{"id":953,"date":"2018-04-25T07:45:24","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T11:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=953"},"modified":"2018-04-25T07:45:24","modified_gmt":"2018-04-25T11:45:24","slug":"poetic-choices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/25\/poetic-choices\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetic Choices"},"content":{"rendered":"

On January 22, 2018, That One Writer wrote, One of the main character\u2019s POV is in free verse. She has a backstory that is woven in closer to the end of the story, but it\u2019s hard to write it in free verse. Should I change her POV to the \u201cregular\u201d form? I would hate to do that, because her personality comes out better in verse.<\/em><\/p>\n

And I wrote back, I hope you stick with verse! You might like to read Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse and Make Lemonade and the other two books in the series by Virginia Euwer Wolff, all in free verse.<\/em><\/p>\n

You do mean free verse rather than blank verse (iambic pentameter), right?<\/em><\/p>\n

I am always delighted to talk poetry!<\/p>\n

For any who don\u2019t know, free verse is poetry that doesn\u2019t have a regular rhyme scheme, meaning that the last word in each line doesn\u2019t end with a word that rhymes with the last word in another line, in a repeating pattern. And free verse also doesn\u2019t have regular meter, meaning that the stressed and unstressed syllables don\u2019t come in a repeating pattern. Iambic meter, for example, goes like this: da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, and so on.<\/p>\n

Shakespeare wrote mostly in iambs (a HORSE, a HORSE, my KINGdom FOR a HORSE). Most classical Western poets wrote in iambs. Free verse is relatively new. Dr. Seuss wrote mostly in anapests (da da DUM).<\/p>\n

That One Writer didn\u2019t answer my question, but, also for those who don\u2019t know, blank verse is iambic and generally has five iambs, five da-DUMs per line. Writing\u2013and even speaking–in iambs comes naturally to some people, who just seem to slide into it. The rest of us have to practice. A thesaurus is a big help, because it can often supply synonyms with the stresses we need.<\/p>\n

Even in fiction written in prose, knowing about iambs is useful. They\u2019re powerful. When we want a sentence or phrase to REALly PACK a PUNCH<\/em>, iambs can help. The reader won\u2019t notice, but the rhythm will support the meaning.<\/p>\n

From That One Writer\u2019s question, I\u2019m not sure if her problem is with the poetry character\u2019s backstory or with free verse itself, so let\u2019s start with the backstory.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s narrated in third person, I\u2019m not sure if it needs to be in verse, or the verse can be brought in occasionally by the narrator as illustrating the character\u2019s personality.<\/p>\n

If the backstory is told by this MC herself, she can tell the reader in her poetic way that she\u2019s going into memory, and the reader will get it. But if the back story needs a more definitive separation, it can be set apart from everything else with something as simple as italics or narrower margins. There are more devices we can use. She can tell the backstory in poems in her journal. The details can be revealed in prose in newspaper reports.
\nThe backstory can be told by a different character, whose POV is in prose.<\/p>\n

I like variety!<\/p>\n

Back to free verse. Before I went to poetry school, I was uncertain about where to end my lines in free verse. Sometimes I still am, but now I have more knowledge to guide me.<\/p>\n

Velocity is a big consideration in line endings. If I end a line with a word like the<\/em> or of<\/em> or or<\/em>, the reader will race to the next line. If I end with a verb or a noun, the reader will pause for a blink. If the line ends with punctuation, the reader will pause longer. Many poets rarely end a line with the<\/em> or words like it unless they have a reason. A strategy for line endings, then, is to think about speed.<\/p>\n

In prose, the most important word in a sentence is generally the last one, as is (generally again) the last sentence in a book. Next in importance is the first word in a sentence or sentence in a book. The same is usually true in lines of poetry, but you get to decide. Some poets, like Sharon Olds (definitely high school and up), make the first word in a line the most important one. So importance is worth considering when we decide where to end a line.<\/p>\n

However, I don\u2019t think line endings are worth agonizing over. We end a line at the place that pleases us most, which may or may not change in revision, which is likely to change as we evolve as poets. I once read a regret by an established poet who lamented that he would have written a lot more poems in his career if he hadn\u2019t worried so much about line endings!<\/p>\n

We get to decide how we want the poem to appear on the page, which will affect our line endings. Do we want short lines or long or varied? Generally, whatever I pick, I hold to throughout the poem. However, if I have a reason, I might write one verse of very short lines in a poem of long lines, or vice versa. It\u2019s up to us, as everything is in poetry.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the question of verses. Do we want \u2018em? Well, why not? If we\u2019ve written a very short poem or we want a dense feeling or the poem sticks closely to one topic, we may not want to separate the lines into verses. If we want verses, how long should they be?. Some poets change verses the way prose writers change paragraphs. Many poets mix it up: no verses, verses like paragraphs, verses of the same number of lines, verses in a pattern of line lengths.\u00a0Couplets (two-line verses), to my way of thinking, are highly emotional. Quatrains (four lines) are stately, marching down the page. Tercets (three lines) give an off-kilter, unstable feeling to a poem, which we may want sometimes.<\/p>\n

Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n

\u2219 Pick a few paragraphs from a book you love and turn them into free verse. But don\u2019t just break the paragraphs into lines; think about how you might make them more poetic. For one thing, poetry is concise. Question every word. Any that aren\u2019t strictly necessary get the boot. You can also bring in poetic devices, like assonance and alliteration, which will mean changing some words. (By the way, you can include dialogue, because dialogue exists in poems, too.)<\/p>\n

\u2219 Do the same with a few paragraphs from your WIP.<\/p>\n

\u2219 Take four lines of your free verse, or eight if the four are very short, and turn them into blank verse, with five iambs per line, which will definitely involve changing some words.<\/p>\n

Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On January 22, 2018, That One Writer wrote, One of the main character\u2019s POV is in free verse. She has a backstory that is woven in closer to the end of the story, but it\u2019s hard to write it in free verse. Should I change her POV to the \u201cregular\u201d form? I would hate to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[103,39],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":955,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions\/955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}