Transcripts
1. Welcome to Fearless Poetry: And welcome to fearless poetry. I'm your instructor today, Plonsey test stain. A little bit about my background as an English professor for ten years teaching things like creative writing, essay writing, humanities, and even how to build a computer. I am a published poet and I am currently the managing editor of a small community newspaper. So what this class is going to be all about is Demystifying poetry a little bit, I think were most of us think about poetry. We think it's unachievable. It's, I'm high class, it's high society is something that only the best of writers can do. And that's just not true. Poetry is something that is actually around you day in and day out. In fact, he might come into contact with it every single day, or just not recognizing it as poetry. And writing poetry is not as hard as you think. It's not so different from writing a short story, it's not so different from writing an essay. The same principles apply. So in this class, what you will learn is how to bring poetry back down to a level where everyone can achieve. So what you will learn from this class is how to bring poetry back down to a level where you feel like it's achievable because every one can achieve writing a poem. By the end of this class, you will have a poem that is completely Breton and revised and ready for you to share with friends and family, kept for yourself or even sent out for publication. The class project for this class will be to write a poem that captures a moment in time. At the end of each segment, I will give you a practice exercise, something that will help you work up to the final project. I highly encourage you after each part of this class to pause the video and before you go on to the next part, complete that practice exercise. And they've given you, feel free to post those down below. Share your findings with us, share what you're coming up with. Because one of the great things about poetry is it really lends itself to community and would really like to see that in the comment section down below. So let's get started and we'll get right on to lesson one.
2. Poetry is all around you.: I explained in the introduction to class that poetry is something that you might come in contact with. Contact with every single day. It's something they, you might listen to that you might see. And in this particular section of the class, we're going to talk about what some of those things are, seem to start paying attention to them and realize that poetry is not magic. It's not mystical. It's something that everyone has the ability to put their hands on and really create. So one example of poetry that you see around you, probably every day, or at least very often. Is music really main difference between lyrics and poetry is that in Lyrics, We have a course that repeats. We have sounds that go along with it to evoke a feeling or an emotion to guide you on how you should feel. Poetry doesn't have that background music. Just how's the words. And so with poetry, what we're trying to do is the exact same thing that a song would. We're trying to evoke feelings, emotions, thoughts from people. And we do it in the exact same way. They being lyrical. Maybe not. Another great thing about poetry is that it can be anything that you want it to be. So let me give you a couple of examples of things from music that might help you to understand the concept of seeing poetry, but then a song a little bit better. Take one song and listen to several different versions and see how the lyrics change from person to person. Let's take, for example, a song, I put a spell on you. This law was originally done by scream and Joe. You can find his Merv Griffin performance on YouTube and it will be linked in the class notes. What you find here is someone who is on the forefront of kind of blues music. He's very, very expressive. He includes growls and screams with his lyrics. Has an almost kind of a sideshow Barker type of feel. Someone who has a magician who's saying, I put a spell on you, go watch that version, which was the very first version. And that can be your baseline for determining how this develops. So then let's go look at the Creedence Clearwater Revival version. This is another version of the song that was created exactly the same lyrics, but we're moving from blues to a rock and roll band in the seventies. So we've moved up a decade. Things have changed, politics have changed. We're listening to a band that was very highly vocal with their music in opposition to the Vietnam War. Can you hear that way? You'll send to I put a spell on you. What added here. And the difference between these two songs, as I hear that the CSER version is much more about heartbreak. It's less about showmanship, it's less about magic. And it's a lot more about just a feeling of anguish. Then we can move on to the annual Linux version. Again, we've moved ahead in time. The world has changed again and this time we have a female voice. And in this version, I don't just hear the heartbreak that moves in the CSER version. I hear the heartbreak, but I also hear the strength behind it. I hear a woman who has maybe been cheated on, who has been done wrong and who is, is broken about it, but is also strong and willing to battle back and fight for what he believes is right? Then let's look at the Marilyn Manson version. Again. Same song, same lyrics. But now we have something that's incredibly creepy and sinister. And it's not so much about heartbreak or magic as it is about control, as it is about captivity. You know, you have an entirely different artists here who's creating something that's meant to be dark, that's meant to be spooky. I will link the YouTube videos to all of the songs in the class notes. I highly recommend that you go listen to them, see what the differences are in all four of these songs, or choose your own. Find a song that you like that has a remainder or two. Maybe it hasn't been done by a professional artists, but it's been done by people on YouTube. Look for a song with the same lyrics that's been sung by more than one singer. Listen to all the different versions and see where the difference comes in. This is poetry. And this leads us into the very first aspect of what makes poetry poetry and how it can be achievable. Our goal when we read a poem, when we write a poem, is to invite the reader to be part of the conversation. You may have written the words, but you didn't write the music. Let the reader write the music and bite them and allow them to have their own interpretation of your words. It may mean one thing to you, but it may mean something else to me. And it may mean something completely different to someone else in this class. And this is the beauty of poetry because you can pour yourself into a work of art and then let others participate in the creation with you. I think that that makes poetry a little bit less scary because you're not having to convey one specific meaning. You're using your words. Construct a piece of art. In the next lesson, we'll get into how you actually start creating a poem. I encourage you again to pause this video and did his practice exercise that I've given to you by listening to those songs, they become it down below. Go ahead and start your class project. Let us know what songs that you listen to and what differences that you've found in the songs. So that we can start a discussion on how words and interpretations vary within people think you'll find it very eye-opening.
