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The Chinese came up with a complementary proverb suggesting that if one is to make great strides in his advancement, then one should at least be humble and giving to people less fortunate while on your way. They used the word ‘humanity’ in their statement that “he who would rise in the world should veil their ambition with a form of humanity”. Now this proverb may also be taken as being deceitful with the use of the word veil in the English translation but the author would rather see the positive out of it than some devious account of how someone pretended to be a humanitarian while on the rise.

Arthur Koestler a known historian mentioned that man should expect to be progressivley less known as time passes. Perhaos having been an historian he was aware of the fact the what is essential news for m or what one has ecperienced and writes like accounts of WW II will be much less popular in 30 years time than just after the conflict because still fewer people will have had any direct or indirect connection to that event. It will only be hearsay for many and for those wanting quick wealth and success across a globalized, they are not going to think of how people battled across the tight fitting European nations, where it all began. He refered to the contemporary writer but that person could be anyone writing down a truthful account of the moment. He should “trade a hundred readers for ten in ten years time and for one reader in a hundred years time”. it goes to show how relative ambition will be in time; he should account for the loss of interest as time progresses, facts change and new realties take the place of older events.

Why do we, as poets protest against learning the fundamentals of poetry writing. I think it’s because we don’t want to be bothered with imagery, metrics and assonance. We had rather just write it our way. (I am more or less describing myself here.) It feels like it’s as infringement on our natural abilities. I am coming to believe, though it could be an enlargement and enhancement to our natural ability, The technical skills of poetry can be divided into three faculties of sight, sound and voice. (Image and rhythm and persona.

Image is the heart and soul of poetry. Image is defined as a simple picture in words. Anne Sexton said, ” Images come from the unconscious. Imagination and Image are one and the same thing.”

Image via Wikipedia

An example of Imagery in a poem by Thomas Hardy:

In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations” written in 1917

Only a man harrowing clods

In a slow silent walk

With an old horse that stumbles and nods

Half asleep as they stalk

Only this smoke without flame

From the heaps of couch grass:

Yet this will go onward the same

Though Dynasties pass

Yonder a maid and her wight

Come whispering by

War’s annals will fade into night

Ere their story die

The truth is you cannot be a poet without imagery. In Thomas Hardy’s poem, we can actually see the old horse nodding off and the young couple come strolling by. Hardy’s images bring a picture to life for us.

Metaphor is an extension of simple Imagery. It shows a similarity between dissimilar things. Aristotle said that a good metaphor implies intuitive perception and cannot be taught. But strictly speaking, a metaphor is a comparison. As in: ” My home is my Castle.”

Simile is an indirect comparison using as or like. As in, “The thorns are like the sharpest swords.”

Figure is also an extension of simple imagery. A figure is any word or phrase that gives an impression that is beyond the literal meaning. Such as: ” A bed of roses” or “A sea of trouble”

Conceit is an extended figure or a complex image that is developed over several lines. As in: “

This bed of love

By August’s breath,

May prove a disaster yet

The conceit is a complex image that can consist of many entangled themes and be developed over many lines of poetry, but it must end on the same theme as it began.

Rhythm originates in the beat of our own pulse. The heart normally beats at a steady rhythm (iambic) but when excited it jumps and skips around through trochees, anapests or dactyls. In dance rhythm is accentuated with drumbeats, in parades with marching feet, on the ocean by fog horns on foggy nights or inland by trains clickity-clacking to other places. These sounds can be taken to echo the deeper rhythms of the universe. It is the music of poetry.

Any writing in English will be metrical whether we measure it consciously or not. Some poets consciously use it, some do not. Metrical patterns are always open to variation in reading. Your own manner of speaking can gage the underlying pulse of the poem.

Image via Wikipedia

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that we must not be misled into thinking that any measurement can be more important than the poem itself.

This poem by Stanley Kunitz is in metrical iambics.

