This is the fourth in a series titled "The Habits of Poetry . . ." For reference, take another look at the entries for July 23, 2019 (honesty), March 28, 2019 (revising), and January 23, 2019 (practical observation).
This habit has to do with practice; I don't mean just the general activity of writing poems, as in "the practice of poetry," but rather and more pointedly, practicing writing. And what does this mean? Emulation. It means mimicking other writers' styles, tones, line construction, rhyme schemes, diction, themes, and so on. Or at least trying to write similarly to the styles, forms, terms, vocabularies, etc. that you encounter in your reading.
Why mimic? For one thing, poetry has a long history of mimicry or emulation. So called "schools" of poetry involve at least some emulative writing. Think of the Metaphysical School with its emphasis on conceit. Somebody wrote a poem that developed a difficult metaphor that was logical, balanced, subtle, extended, tightly controlled, rhetorically pure, and clever--a conceit. Somebody else tried his hand at it and, with practice, produced another nice conceit. Others followed suit, practicing, practicing, practicing. Sooner or later, a School!
There is the Surrealist/Dadaist School where poets to this day write apparent "nonsense" (or so it seems to the Classically minded of us). They are emulating what Baudelaire and Apollinaire did originally, who had practiced with the poems of Poe in mind. But even the nonsense takes practice--an accomplished and practiced writer of the surreal knows how to use the unconscious to get to the poem. The un- or under-practiced still tend to produce . . . nonsense.
The New York "school" of poets emulated one another through "action writing," that is, capturing the instant while still in the instant (think Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch) or through "meta" writing--that is, poems that are all about themselves as works of art made without revision or second thoughts (think John Ashbery, Barbara Guest).
Nearly every generation of poets produces a clique that emulates the poetry of Walt Whitman--messianic voice, extended line, blocky paragraph structure, repetitive diction.
For another reason, though, mimicking the work of other poets, periods, schools and so on helps you to (eventually) develop your own peculiar style. Some writers might object at this point that no one needs to mimic other kinds of poetry writing; all you need to do is to "look in thy heart and write"--as Philip Sidney advised. Maybe. But even he didn't really do that. Sidney knew the old forms because he was trained (practiced) in them, and so used them. One of these was the Petrarchan sonnet sequence that he used (emulated) in Astrophyl and Stella. Where he innovated, that is, didn't emulate so much, was in how he sourced his work: "look in they heart and write" is the same admonition as write about what you know.
Let's say you want to write a sonnet. Okay, you can put SOMETHING on paper that has 14 lines. Sonnet? Probably not. Probably, you've written 14 lines. Let's say you advance your thinking and your experimentation a little by organizing those 14 lines into two sections: one containing eight lines followed by one having six. Sonnet? Maybe, maybe not. You practice some more, stepping farther into the form: the eight line section establishes a problem or a theme or a question of some sort, and the six line section resolves the problem, comments on the theme, or answers the question. Now you are in the zip code at least of "sonnet" in braces. Then let's say you really warm to the emulation experiment and add rhyme: two quatrains for the eight-line section and two tercets for the six-line section. And from there you practice with different types of rhyme: masculine, feminine, off, internal, rising, falling. As you go, you're getting better at the plasticity of a supposedly strict form.
Are we there yet? Maybe so. Maybe you've arrived at a good approximation of a Petrarchan sonnet. But not unless the poem's theme is love--distant, unrequited, soul-killing, tear-jerking love. Now we're talking Petrarch! But then there is the Shakespearean/English sonnet, which takes on all kinds of subjects, including love, and which is built out of three quatrains of rolling rhyme followed by a couplet which delivers a kind of stinger, as country songs do. Master that through practice, and then move on to the Spenserian sonnet, which also is built out of quatrains and an ending couplet, but the quatrains interweave the rhyme from stanza to stanza. Next, try on Milton for a change in theme and topic, like the individual's role in the state. Then move on to Shelley, Keats, and across the Atlantic to Poe (who mimicked the British, especially Spenser, in an early sonnet) and flash forward in time to Robert Lowell for a radical change in theme (himself and family history), form (unrhymed or near-rhymed) and line (sometimes metered, sometimes interrupted).
AND THAT'S JUST PRACTICE WITH A SONNET.
I can guarantee this much: if you practice writing all these kinds of sonnet, when you're done you'll be a sonneteer with your own unique understanding of what makes the form work, and have developed your own style and voice for sonneteering.
The point is practice, practice, practice.
If you want to become a better poetry writer overall, you'll commit to this kind of practice regularly if not often. Plus, you'll practice working in other forms, including so called "free verse." You'll practice adjusting lines and line length to rhythms and cadences by trying to write like Whitman, then Emily Dickinson, then Horace, then maybe Coleridge. And you'll wind up knowing what emulative practice must have been like for Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, C. K. Williams, Albert Goldbarth, maybe others.
You can even practice tone, style, theme. Try reading a half dozen or so poems by W. H. Auden, then emulating these. You'll find yourself commenting politically and philosophically and emotionally on famous people, current events, and using personal local events (a marriage, a birth, a death, a retirement, a commencement, etc.) as springboards into deeper, grander social and civilizational topics and themes. You might even begin to write ruminatively, as Auden often did.
