mind image. I have often told poets privately that they can increase the quality of their work in short order by doing sever[......]
What is Poetry?
What is poetry?
Poetry is an art form in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. It consists largely of oral or literary works in which language is used in a manner that is felt by its user and audience to differ from ordin[......]
Importance of Poetry
Perpetual Prose would like to welcome Andrewj on board as our new poetry blogger.
There’s actually an odd correlation between these ideas: poetry is either inadequate, even immoral, in the face of human suffering, or it’s unprofitable, hence useless. Either way, poets are advised to hang our heads o[......]
A Brief Look at Hemingway’s Poetry – Part 2
The second entry is even shorter, “Neo-Thomist Poem”:
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not
want him for long.
Again Hemingway turns his focus to religious reflection. Here, though, is a much lighter, more sarcastic look at religion in modern day life. “Neo-Thomist” refers to Thomism, or t[......]
A Brief Look at Hemingway’s Poetry – Part 1
Ernest Hemingway wrote poetry? Yes, the winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature, the novelist famous for his innovative prose style, his terse and minimalist writing, dabbled in poetry as well. It is not uncommon for great writers to cross into other forms of writing, such as poetry or screenw[......]
The Importance of Revision in Poetry – Part 2
The most interesting example of the potential pitfalls and controversies of revision of a published poem is Marianne Moore’s “Poetry.” Moore was notorious for editing poems that had already seen the printed page. This process has left readers and critics alike with the question, “Which is the real p[......]
The Importance of Revision in Poetry – Part 1
Most poets would agree that the creative process in writing goes well beyond the first draft. Although some poets (notably Billy Collins) claim to adhere to a minimal, if non-existent, editing process, many great writers often spend months to years, or even decades, editing their masterpiece poems. [......]
Symmetry and Form in Free Verse, as Seen in Wright’s Beginning – Part 2
Now the reader is ready for the poem’s climax. Amongst the beauty and mystery of nature appears the slender woman “Between trees.” The world is all of shadows, like the forms in Plato’s cave. Yet this woman has found a way to remove the shroud from her face, and escape the constraints of this world:[......]