3. Brainstorming Ideas: Alright, we're ready to start writing our poem. Hopefully you listen to some of those songs I recommended are found your own. And left that in the class project section down below so you can start having our discussion. What we're gonna talk about today is how you actually start constructing your own poem. And it's a whole lot easier than you think for the class project. For this class, we're going to create a poem that captures a moment in time. And that can mean all different sorts of things. It could be a hummingbird pausing at a feeder, and could be a life changing moment that you've had in your life. It could be you're listening to one of those songs that was recommended. The possibilities here enlists. But we're looking for a moment and time. We're not looking for a novel or something that's going to stretch through a very long story, or just looking for that simple moment in time. So the very first thing that you wanna do, start brainstorming ideas. And I know that if you take a creative writing classes before, you've heard that there's no such thing as a bad idea, but there are such things as ideas that are not right for right now. I know when I brainstorm a list of ideas for new pawns, sometimes one just jumps out at me that I'm ready to write that Friday to tell about that. And other times I'll come up with something and I think, you know, I'm not in a place where I truly understand what's going on in there. I wanted a place where I can really figure that out yet. And sometimes those are the poems, right? Because you need to work through whatever that is. Other times their ideas where you might just reject because you start working on them and they're just not going anywhere. That doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. It just means that it's a bad idea for this moment. So grab a piece of paper, grab the notes app on your phone, grab your computer, something that you can jot ideas down with. And the very first thing that you're gonna do is not start constructing a poem. Very first thing that you're gonna do is we're going to find an idea. And to find an idea that works for you that you feel comfortable working on in that moment. Is there something that you need to work through or search, something that really just jumps out at you. So take a few moments to jot down some ideas. Maybe set a timer for 1015 minutes and put down all of the ideas that you can think of within that timeframe. Don't censor yourself. If you think an ideas really silly, go ahead and write it down because I will tell you, in all honesty, some of my best poems have come from the silliest ideas I wrote and brainstorming. You're just not maybe looking at it in the correct way when you're brainstorming for constructing that poem. But don't eliminate any of your ideas, right? All of them down. You can share your ideas in the comments down below if you'd like, or you don't have to. Then what I want you to do is start to narrow down your list. Start to look for the thing that really stands out to you. Look for the thing that you're connecting with the most in this moment. And that's going to be the subject for your poem. You're having trouble brainstorming ideas. There's a couple of tricks that I use all the time. I might listen to some music. I try to listen to music without words. So I'm trying to brainstorm that sometimes listening to music with words can be helpful as well because you might care word this parks idea. Go for a walk, change relocation. You're sitting at a desk laid out on the floor. If you're sitting on the sofa and at a desk, stand up, change your viewpoint and you might find that you come up with different ideas. Another idea that I've tried before. So I've tried changing clothes because the whole scene where sometimes determine how you feel. So maybe you're dressed a little too comfortably, go constant nicer clothes, or maybe you're just really nice and you need to put on some slits and relaxed a little bit. If you're ever having trouble brainstorming, change something that will help me to determine ideas. And if you really can't come up with ideas, one of the things that I always recommend is just take that piece of blank paper and start writing. I don't know what to write about. I'll write it over and over and over again. And eventually your brain will become so bored. He'll start coming with ideas. If you don't believe me, try it out, works every time. In the next section of the class will take this idea and start flushing it out into a poem. So I encourage you now to pause, brainstorm those ideas, narrowed down, and pick the one you want to work on. And I'll see you back in the next segment.
