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For the jihadist, poetry is a mode of manifesto, or of bearing witness. There are no prizes for subtlety. The poet’s task is to make an open and lucid defense of his faith against all doubters, at home and abroad. He must dare to name the truths that his parents and his elders try to hide. Another poem in “The Anthology of Glory” begins with a classical-sounding admonition: “Silence! Words are for heroes / and the words of heroes are deeds.” Surrounded by skeptics, the jihadi poet fashions himself as a knight of the word, which is to say, a martyr in the making.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/08/battle-lines-jihad-creswell-and-haykel Poems are collections of words that express an idea or emotion that often use imagery and metaphor. As you are studying literature, you will likely notice that poems come in many, many different forms. As you read and perhaps write your own poems, it is helpful to know the different kinds of poems.
Types of PoemsThere are many different types of poems. The difference between each type is based on the format, rhyme scheme and subject matter.
Read more at http://examples.yourdictionary.com/what-are-different-types-of-poems.html#RwvSt0iyAYsPK8md.99 It's not uncommon for Alan Eyre to appear on a Persian-language news program, speaking in Farsi about the ongoing nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West.
He uses elaborate words and expressions one after the other to make his point. Then comes a typical Alan Eyre moment, something that he's best known for. He drops in a couple of verses of poetry by a 13th century Persian poet. That's part of what has made Eyre — a US State Department spokesperson — popular among Iranians. He knows how proud Iranians are of their centuries-old literature. Eyre was appointed to his current position in 2011, part of a wider attempt by the Obama administration to engage with Iranians. In the absence of a real embassy, the State Department also created a "Virtual Embassy," where Iranians can get information from and ask questions directly of US officials. But Eyre's love for Persian poetry began long before he started his current role at the State Department. For him, learning Farsi wasn't all that hard. "Believe me, I have failed on so many languages, this was the only one that I have any sort of ability to speak," he says. "So by definition it has to be relatively easy." Learning the alphabet, which is mostly Arabic script, was the hard part. But once he had that down, it was a breeze. His time in Dubai and Los Angeles — sometimes referred to as Tehrangeles — helped a lot too. "I put myself into situations where I hung out with Iranians and listened to them and every time they would say something I would write it down," Eyre says. Like the time when one Iranian used the expression "stop putting watermelons under my armpits." "I was like ‘What? What does that mean?’" he recalls asking. "It’s like, don’t mess with me. Don’t try to puff me up, don’t flatter me. I sense you’re flattering me for a reason," he explains. As much fun as experimenting with words and expressions in a foreign language can be, Eyre says it has to be done carefully. "It’s not like this is my secret weapon where I reach for my utility belt and take out a phrase from Saadi to win the day," he says. "It has to be in context. Were I to do it too much, it would lose its effectiveness." His position as a US spokesman also means that he has to be selective with his words. "Some sayings are more appropriate for starting bar fights, some are more appropriate for speaking as a representative of the US government," he says. "You have to know how to differentiate between the two." One way Eyre updates his list of Farsi words and phrases is through his official Facebook page. He'll write the word or phrase that he doesn't know and ask users to give him the best definition. Iranians write in. And while poetry and proverbs have connected Eyre with a large group of Iranians, he still has his critics. "I often put out positions and statements on Facebook and get a horde of responses saying ‘Hey, I like you a lot Alan but...’ and then they tell me what they don’t like about US policy. So it’s not like I’m doing a charm offensive, winning hearts and minds over to the US position," he says. His job, he says, is to convey the US government's message and policies to the Iranian people directly. He's just doing it in a different way. The World in Words podcast is on Facebook and iTunes. http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-05-06/persian-poetry-and-proverbs-are-us-government-spokespersons-strong-suit In his “Dedication” to Don Juan, Byron strikes a characteristically spicy note. After ruminating for a couple of stanzas on Milton and comparing him, with irony, to the then Laureate, Robert Southey, whom Byron hated, he concludes an ottava rima with: “Would he [Milton] adore a sultan? he obey/ The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh?” Not quite content with that, Byron provides an alternate couplet, which employs an inferior rhyme but an even more pointed assault: “Would he subside into a hackney Laureate—/ A scribbling, self-sold, soul-hired, scorn’d Iscariot?” Byron adds:
I doubt if “Laureate” and “Iscariot” be good rhymes, but must say, as Ben Jonson did to Sylvester, who challenged him to rhyme with-- “I, John Sylvester, Lay with your sister.” Jonson answered,—“I, Ben Jonson, lay with your wife.” Sylvester answered,—“That is not rhyme.”—“No,” said Ben Jonson; “but it is true.” It takes a special kind of poet to maul a rhyme for the sake of the truth, and, of course, Byron here eats his cake and has it too. In general, one does not look to poems for factual truths, lest Keats’s Cortez be permanently swapped for Balboa in the history books. But if poetry proves largely unsatisfactory to Plato and Detective Sergeant Joe “Just the facts, ma’am” Friday in terms of veracity, then what kind of truth is poetry after? For more, check out the rest of the article at http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/-Poetry---Truth--8129 In February Dean Rader, an English professor at the University of San Francisco, set out to discover history’s 10 best poets (much like Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times recently did for composers). After spending two weeks compiling a list of nominees and fielding readers’ comments about them on the Web site of The San Francisco Chronicle, Mr. Rader has released his final list, with the Latin American poet Pablo Neruda at No. 1. “No poet has more passionately and thoroughly spoken for his people than Neruda,” Mr. Rader wrote, citing “Canto General,” a 15-part book comprising over 200 poems and 15,000 lines tracing the history of Latin America. “It is an insanely ambitious project that seemed to unify a country.” In second place was Shakespeare, whose name, according to Mr. Rader’s “shockingly unscientific measurements,” appeared most frequently in reader e-mails, followed by Dante, who Mr. Rader said was the most controversial pick, because “he’s only well known for one poem (‘The Divine Comedy’).” Western literary greats like Walt Whitman, John Donne, Emily Dickinson, William Butler Yeats and Wallace Stevens also appear on the list with the Eastern favorites Rumi and Li Po, whom Mr. Rader called “the great poet of drunkenness.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/books/07arts-THE10BESTPOE_BRF.html?_r=0 One of the difficulties about academic study is that it is, well, academic. You are ducking your head into books that are full of facts and theories and proposals and ideas. It’s all so intellectual. No matter what your major, this is the time to do the theory. You’re learning the history and the background. You’re crunching the numbers and working with the data. You’re doing the research and writing the papers and doing the footnotes and end notes and paying attention to all that detail, all that logic, all that reasoning, all that head stuff.
Then you take a break and maybe you play football or lacrosse or softball or volleyball or maybe you just party until you drop. Then again, maybe you are a fine arts person and you are busy with the Broadway musical, the string quartet, stage crew, the tap dancing, the rock band, the folk singers, or the experimental drama group. Maybe you paint or sculpt or create huge batik wall hangings. Who knows what extracurriculars, hobbies or work you’re engaged in to have fun or pay the bills? The one thing I’ll bet you don’t do is anything creative with your mind. You slam shut the books and get out of there. That’s where the practicality of poetry comes in. Reading and writing poetry is good for you. It’s good for your mind. It stretches your linguistic faculties in ways that pay off later. Read It OftenHere is why reading poetry is good for you: First of all, poetry is emotional. It engages that organ which is most underused in academia—the heart. Reading poetry is not simply about understanding the rhyme scheme of an Alexandrian sonnet or being able to write a paper on the theological conceits of the metaphysical poets. A poem is first and foremost an expression of emotion. You have to engage your feelings when you read a poem or you haven’t read the poem. This is important because academia wants you to be objective and scientific all the time. The poet proclaims, “Forget the science already! We want passion, not pie charts!” While poetry engages your emotions it does so in a rational and structured way. Poetry is smart. It does a formal dance around the emotions and engages them while also engaging your brain. Emotion on its own is mere sentimentality. Emotion in classical poetry fuses the intellect with emotion in a high and noble human experience. Second, reading poetry expands your linguistic capabilities. On the simplest level it will widen out your vocabulary, but more importantly, it will widen out the way you think. Poetry takes your thinking processes outside the box. You are forced to work out the meaning of complicated passages and puzzle over obscure references, such as when Eliot writes: Lady the three white leopards sat under the juniper tree in the cool of the day having fed to satiety on my legs, my heart and my liver. Figuring out such things is hard but rewarding work, and as you struggle, you discover that your mind is firing on cylinders you did not know existed. Your language skills are being stretched, your ability to understand and articulate is taking a huge jump, and that’s an exciting thing. Third, reading poetry is good for you because it stretches your