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This poem will be short, of course, maybe a quick observation, a moment preserved, as in this no-sentence poem by Ezra Pound:
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Or maybe an apostrophe like H. D.'s "The Pool":
The Pool
Are you alive?
I touch you.
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you—banded one?
Call it Autumn. Call it Fall. Does it Matter?
Either way, it's back again, full of football, pumpkins, falling leaves and memories. Here are are some poems, offered for your autumn enjoyment.
- "That time of year thou may'st in me behold" by William Shakespeare
- "Spring and Fall" by Gerard Manley Hopkins
- "Another Autumn" by Chuck Guilford
- "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio" by James Wright
- "Pastoral" by Jennifer Chang
- "Besides the Autumn poets sing (131)" by Emily Dickinson
- "Beyond the Years" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
- "To Autumn" by John Keats
- "Autumn" by Amy Lowell
- "Autumn Poem 2012" by Hoa Nguyen
- "Nommo in September" by Hannah Sanghee Park
- "The Shapes of Leaves" by Arthur Sze
It might as well be spring . . .
or maybe it is, so many love poems keep appearing in the blogs. Love poems are some of the hardest poems to write, or so claimed W. H. Auden. Here are a few classics that have inspired poets and lovers over the years:
- The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe
- The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Ralegh
- somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond by e. e. cummings
- To the March Wind by Chuck Guilford
- Let me not to the marriage of true minds by William Shakespeare
- The Definition of Love by Andrew Marvell
- What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why by Edna St. Vincent Millay
- The Buried Life by Matthew Arnold
- A Birthday by Christina Rossetti
- How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- Wild Nights — Wild Nights! by Emily Dickinson
- When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats
- Credo by Matthew Roher
A few suggestions: use concrete, specific images to show your feelings; avoid sing-song "roses are red" type rhyming; try to say something fresh and new that gives readers a new insight — or even a laugh.
And check out the following topics:
Poem #6: Write a No-Sentence Poem
Write a poem that is six to sixteen lines long and contains no grammatically complete sentences.
If you want, you can punctuate fragments as complete sentences.
Make your final poem six to sixteen lines long. Consider dividing it into two or more stanzas.
e. e. cummings "r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r" could be an example, as could Chuck Guilford's "A Perfect Circle."
Share Poems
-- the no praise/no blame method
As a reader, you may find it hard to speak frankly in the poet's presence about words, images, and ideas charged with personal expression. Yet in doing so, you help the writer see how the poem affects another person, and how it might evolve in a future draft.
Read more ...A Sense of Form
A poem's form is partly visual: its look on the page. George Herbert's "Easter Wings" is an example of striking visual form, as is e. e. cummings' "r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r." But visual form also works in less obvious ways. The lean, spare look of most Emily Dickinson poems complements her terse style, while the long, sweeping lines of Walt Whitman accentuate his bold, expansive message.
Read more ...