I'm using the editor this time. I don't usually bother when blogging, but a change is as good as a rest, as they say.
I've been thinking about poetry lately. How it affects us and why we do it. Why do I do it? No good asking you - if I don't know, who does. I've been creating verse of varying standard since I was about four years old (still have that first "proper" poem), but really didn't progress very much until quite recently. I'm always banging on about Stephen Fry's book, but with good reason. What I've learned from Mr Fry has really set me back on my heels and has, I am certain, really improved my style.
Working with forms has been the biggest surprise. It seems, at first glance, to be very restrictive to follow a set formula for verse or content. Actually it can be very liberating, since the fixed format then puts a microscope on the nuances and moods. Irony, subtlety and wit are all possible with apposite repetition. Having the feedback afforded by AD's review facility is also very valuable. I can see very quickly whether readers have understood what I've written. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Take my latest piece, Spring Bride. Go on, take it - well borrow it at least. Most readers have taken it as a pretty, fanciful bit of rhymery.
When I wrote Spring Bride, my main aim was to get a bit of poetry down on paper. I hadn't written anything new for a while and I was feeling the need to create. At the same time, I didn't feel particularly creative and so I thought I'd just substitute form for inspiration. The form chosen: rondeau redouble (should have an accent on that last e) includes plenty of repetition, so I only needed to come up with about two thirds of the poem. That was the plan. Just find something to write about and write it. It had just snowed unexpectedly and so the choice was easy. Of course, things are never that simple and I spent a day and a half trying to come up with the first verse. The thing about the rondeau redouble is that every line of that first stanza gets repeated in turn and so must be very carefully written to allow for this.
I'll be honest; I started off writing about the pretty, pretty scene before me, but as each line surfaced in my mind, the mood changed and I saw what had not been obvious to me before and it turned into a comment on the destructive potential of weather out of season. Snowfall in spring looks stunningly beautiful, but can kill burgeoning plants and animals that have begun the new cycle of life. Pain and grief follow - but then it's all gone and life begins again.
A side benefit, for me, of writing form poetry is the calming and ordering effect it has on my mind. I'd been getting quite chaotic: forgetful and scatterbrained; but once Spring Bride was underway, I could think straight again. Ordinary inspired poems don't have this effect.