imagination. To get a poem you have to step outside your narrow little world and see the world from a new perspective. The poet makes connections that nobody else makes and to understand them, you must get your mind out of a rut and double check your understanding of reality. What did Emily Dickinson see when she observed, “A narrow fellow in the grass occasionally rides…”? Oh I see! It’s a snake. Or is it? As your imagination is stretched your perception of reality widens out. Things are not what they seemed. They are more than what you thought they were, and this shake up of your preconceptions is what education is all about. The Rewards of Writing PoetryReading poetry is hard, but writing poetry is harder, and let’s get this free verse thing out of the way from the beginning. Robert Frost said, “Writing free verse is like playing tennis without a net.” It is the easiest thing in the world to write free verse. Seventh grade girls do it all the time. Just as you’re not allowed to be a hermit until you’ve been a monk for twenty five years, so you shouldn’t really write free verse until you’ve mastered all the different kinds of formal verse. So write poetry that has rhythm and rhyme. Write sonnets and terza rima. Write a ballad and a villanelle and an ode or a sestina. Writing formal poetry is practical in three ways: First, as in reading poetry, writing poetry puts you in touch with your emotions. You must write a poem about something you are passionate about. As you do, you are forced to examine your emotions and express them in a way which not only communicates a message, but also the emotion of the message. The final couplet or stanza should bring the reader to an “Aha!” moment in which enlightenment and emotion are fused. That’s hard to do, but as you learn to do it you learn to work with emotion and manage it, rather than simply being swept up by the emotions of the moment. Thus you learn that channeled emotions are far stronger, long lasting and effective than the mere sweep of overwhelming feeling. Emotions that are fused with an exercise of the intellect are most powerful of all. Second, as you write poetry you are forced to think in creative and mind-bending ways. The poet is a person who makes unusual connections. Anybody can see a black dog in a white collar, but a poet sees a priest dressed in black wearing a white collar that binds him and liberates him all at once. He sees a black dog who serves a white God which is “dog” backwards and knows the priest is both a black dog and a backward god at once. This is why the poets were always also jesters. They were jokers. Like comedians, they saw connections nobody else saw, and as they made those connections the perceptions of their audience were opened up, “Aha!” and they saw the world, truth and beauty in a fresh and startling way. The third practical reason to write poetry is that in the very process you will learn the flexible quality of language and the startling way that the forms of poetry do not lock you down, but open you up. What I mean is this: let us say you are writing a love poem about the girl you are going to marry and the fact that you are about to buy her an engagement ring. You are biting your pencil and scratching your head searching for a word that rhymes with “jewel”. You come up with “cruel”. Suddenly your imagination takes a leap into the dark! Perhaps this love so golden and so sweet is cruel? How is it cruel? Am I cruel? Is she cruel? Is love cruel? You see? The process of finding a rhyme is the very thing that makes poetry such a linguistically creative activity. The Significance of EverythingThe last thing is this: poetry uses metaphors for meaning. Reading and writing poetry helps you see that beneath the surface of everything there is a deeper meaning and significance. Poetry makes you dig for that meaning and helps you express that meaning. In a world that seems increasingly meaningless, poetry helps you dig deep. Why is it worth it? Not because you will gain fame and fortune by writing poetry. (Poets starve.) Because if you are going to do anything with your brain in the future you will need to communicate, and if you are going to communicate you will have to use language, and if you use language creatively and with skill your abilities in whatever career you choose will be a step ahead of all those cretins who wasted their time playing video games. Writing poetry will help you engage with your emotions in a smart way and that will help you know yourself and understand others. Writing and reading poetry will nurture your imagination and no matter what your career, a bright and active imagination will be a bonus. Finally, writing and reading poetry will widen out your experience, help you to see the big picture, help you find meaning in an chaotic world and make it seem like you actually know what life is all about. Poets at all levels of experience worry about whether or not our poetry sucks. Often, as we contemplate our poetry, we experience gnawing doubts about our abilities as poets and about the quality of our work. However, the question of “how to figure out if your poetry sucks” tends to be a beginner’s question.Experienced poets, whether we acknowledge it or not, usually know when our poetry sucks. But as a beginner, it’s natural to be confused by what makes a “good” poem.