God banish from your house

The fly, the roach, the mouse

That riots in the walls,

Until the plaster falls;

Admonish from your door

The hypocrite and lair;

No shy, soft, tigrish fear

Permit upon your stair,

Nor agents of your doubt.

God drive them whistling out…

“Red River Valley” an anapestic poem has the easy gait of the horse.

Come and sit by my side if you love me,

Do not hasten to bid me adieu,

But remember the Red River Valley

And the cowboy who loved you so true.

Whether you study the mastery of poetry or not, continue to write your poetry. It’s good for the soul and there’s nothing better or more uplifting than putting your words to paper. Free verse was used before there were any rules for writing poetry. The Psalms of the Old Testament are still the most beautiful poetry available, and the Ancient Hebrews didn’t even realize they were writing poetry.

Publish your poetry and  earn income.

Unfortunately, despite the familiarity of the words, few people seem to take the time to stop and think about the actual meaning of the poem. It is, in fact, one of the great revolutionary songs and it is one that calls for a radical restructuring of society.

In form, the poem consists of four four-line verses, following the rhyme scheme abcb, although the third verse follows abab. The metre is primarily iambic tetrameter, albeit that some lines begin with a reversed foot to emphasise the beginning of the song or a new verse. This simple structure is not only characteristic of Blake’s style but also makes it quite easy to sing.

The first two verses consist of a series of rhetorical questions, leading up to the interim conclusion: “And was the holy Lamb of God,/ On England’s pleasant pastures seen?” Although most readers seem to think this is a nostalgic reference to the innate decency of England and the blessing of God upon it, in fact the remaining questions thoroughly undermine such an assumption: “And was Jerusalem builded here,/ Among these dark satanic mills?” The answer of course is a resounding ‘no’ – the dark satanic mills are the engines of industrialization which had done so much to make miserable the poor workers fed into the mills and also had exported British power around the world in the form of immiserizing imperialism. Blake is appalled by the sight of these dreadful machines, belching out pollution and destroying the youth of the country.

Consequently, in the second part of the poem, Blake calls upon all people of England to prepare themselves for a fight: “Bring me my bow of burning gold,/ Bring me my arrows of desire.” He pledges never to stop fighting until the proper objective has been attained: “Till we have built Jerusalem/ In England’s green and pleasant land.” Jerusalem represents a form of utopian society, the contours of which are not mapped out in this poem but are available from study of others of his poems. Notably, it is in a verdant land that Jerusalem will be built, one which is quite different from the industrial present. Alas, it is difficult to uninvent what has been invented and so new forms of social organization will be required.

This short and simple song consists of six four line verses written more or less in iambic trimeter, although the rhythm is a little uneven and even ragged at times. The verses have a simple aabb rhyming scheme. This poem could easily be sung, perhaps to the accompaniment of a single instrument or ensemble.

Blake begins this poem by observing that the noble human emotions or sentiments only exist because of the nature of inequality and misery in the world: “Pity would be no more/ If we did not make somebody Poor;/ And Mercy no more could be/ If all were as happy as we.” In the next few verses, Blake develops this theme and extends it to the animal kingdom, so that caterpillars and flies, among other mostly ill-omened creatures, exist and have purpose because of the nature of these contradictions. If there were no mosquitoes in the world, that is, we could not feel relieved at their no doubt temporary absence.

This leads Blake to the ultimate conclusion of the poem, in the final verse: “The Gods of the earth and sea/ Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree;/ But their search was all in vain:/ There grows one in the Human Brain.” It is of course clear that the Tree as always represents the Tree of Good and Evil or, more exactly, the reason for man’s rebellion against heaven and its inhabitants. Blake says that such a Tree exists in the brain of human beings and this brings us back to the title of the poem: The Human Abstract. In other words, there is something in the essence of humanity which brings us inevitably and unavoidably into conflict with the nature of the universe. Readers may determine for themselves whether Blake is arguing from an atheist perspective here.