4. Look at the Details: Welcome back. I hope you finished your brainstorming and you've picked your idea. Now what we're going to start doing as we're going to start flushing out that idea and pulling together the pieces for our poem. I want you to kinda think events like building a Lego set. One that comes with instructions. The very first thing that you're gonna do is you're going to look at the instructions and you're going to see what pieces that you need in order to construct the picture that's on the instructions, right? So that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna start finding the pieces that we need to construct. The poem that's pictured on the instructions. Start thinking about all kinds of details about this moment in time that you've chosen. Don't just think about colors. Don't just think about action. We want to think about those things, but we also want to expand on that. What is this moment in time? What happened is the very first place that you should start. What happened? Did you see that Heinberg stop outside the window? Did you listen to a piece of music or view a piece of art that really just struck you in your core. Did you have a life-changing experience or do you just have a pleasant lunch with friends? Any type of moment will work. Start thinking about the rest of the details now, you know what happened. Where did it happen? Who was there? What was the weather like? What did you smell? What did you see? What did you hear? What did you feel? Tactile LI What did you feel emotionally? What were your thoughts that are running through your head? What did you think that other people were thinking? How did you think that other people were viewing this particular moment in time? Reimburse with someone watching you, reimburse about your reaction? Remap, were you sad or angry? Were you inspired? Did you feel an overflowing of love? Think about all of the different tactile things that go with that. For example, if you just had a pleasant lunch with friends, what did you smell? If you add to a Deli? And, you know, you could smell all the food that was cooking. And that makes it more real. What are the other things that you saw? Maybe you just want to focus on a small portion and this moment in time. But let let's look at what's going on around us as well. I always tell my photographers for journalism that when you go to take pictures of a sporting event, the sport is not the only thing that's happening there. Yes, there are people playing a sport, a game, but there are also maybe cheerleaders, a dance team. There are assistants that are going to get the ball. There are coaches, there are coaches assistance, there are team trainers, there are doctors. There's maybe an EMS vehicle. There are fans, their families. There are people that are there just to visit, not watched the game. There's a concession stand, there is an analyser. There's all of these things going on that are outside of the sporting event. That's how I want you to think about your poem. You've got your moment, and that is the game being played. But what are all of the other things that are happening? Take it 316 view of your moment. Write down all of those ideas. Again. Let's not filter yet. Lets just get those ideas down. Get them all on the same place. And the next time, Good, we'll start turning those into a poem. Pause now, don't go onto the next section and complete this practice exercise because it gives you one step closer to completing your poem. Please feel free to update your class exercise below. And let's keep that conversation going.
