Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Natural Poem (workshop prep) and Characterizing Place poem - draft 1

Today, prepare your natural metaphor poem for workshop. A central metaphor should be communicated to your reader. The imagery and words you use for this poem should recall natural objects, nouns, verbs, etc. Please read the sample NATURE poems from the blog entry in March dealing with Poetry Samples. Other than that,

1. Break your poem into distinct stanzas. A new stanza should be started every time you start a new idea (just like a paragraph in prose).

2. Correct line length.

3. Examine your nouns and verbs. Make nouns stronger by being more specific. As for verbs, make these stronger by making your verbs active. Always choose the more appropriate and interesting word. Go back over your poem and make better word choices.

4. Remove repetition. If you overuse a line, remove it for now. See how the poem reads without all that junk. Try to shorten your poem by 10-15 words or lines. (You may shorten the poem by more or less, if you like).

5. Pick your most important line. Remove it from the poem and make it your title.

6. Make use of enjambment. Feel free to use a caesura (a pause) by putting periods or end punctuation within the line as opposed to always ending a line with an full stop.

7. Spell check and check your grammar. Remove fragments or run-ons and make the poem easier to read for your reader.

When you have completed your second draft of your Natural Metaphor poem, please send a copy of your revised draft to the workshop folder WITH YOUR NAME ON THE FILE. We will workshop these poems Thursday.

Make any changes you would like to make on your workshopped INTERNAL MONOLOGUE poems. Call this DRAFT #3.

After completing your drafts, please begin drafting the "Characterizing Place" poem. Read the handout, use google images to select a location or use a post card to inspire you and get ideas. You may also make a list or mind map in your journal to gather ideas. This is part of the brainstorming process (the first step before composing).

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About this course!

This course stresses understanding the characteristics & techniques in the literary genres of fiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. This course will continue to build on students’ reading and writing skills begun in previous creative writing classes. Readings and discussions of works by major writers in the field will be examined as inspiration and models of fine writing. This educational blog is designed for the use of the students at the School of the Arts in Rochester, NY.