Poetry & You – Get started! - Libby Hathorn, Australian author and poet.

Poetry & You – Get started!

Writing your poem

Poetry has been a friend to me all of my life. I have a whole bookcase of poetry books and I dip into these books – some bought when I was only 15 years old – all the time.

I’ve made sure lines from one of my favourite Australian poems ‘Bell Birds’ are quoted on all my correspondence to remind me that poetry is always ‘singing’ to me.

We can read for pleasure which I hope you do, but you can have the pleasure of writing poetry, too.

And, softer than slumber, and sweeter than singing, The notes of the bell birds are running and ringing.

I’ve given a few hints here on how to write a poem for yourself.

Remember a poem is about our ideas and our feelings and our senses.

Your poem can be happy, sad, scary, silly, grand, breath-taking, amazing, experimental, boastful, apologetic, funny! Anything, as long as it’s a genuine feeling you are expressing.

As a writer of poetry, you should set out to cast the spell of words on the reader.

Most of all, a poem should make the reader respond to the meaning of the words, the shape of the words and the rhythm of the words on the page, and FEEL something.

writing-poetry

Using Your Five Senses

In poetry, use your five senses freely.

Have a practice. Imagine one of these scenes:

sitting by a waterfall
on a beach
up in a tree

and make lines of poetry.

Handy Hints

A poem is like a list down a page to look at. There should be plenty of white round it, just like this one.

The teacher took my tennis ball
She took it for the day,
Just because it broke some glass
She said I couldn’t play.

I’d like to try the same with her
When I think she goes too far-
‘Miss Jones,’ I’d like to say to her,
‘I’m going to take your car’…

From The Teacher Took my Tennis Ball by Libby Hathorn

Repeating words helps cast the spell of a poem.

In this poem the poet’s repetition is like the ringing of the bells he is writing about.

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells.
Bells, bells, bells
From the jingling and the jangling of the bells.

From The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe

Alliteration: Repeating sounds gives a special effect.

Listen to the -s- sound in this.

And softer than slumber and sweeter than singing,
The notes of the bellbirds go running and ringing.

From Bell Birds by Henry Kendall

Try This:

Make a poem using the sound that your name begins with.

For example, this poem repeats the letter ‘J’.

Jim, Jody and Jake have joggers,
Jilly, Jock and Janet have joggers,
Grandpa Jeremiah has joggers,
Justin Jones has too.

from Who has Joggers? by Libby Hathorn

Assonance: Repeating sounds inside the line

One of the best poems ever for internal rhyme is Robert Southey’s poem Cataract at Lodore.

He was trying to describe the sounds of the cataract (waterfall) he’d visited to his children. He wrote a long poem with wonderful words (some of them made up) to explain the ever changing fall of the water. Here is a small part of it.

A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.
Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning;
And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering;
And that’s not the whole poem!

Write your own poem keeping it in a skinny list as the poet has done, about a wave breaking and crashing and thundering to the shore.

cataract-waterfall

You can model your poems on other poems

Find favourite poems and model your poem on the way the poet has fashioned the poem you like.

The last line should be the aha! of the poem or the sting in the tail depending on the mood of the poet. See the last line of the poem Her Song (right).

Her Song

And then the magic came
Setting the walls of that house aglow.
The doors burst open, and the windows,
And a strange, soft singing filled the streets.

It was her song the old ones told us.

– From Her Song by Libby Hathorn

To rhyme or not to rhyme

Sometimes poems rhyme internally that is, inside the line e.g. curls and swirls, moulds and folds:-

Curls in swirls
Of blankets,
Moulds on folds of
Of sheets,
Sleeps on heap
Of clothing.
Curls
Uncurls
Elastic
Fantastic
Cat being cat!

From Cat Being Cat by Libby Hathorn

Model on this poem, this time yours can be about a frog.

Rhyme: Sometimes poems rhyme easily at the end of lines e.g. laces and faces, brother and mother.

I fought with my buttons
My zipper, my laces,
I screamed at my sister
And made ugly faces.
I didn’t want my breakfast
And I punched my little brother
And then before I left for school
I argued with my mother.

– From No Good Day by Libby Hathorn

And sometimes it’s better not to rhyme your poem at all

The poem Her Song is about a mysterious old house and the sound of a voice within it.

Oh, it was so sweet and thrilling
That we children too, went at once
With the old ones on the long, slow climb
To the beckoning place on the hill.
It was her song the old ones told us

– From Her Song by Libby Hathorn

Collect Words

I call my word collection a Word Wallet. It’s a place where I store words that might be more powerful or inventive than the ones I used first of all. And the thesaurus is a great help here.

Look how many words you might use instead of beautiful to describe a place, for example:

Lovely, picturesque scenic, exquisite, pleasing, grand, inspiring

Here’s my poem about a place in Megalong Valley the Blue Mountains where I’ve tried to describe how beautiful the scene was before my eyes.

collect-words-bush-walk

Valley under the Rock

Long ago the Gundungorra Aboriginal people summered each year in Megalong Valley.

We, from far away,
Took a bush walk there,
Narrow descent,
Steep stone stairs,
Found a rock cathedral
In mansions of green,
Ancient secret cavern
Glistening, serene.
The song of songs was there
The heartbeat of the earth.
The oldest story known
Of life, of death, re-birth.
The song of songs was there
Where beauty rules supreme,
Enfolded in its splendour
We dreamed within a dream.
There was another voice we heard
Plaintive, distant, hollow,
Echo from those shimmering walls

Gun-dun-gorra.

Source: Talks with my Skateboard by Libby Hathorn

Experiment with both forms of poetry: rhyming and non-rhyming.

Most importantly, the poet should try to express the idea as honestly as she can. And the lines should be poetic, that is, short and packed with meaning, a beautiful list down the page!

There’s a poem for every occasion you can think of. Explore the world of poetry by writing it and reading it, and make poetry a friend for life.

Good luck with your poetry writing!

Libby Hathorn

To see the World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wildflower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an Hour.

– From The Auguries of Innocence William Blake

magbo system