Creative Writing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 16

Rhymes and Reasons: Writing Poetry

IN THIS CHAPTER

Starting out

Building a structure

Using the language

Perceiving poetry as performance

Poetry may be the hardest of all the creative arts to define. A good poem can in fact be the closest people can get to saying the unsayable. A poem is a way of expressing a profound emotion or something true about the world and how it appears to you. Ideas that are too deep to express in the usual way you use words can be articulated through poetry.

Traditional poetry relies on structures such as rhyme and rhythm, and devices such as starting many words with the same letter or sound and using unusual words and images. Modern poetry ignores many of these elements, especially the need for rhyme and a set structure, and yet often works through tension with the old forms.

Poetry was originally a spoken form of literature, and even today it often works best when read out loud. Rhythm, rhyme, and other structures were used in the past as devices for helping people to memorize poems. Today, poetry as a live performance, often with venues staging ...