DISTINGUISHING GOOD POETRY FROM SUCKY POETRYThere are so many types of poetry in culture—good, bad, and ugly. Through experience, poets come to recognize what’s weak about a poem, what’s clichéd, and what simply isn’t working. But when you’re first starting out, writing a strong, successful poem can seem elusive, mysterious, or maybe even impossible. Lacking experience, it can be difficult to tell whether or not your poetry is any good. You know what they say about beauty being in the eye of the beholder? Well, poetry is like that. If you think a poem is beautiful, if it moves you, if it makes you think and seems to speak some truth to you, then that’s a “good” poem. However, if you’re looking to publish your poems, then you’ll need to develop a sense of what critics and poets agree makes for good poetry. Luckily for the beginner, there are some simple indicators that distinguish good poetry from weaker versions. ONE SUCKY POEM AND ONE NOT-SO-SUCKY POEMAs an exercise in determining what makes for a good poem versus a weak poem, take a look at this excerpt of one of my poems: The light reflects your skin. Impossibilities recede. I trace where I have been, find the knots and knead. Run my fingers through your curls, twisting and bereaved. Pulling me into your world, from your mouth the air I breathe. You are not alone, as you walk away. I am here with you right now, praying that you will stay. I’m steady on this ground, holding on with all my might. You are not alone, your fears eclipsing lightUmm…can you guess the title of this uninspired poem? That’s right: “You are not alone.” If you like this poem, then great. But trust me, it’s a real stinker. The premise is terrible, the rhyme is laughable, clichés abound, and some of it is so vague as to be nonsensical. Now, consider this excerpt from another poem I wrote: Stories sculpt figures, construct apartment buildings plant fields and wield iron, forge whole countries of strangers we come to believe we know. Stories create things. Poetry takes them apart. Unstitching the unseemly seam, breaking open rocks, chiseling crystal composites, uprooting forest ferns just to smell the fertile musk of soil and finger the tangled, threaded flesh.This poem is entitled “Poetry, say it.” This isn’t the greatest poem, but it is a stronger poem than the first. It manages to use relatively original descriptions, its premise is more interesting, its language is active, and its images are concrete. WAYS TO KNOW IF YOUR POEM SUCKS Now, let’s compare these two excerpts to determine exactly what makes one “bad” and the other one “better”:
However, Poetry is a very complex craft that requires lots of practice and experience to master. If you’re interested in studying poetry, then I recommend a class, which you can find at art centers, universities and colleges, and even online. If you want to do some self-study, then an excellent place to begin is with The Poet’s Companion by Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux. But the best way to learn how to write poetry that doesn’t suck is to read lots of great poetry. So, check out your public library and read some poetry by well-known, great poets. LOVE YOUR SUCKY POETRYExpressing yourself, enjoying the pleasure that language has to offer, and articulating your own truths are the most significant reasons for writing poetry. So, when you’re first starting out, don’t worry too much about whether or not your poetry sucks. Rather, try to have some fun— experiment with words and play with meanings. If you write enough poetry, then you’re bound to write sucky poetry occasionally. As this article suggests, every poet does. Bad poetry clears the way for great poetry. However, if your poetry gives you comfort, if it gives you pleasure, or if it manages to speak the truth of your experience or observations, then it doesn’t suck at all. Rather, it’s an expression of your creativity. So, try not to judge your poetry too harshly and learn to love it some. When you love your poetry, you’ll want to make it better. And if you want to make it better, you’ll want to practice, experiment, and play; and by doing so, you’ll gain the necessary experience to improve and maybe write a lot less sucky poetry. If you’ve enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it. Do you think that your friends might laugh if you told them you were writing a poem—or that your family members would tease you about it?
Believe or not, people would probably be pretty impressed if you wrote a poem that felt meaningful to you. After all, some of the world’s most well respected songwriters, rappers, and performers are actually poets who channel their voices into the written and spoken word. While you might not find fame and fortune writing about your life, current events, or an important topic that’s on your mind (at least, not immediately!), there are plenty of benefits and incentives to grabbing your pen or laptop. Here are just five of the reasons to get started writing a poem.
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