In form, the poem is straightforward and indeed simple in nature. There are four verses each of four lines with a rhyming scheme of aabb and a basic iambic tetrameter rhythm. Some lines shorten the number of feet to produce certain effects, such as the opening line “Sleep, sleep, beauty bright.” The structure is, therefore, one of a song and this is consistent with the theme of the Songs of Innocence and Experience.

In the first verse, then, the baby is urged to sleep and that sleep will stitch up the sleeve of raveled care, as Shakespeare more or less observed, taking care of the ‘little sorrows [that] sit and weep.’ The next verse begins to show the transition, the one in which the doting parent affects to see the intelligence of the brain burning through: “Secret joys and secret smiles,/ Little pretty infant wiles.” In the third verse, the speaker is overwhelmed with love and tenderness for the sleeping baby and unable to provide a coherent response. It is not until the final verse that the dreadful truth begins to be revealed: “O the cunning wiles that creep/ In thy little heart asleep!/ When thy little heart doth wake/ Then the dreadful night shall break.” On the face of it, this ending is equally sweet and syrupy: when the baby wakes up, the parent’s worries will be over because the smile of the child dispels the ‘dreadful night.’ Yet there is a deeper and darker reading: it is the child’s consciousness that cause the onset or breaking of that dreadful night and no one will know what horrors that will bring.    

This form of poetry was made popular by British writer Edward Lear in the early 1900s, although he didn’t call them limericks.  The source of the name is debated but thought to have something to do with Limerick in Ireland.

An example of a limerick is:

There once was a kitten called Lilly,

Who was so terribly silly.

She ran round the house

Chasing a mouse

That had hidden under the telly.

How to write the limerick.

1.       The starting phrase ‘There once was…’ is a traditional and easy one but there are no rules on this and you can start with any phrase you want.

2.       The beat, or stress pattern of the poem goes da-da  da-da-da  da-da-da-da, for example There once was a kit-ten called Lil-ly.  This gives it the characteristic sound.

3.       The rhyming sequence goes a-a-b-b-a.  This means that the last words of the first 2 lines rhyme (silly and Lilly in the example above); lines 3 and 4 rhyme and the last word of the last line rhymes with the first line (telly and Lilly – ok, it’s not perfect but that’s the nature of the limerick!  A telly, by the way, is a TV – I’m British).

4.       Limericks are often bawdy and rude and involve a play on words. 

5.       They work even better when there is some alliteration and assonance.  Alliteration happens when the same sounds or the same kinds of sounds are repeated at the beginnings of words or in their stressed syllables.  Such as ‘Silver Surfer’ or ‘Clever clogs creates chaos’.  Assonance is the repetition of vowels (a, e i, o, u) in words such as ‘How now brown cow’.

6.       If you can make the last line deliver a punch or be surprising, naughty or witty then this adds to the fun of the limerick.

7.       The subject matter for limericks is all around us.  People, places, animals, things…no subject is off-limits as it’s your poem.

 This is great fun to do with children, or on the bus or train on the way to work (make up poems about the people you’re travelling with!) or to write in birthday and greetings cards as a way of personalising them.

And if you’re really feeling naughty, try writing limericks about local or national public figures and asking your regional paper if they will publish them.

Happy writing!

The structure of the poem (which is one of the Songs of Innocence series) is characteristically straightforward: iambic tetrameter rhyming couplets, with the occasional missing or additional foot to add to the sense of rhythm when reading it aloud. The story of the poem concerns a young boy, born into poverty and sold into the chimney sweeping trade – it was necessary to use young and under-nourished boys because the chimneys were constricted with soot and the sweeps could easily be trapped inside, perhaps leading to a horrible death. Dangerous and dirty, it is hard to imagine a worse job. “So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.”

