“Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the poem.”
— Edgar Allan Poe
Tag: poem
Natural Writer…Natural Heart Surgeon
“Some critics will write ‘Maya Angelou is a natural writer’ – which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.”
— Maya Angelou
Share this:
Poems, Lyric Thyself
[found on songlyricist.com; by Carla Starrett]
“Poets in the modern world do not enjoy the elevated social status they did a century or two ago.
Wordsworth, Byron, Keats and Shelley were the rock stars of their time. Their poetic skills earned them adulation, celebrity and even the occasional touch of wealth.
These days, poems and poetry are sadly relegated to sparsely attended coffeehouse readings or the obscure pages of small literary magazines.
On the other side of the proverbial coin, there are wonderful opportunities in today’s music industry for talented poets – at least those who successfully adapt their writing style to song lyric writing.
Songs are the popular lyrical medium of our time. That’s where status and the bigmoney is for today’s poets.
Adapting Poems Into Song Lyrics
There are many examples of poets who have turned their personal poetry into successful song lyrics.
Most everyone’s heard of lyricist Bernie Taupin, Elton John’s famous co-writer. One of these talented fellows without the other may have labored in the shadows of obscurity.
Yet, by combining their specialized talents, they were able to write hundreds of great songs, and extrmely [sic] popular songs. In the process, they become millionaires!
The lesson is clear: ambitious 21st Century poets who wish to connect with the popular culture and mass audiences will want to learn how to write lyrics.
Which leads to this question: Can poets successfully turn their talents to writing song lyrics?
Answer: For talented poets willing to adapt their writing styles to the craft of lyric writing, the answer is definitely yes!”
To learn more from Carla Starrett on how to adapt your poems into song lyrics, click here.
[found on http://www.songlyricist.com/lyricorpoem.htm]
Share this:
Poetry Styles
To see the (more) complete list, with a further seventy-four types of poetry, click here.
[found on poetryfoundation.org]
“Acrostic
A poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word, name, or phrase when read vertically. See Lewis Carroll’s “A Boat beneath a Sunny Sky.”
Alexandrine
In English, a 12-syllable iambic line adapted from French heroic verse. The last line of each stanza in Thomas Hardy’s “The Convergence of the Twain” and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “To a Skylark” is an alexandrine.
Anagram
A word spelled out by rearranging the letters of another word; for example, “The teacher gapes at the mounds of exam pages lying before her.”
Aubade
A love poem or song welcoming or lamenting the arrival of the dawn. The form originated in medieval France. See John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” and Louise Bogan’s “Leave-Taking.” Browse more aubade poems.”
[found on http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-terms?category=forms-and-types]
Share this:
Painting Poetic Pictures
[found on writing.ie; by Maggie Smith Hurt]
“Beginning to write poetry is about beginning to think about moments, stories, memories as their complete selves and then finding the right way to make those things lean, to amp up the right words to convey the tension, ambiguity and softness.
It’s a task a bit like painting a horse on a grain of rice….all the right things in the right place but the space is smaller and so the subject, all the more significant in its purest form, becomes the whole thing, the little nugget of art- the whole picture.”
For more great tips on poetry from Maggie Smith Hurt, click here.
Editing Addict, LLC 