It released yesterday but by the time I finished with the flea market, I was so tired I couldn’t think straight. So I am posting it today. The beta readers all said this was a lovely volume. It is all love poetry and my art.
Yesterday I was wanting to do a post about Japanese poetry forms. Japan is a place with a very rich culture and their literature shows it. Their mythology and history is such a diverse and interesting set of topics that the average person might be confused by it.
So I was wanting to be sure that I had the spelling and such right. When I don’t know the proper way to spell… I Google. Google led me to an article that I was blown away by. The writer is far more eloquent on the topic than I feel capable of. So, I admit I felt discouraged.
One of the problems that many authors face is the issue of comparison… Not by others but the comparison we do ourselves. It is so hard to see our own writing and feel accomplished. It is so hard not to hate on our own way of speaking. Dude, words are hard. Especially when you read someone else has written it in a way that just makes sense.
So, I have shared the link above to the article on Japanese poetry. I ask you… What forms do you like and where does it orignate from? Do you find articles that hit home and feel seen or discouraged? And why?
Below I have found several “call” lists… Each place is different… Before you submit your writing look into the place, read the requirements… Read their previous issues. It is important to see how they treat the submissions. You also want to be sure that you are a good fit. Expect to be rejected. It happens, even to the big names. It sucks… But it is helpful if you take it as a way to improve your writing.
Also keep any email correspondence as many places are busy and replies do not come quickly. You will want to keep track of what poetry you send to who so as to not duplicate submissions.
First, an explanation. I have been having tech difficulties for the last couple of days, which are making it more problematic to get the normal posts up. I am still not able to upload pictures properly.
Now… There are a couple of types of prompts… Text like the prompts that I often share… And images. I follow a couple of poetry twitter accounts and occasionally they post pictures to inspire. It is something that you look at the picture and write everything it makes you feel / that you see. Then you turn it into poetry.
This is a good writing exercise to get yourself writing over a block. Any image will work, but if you do not get it from a free source then make sure that you credit the artist/photographer. (I’m not sure who did mine… I got it from twitter poetry)
A lyric poem or lyrical poem in literature is a poem in which the poet either expresses his feelings and emotions. The poet also presents a character in the first person to express his emotions. It is a combination of lyric and poetry where a piece of poetry is written as a lyric. Lyric has been derived from lyre, a musical stringed instrument used during the Grecian period to accompany the poetry sung during different festivities.
Aristotle used the world lyric or lyrical with reference poetry to categorize it into three distinct types. A lyric poem is often short and non-narrative but keeps some elements of melody. Although odes and elegies are other categories, they, too, are placed under the lyric poetry. Lyric poems can follow any metrical pattern, be it iambic, trochaic, or pyrrhic.
(Iambic) An iamb is a literary device that can be defined as a foot containing unaccented and short syllables, followed by a long and accented syllable in a single line of a poem (unstressed/stressed syllables). Two of Robert Frost’s poems, Dust of Snow, and The Road not Taken are considered two of the most popular examples of iamb.
Trochaic Trochaic an adjective of trochee is a metrical foot composed of two syllables; stressed followed by an unstressed syllable. This rhythmic unit is used to make up the lines of poetry. However, it is deliberately inserted to make the text sound different. The material pattern of trochee is composed of “falling rhythm” as the stress is at the beginning of the foot. It, however, plays a great role when writing about dark subjects like madness and death. Etymologically, trochee is derived from a Greek word, “trokhaios” which means ‘to run.’
Types of Trochaic Meter Trochaic Tetrameter: It is a type of meter consisting of four stressed syllables per line. For example, “By the shores of Gitche Gu”. Trochaic Heptamer: It is a type of meter consisting of seven stressed syllables per line. Such as, “Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and”. Trochaic Pentameter: It is a type of meter consisting of five stressed syllables per line. “And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor”. Iambic Trimeter: It is a type of meter consisting of three stressed syllables per line. For example, “This has neither wax nor”. Catalexis: The absence of a syllable in the final foot in a line is called catalexis.
Pyrrhic meter A metrical unit consisting of two unstressed syllables, in accentual-syllabic verse, or two short syllables, in quantitative meter. Though regularly found in classical Greek poetry, pyrrhic meter is not generally used in modern systems of prosody: unaccented syllables are instead grouped with surrounding feet. Andrew Marvell’s “The Garden” contains examples of pyrrhic meter, here in bold: “To a green thought in a green shade.”
So we have the technical information on Lyric poetry. I gathered the above from other websites (all listed below). Lyric poetry is often the basis for songs. Not always, but often. I normally don’t use the writing from other sites, even though I am citing the sources… But I wanted to give you information on a form that I don’t use. I have no skill with lyric poetry.
Pattimouse 