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ENG 131, CREATIVE WRITING
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HOW TO WRITE AND REVISE POETRY Reproduced below is the first
poem ever written by Ms. Sandra Martin, a high-level technical writer and
administrator for the Center for Disease Control in Here along the ..... we're enjoying the
sunshine. You sit in your burka, probably worried about
becoming too warm in this heat. I sit in my swimsuit, definitely worried about burning in this sun. .....we treasure our
children. You laugh as your young son splashes here beside
this pool. I smile thinking of my grown son preparing for his wedding. .....we walk in the same
shoes. You wear the same sandal I've got at
home in my closet. I wonder if my flip-flops are at your
house. .....we're so much alike. Your dark Arab son plays with someone's blonde
American daughter. I deplore the politics that divide us. I wonder what you'd choose to wear sitting beside
the pool in my country. Do you wonder the same? REVISED the observation become a very strong poem. SHERATON, Here
along the in
sunshine, you in your burka too warm, I
in my swimsuit worried about burning. You
laugh as your young son splashes beside
you. I smile thinking of my grown
son preparing for his wedding. You
wear the same sandals home in my closet. I
wonder if my flip-flops are at your house. Your
black-haired son plays with someone's blonde
American daughter. It’s only politics
that divide us. LESSON ON REVISION How
did the poem emerge from the draft? To begin with, the description was rich
enough in detail to make become
everything a modern, imagistic poem could be. It has the qualities which define
contemporary poetry. It is a first person account which therefore sounds all the
more “real” or “true.” It is very visual (imagistic) capturing both the
setting and the characters at that moment. The length is about what
modern poems tend to be (twelve to twenty lines, though there is no
specific rule for that ). Finally, it is more concerned with content than with
following a set form. It doesn’t rhyme or count the beats in a line. It
isn’t a jingle! It’s a moment captured in vivid language. The sum of all the
words is a certain feeling which the author then chooses to express in a final
summary statement. That abstraction or little editorial remark at the end only
works because it is earned with convincing details that prepare the reader for
the ending. In
revising, I used certain principles that you, too, should use when editing your
own and other student workshop pieces. 1.
I took out unneeded words. A prime example of that would be all the lines that
are statements preceded by dots. Those “editorial” comments are more place
markers for what the author is thinking. The beauty of the poem is that the
description conveys those thoughts. As a rule good writing shows. It doesn’t
have to tell! Can you find the logic
in the other edits? Why did I cut words out. Can you see how nothing is really
lost by these edits? The picture is just as clear. The message ultimately is the
same. Think of writing a poem as something like taking out a classified ad. You
have to pay for every word. You wouldn’t want to pad the ad. When you edit
your poem, sell me what you can with the least words! 2.
I made lines end using a device called “enjambment.” That is, I tried to
first see that each line had some genuine meaning of its own so that a line in a
poem is like a sentence in prose: one idea per line/sentence. Then, I like
breaking a line at a moment that might leave the reader “hanging,” or
wondering what will come next. For a
fraction of a second between the end of one line and the start of the next there
is a tension created by that pause. There may be some pleasing ambiguity, even
an other level of meanings or possibilities created by breaking a line so that
one idea first comes to mind before another is completed or resolved. 3. Don’t be afraid to change the order of your original lines and certainly don’t be afraid to add a little for the purpose of making something clearer or making a transition. 4.
Give your poem a strong title. It is, after all, another way to communicate more
clearly. A title sets the tone, starts the reader off in the right direction, or
just draws a reader in. Sandra
Martin, subsequently, was invited to read this poem by the renowned poet, George
Wallace, on his radio show on WUSB. (Listen in on Thursday evenings at
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Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Dr. David B. Axelrod
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