The narrative then turns to another unfortunate boy, Tom Dacre, who cries when his hair is shaved off but is comforted by the narrator that “…when your head’s bare,/ You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.” That night, little Tom has a dream that thousands of boys locked in their ‘coffins of black’ are freed by a key-bearing angel and elevated to heaven on top of a cloud where they are able to escape their misery for a while: “…leaping, laughing, they run,/ And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.”

The next lines are the crucial ones in the poem. The angel makes a promise to Tom: “And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,/ He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.” The boy is reassured and returns to his work with a sense of internal warmth and comfort. The final line is: “So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.” In one sense, then, this is just another version of the ‘pie in the sky’ routine peddled by religious types throughout history: obey the rich and powerful, do not complain and you will get a reward after your death. On the other hand, there is a reminder that this system of compliance will only work if ‘all do their duty’ – do not the masters of chimneys also have a duty of care to the sweeps? Has not their god failed the poor sweeps to leave them in such misery? In the midst of the French Revolution, is Blake asking whether ‘duty’ in this case actually means overthrowing the whole rotten order of hypocrisy and inherent violence in the system?

As mentioned, this is an allegorical poem and it is accompanied by engravings made by Blake in or around 1789, which year is most famous for the French Revolution. Blake’s combination of art and text is unparalleled in the history of literature. The allegory in this case concerns the figure of Thel herself, who is depicted as a young girl, a virgin, and the daughter of Venus. She is beautiful and unaffected by any contact with the reality of actual life. During the course of the poem, she has encounters with various manifestations of the real world (e.g. a worm, a clod of clay and a cloud) and wonders whether she should interact with them, thereby losing her ‘innocence’ but gaining the benefit of experience. That experience is not always an easy thing to bear: Blake was fully aware of the misery and misfortune which most people had to face in their lives and he does not shy away from “A land of sorrows and of tears where never a smile was seen.”

After several encounters, Thel cannot escape her fearfulness and retreats to her virginal home, frightened of being tainted by the unpredictable and uncontrollable slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Blake does not condemn Thel for this but pities her for being unable to face up to the real world. After all, she has been confronted with “… the couches of the dead, & where the fibrous roots/ Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists.” Who would voluntarily relinquish her happy and untroubled child-like innocence when faced with this situation? The answer, to some extent, is those people who have been stimulated by a divine or revolutionary spark to take the action to change things. On the one hand, Jesus did not stand aloof from the problems of the world but faced temptations and mixed with the lowly and miserable, on the other hand the French revolutionaries also put their own lives and freedoms at risk to bring down the tyranny of monarchy. Thel lacks this spark. Is she to be pitied or envied?

Auden continues the first verse to indicate the particular problem of humanity: “But on earth indifference is the least/ We have to dread from man or beast.” So, we live in a world which has a relentless potential to unleash cruelty and unpleasantness upon us. Auden does not describe the nature of this cruelty and the reader may decide for herself whether it arises from monstrous humanity, lack of good behaviour in society, the system of advanced monopoly capitalism or any other cause. The point is that no comfort can be had from the essential nature of the universe.

In such a situation, therefore, how can the individual survive? Auden provides one answer at the conclusion of the second verse, which marks the midway point of the poem: “If equal affection cannot be,/ Let the more loving one be me.” So, the poet draws some comfort from the sense that, although the universe is indifferent to his existence, he can at least return some love to this uncaring reality.

However, as mentioned, this is just the middle point of the poem. It goes on to mirror the first part of the poem by revealing the poet’s own indifference to the stars. Although he is an ‘admirer,’ he reveals that if they were all to disappear, he could not only learn to live with that but he might not even notice their absence straight away. The final reckoning will come when the poet is forced to acknowledge the total absence of anything else, which is a challenge but not one beyond his abilities: “Were all stars to disappear or die,/ I should learn to look at an empty sky/ And feel its total dark sublime,/ Though this might take me a little time.” Some people might find the conclusion of total solitude horrifying but others will rejoice at the potential for humanism: the ability of people to transcend their clinging to the supernatural and to the dreams and fears of their childhood.