Edie Roones

Pure Verse:  Seduced by Rhythm and Rhyme Over at Writers Ink Services, we're concluding a yearlong examination of poetry craft.  We've looked at "Clocks" and "Counting Stars", "Both Sides Now" and "Tapestry", "First Fig" and "Wildflowers".  We've looked at major poets and songsters who deserve the title "major poet".  And we glanced at Occasional Poems. Christmas is the greatest occasion during the year, and poets of all sorts can't resist writing their own version of a Christmas poem. Herewith are the dangers of Pure Verse that so many wannabies and newbies and hacks fall into while the true poets manage to avoid those pitfalls. We finish up this blog with Sara Teasdale (true poet!) and her "Christmas Carol".  You'll like it, I know.  You may even want to make it one of your Christmas traditions. Flip it ::  click here to read  this blog. Only one more blog for the year...

Blank Verse:   Old Masters and New Remember, we’re examining the poems using MMO:  Means, Methods, Opportunity (Aristotle’s Kairos ).  This time we won’t have three different forms to analyze.  Blank Verse only has one form. On tap we have the Old Masters, Shakespeare and Cowper, and the New Masters, Frost and Stevens. Flip to the link below to read the blog: http://writersinkservi.com/2017/11/25/ poetry-major-met…-blank-verse-mmo /

Blank Verse Poets who want to appear “intellectual” (cue the snobbish accent) will use Blank Verse. See, I’m already limiting my readers who are turning off because I’m using the jargon of educational poetry. “**” Okay, first, let me talk about “professors” and “educators” of higher content learning.  (I am using “**” here so you will know I am being sarcastic about these terms.  These people aren’t teachers.  Sorry, back to my point.) These people run the Advanced Placement level courses in high school and many of the higher level college & university courses (for several years, as an adjunct professor, I had to bow to their strictures).  Some of these “people”—not all of them—act as if the knowledge they have is arcane, open to only the privileged few.  They want to keep their content secret.  They present the information in dribs and drabs wrapped around by multiple distractors, so that only a special few will understand it. Grrr.  T...