All of this mindful practice will make you a better writer of poetry. I guarantee it or your money back.
This habit has to do with practice; I don't mean just the general activity of writing poems, as in "the practice of poetry," but rather and more pointedly, practicing writing. And what does this mean? Emulation. It means mimicking other writers' styles, tones, line construction, rhyme schemes, diction, themes, and so on. Or at least trying to write similarly to the styles, forms, terms, vocabularies, etc. that you encounter in your reading.
Why mimic? For one thing, poetry has a long history of mimicry or emulation. So called "schools" of poetry involve at least some emulative writing. Think of the Metaphysical School with its emphasis on conceit. Somebody wrote a poem that developed a difficult metaphor that was logical, balanced, subtle, extended, tightly controlled, rhetorically pure, and clever--a conceit. Somebody else tried his hand at it and, with practice, produced another nice conceit. Others followed suit, practicing, practicing, practicing. Sooner or later, a School!
There is the Surrealist/Dadaist School where poets to this day write apparent "nonsense" (or so it seems to the Classically minded of us). They are emulating what Baudelaire and Apollinaire did originally, who had practiced with the poems of Poe in mind. But even the nonsense takes practice--an accomplished and practiced writer of the surreal knows how to use the unconscious to get to the poem. The un- or under-practiced still tend to produce . . . nonsense.
The New York "school" of poets emulated one another through "action writing," that is, capturing the instant while still in the instant (think Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch) or through "meta" writing--that is, poems that are all about themselves as works of art made without revision or second thoughts (think John Ashbery, Barbara Guest).
Nearly every generation of poets produces a clique that emulates the poetry of Walt Whitman--messianic voice, extended line, blocky paragraph structure, repetitive diction.
For another reason, though, mimicking the work of other poets, periods, schools and so on helps you to (eventually) develop your own peculiar style. Some writers might object at this point that no one needs to mimic other kinds of poetry writing; all you need to do is to "look in thy heart and write"--as Philip Sidney advised. Maybe. But even he didn't really do that. Sidney knew the old forms because he was trained (practiced) in them, and so used them. One of these was the Petrarchan sonnet sequence that he used (emulated) in Astrophyl and Stella. Where he innovated, that is, didn't emulate so much, was in how he sourced his work: "look in they heart and write" is the same admonition as write about what you know.
Let's say you want to write a sonnet. Okay, you can put SOMETHING on paper that has 14 lines. Sonnet? Probably not. Probably, you've written 14 lines. Let's say you advance your thinking and your experimentation a little by organizing those 14 lines into two sections: one containing eight lines followed by one having six. Sonnet? Maybe, maybe not. You practice some more, stepping farther into the form: the eight line section establishes a problem or a theme or a question of some sort, and the six line section resolves the problem, comments on the theme, or answers the question. Now you are in the zip code at least of "sonnet" in braces. Then let's say you really warm to the emulation experiment and add rhyme: two quatrains for the eight-line section and two tercets for the six-line section. And from there you practice with different types of rhyme: masculine, feminine, off, internal, rising, falling. As you go, you're getting better at the plasticity of a supposedly strict form.
Are we there yet? Maybe so. Maybe you've arrived at a good approximation of a Petrarchan sonnet. But not unless the poem's theme is love--distant, unrequited, soul-killing, tear-jerking love. Now we're talking Petrarch! But then there is the Shakespearean/English sonnet, which takes on all kinds of subjects, including love, and which is built out of three quatrains of rolling rhyme followed by a couplet which delivers a kind of stinger, as country songs do. Master that through practice, and then move on to the Spenserian sonnet, which also is built out of quatrains and an ending couplet, but the quatrains interweave the rhyme from stanza to stanza. Next, try on Milton for a change in theme and topic, like the individual's role in the state. Then move on to Shelley, Keats, and across the Atlantic to Poe (who mimicked the British, especially Spenser, in an early sonnet) and flash forward in time to Robert Lowell for a radical change in theme (himself and family history), form (unrhymed or near-rhymed) and line (sometimes metered, sometimes interrupted).
AND THAT'S JUST PRACTICE WITH A SONNET.
I can guarantee this much: if you practice writing all these kinds of sonnet, when you're done you'll be a sonneteer with your own unique understanding of what makes the form work, and have developed your own style and voice for sonneteering.
The point is practice, practice, practice.
If you want to become a better poetry writer overall, you'll commit to this kind of practice regularly if not often. Plus, you'll practice working in other forms, including so called "free verse." You'll practice adjusting lines and line length to rhythms and cadences by trying to write like Whitman, then Emily Dickinson, then Horace, then maybe Coleridge. And you'll wind up knowing what emulative practice must have been like for Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, C. K. Williams, Albert Goldbarth, maybe others.
You can even practice tone, style, theme. Try reading a half dozen or so poems by W. H. Auden, then emulating these. You'll find yourself commenting politically and philosophically and emotionally on famous people, current events, and using personal local events (a marriage, a birth, a death, a retirement, a commencement, etc.) as springboards into deeper, grander social and civilizational topics and themes. You might even begin to write ruminatively, as Auden often did.
All of this mindful practice will make you a better writer of poetry. I guarantee it or your money back.
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