5. Creating the first draft: Alright, we're ready to start the first draft. And there's only two more segments of this class, but we're just now getting started writing a poem. And think about writing. Is that for it not to be scary, free to be able to do it fearlessly. There's a lot of work that needs to be done before you actually start writing the first draft. This is where most people get tripped up. You start looking at a blank page and you don't know what to write. Look at your blank page now, it should be full of details. Should be full of all kinds of information. So you're not starting with a blank page and you start your first draft. That's my best writing tip. Never sort with an absolutely blank page and try to turn a blank page into art. Do work ahead of time. So now what we're gonna do is we're going to start taking these details and we're going to turn them into lines. We're going to turn them into sections. We're going to start flushing them out into poetry. So what makes poetry different from other writing? Well, we have line breaks. Here's the great news. There are no hard and fast rules about line breaks. Think about when you're writing a sentence and you end it with the period wasn't indicate a short pause. When you change to another paragraph, what does that indicate? A longer pause? That's what we're doing with windbreaks. We have punctuation, we have line breaks, and we have section breaks. All three indicate at different pause for the reader. When you include a punctuation mark, such as a comma or period, your readers going to take a small pause. When you include a line break. Your readers going to take a medium pause. And when you break to a new section, your reader is going to take a long pause. So my best advice is to start writing out what you want. Don't necessarily worry about the windbreaks. Let them happen organically. If you feel like you're riding along in there. So maybe via line break there, go ahead and make a line break. You feel like there should be a section break. Go ahead and make that section break. We're going to go back in the very final section and we're going to look at these things more in detail. Start looking at your details. How do you want to construct the poem? Do you want it to be linear? Do you want it to move forward in time? Do you want it to move backwards in time? Do you want it to skip around in time? Do you want to start with details and end up with the point of your poem. Or you want to start with the point of your poem and flush out to details. Don't be afraid of poetry because there really aren't real, whoops. There's really no right or wrong way to construct a poem. If you're struggling with this a little bit, my best advice to you, if you want to be a poet, is to read poetry. There are so many resources out there where you can find free poems on the internet. I highly recommend looking at some of these poems, trying to figure out why did this person had a line break there? Why did they put a section break there? Why did they put a punctuation mark there? You don't need a Rhein. You don't need to have any kind of specific form. In fact, for this particular exercise, I'd recommend that you don't try a specific form. That you don't try rhyming unless there's something that comes naturally to you. For this first poem that you're writing. Or maybe this is not your first. Just be fearless and just write. Do what feels right to you. Get that first draft down, read it out loud. This is absolutely the best thing that you can do when you're trying to construct a poem. Read it out loud. As you read your poem, listened too, where you take posits. This will help you to determine if we should change a line break. If he should change his section break, if something is missing, if that sounds a little bit to sycophantic, read out loud. Read out loud again. Read, just align. Read it to someone else. Start putting together the body of that poem. Posa down below in your class project. So that we can comment on your poem so that people can tell you what they feel from it, what they see from it. And this is going to help you with the final step in creating this poem, which is turning it into the piece of art that you want it to be. This doesn't have to happen immediately. Take your time. Sometimes the best thing that you can do is walk away. If you're struggling, if you're getting frustrated, if its just not coming together the way that you wanted to try some of the techniques that I gave you in brainstorming or simply walk away, take your hands off of it. You know how sometimes you can't remember a fact. You see an actor on a TV show and you know, there is something else which you can't remember what it is. And they move on and you stop thinking about it. And later on that day or the mill deny, or next day, you remember what film actor was in? The same thing happens with poetry. It happens to you with every single poem that I write. If I get frustrated and walk away later on, uh, had the idea that's going to make an exactly what I want it to be. So I encourage you now to really take your time. Take all of those ideas that you got from brainstorming all of those details and start to put together this moment in time. Read it out loud. Posted below. Comment on at least three to four other classmates projects. Let them know what their point made you think and feel. What do you think the moment was about? Did you understand it? Did you feel that the windbreaks made sense? Don't take this part personally. When people give you constructive criticism on a piece of writing, especially in this class, I, and I encourage you all to be this exact way. We're trying to help, not hinder. They'll tell anybody that they're poem is terrible because it's not, it's just unfinished. Hope you're for, help your classmates to finish their poem. In the last section, what we're gonna do is we're gonna take those comments, were going to take all the pieces that we have together and we're going to turn it into that final poem. So pause now. Take as long as you need to get that first track done, and I'll see you back for the last section.
6. Finishing your poem: Alright, we're ready to start the first draft. And there's only two more segments of this class, but we're just now getting started writing a poem. And think about writing. Is that for it not to be scary, free to be able to do it fearlessly. There's a lot of work that needs to be done before you actually start writing the first draft. This is where most people get tripped up. You start looking at a blank page and you don't know what to write. Look at your blank page now, it should be full of details. Should be full of all kinds of information. So you're not starting with a blank page and you start your first draft. That's my best writing tip. Never sort with an absolutely blank page and try to turn a blank page into art. Do work ahead of time. So now what we're gonna do is we're going to start taking these details and we're going to turn them into lines. We're going to turn them into sections. We're going to start flushing them out into poetry. So what makes poetry different from other writing? Well, we have line breaks. Here's the great news. There are no hard and fast rules about line breaks. Think about when you're writing a sentence and you end it with the period wasn't indicate a short pause. When you change to another paragraph, what does that indicate? A longer pause? That's what we're doing with windbreaks. We have punctuation, we have line breaks, and we have section breaks. All three indicate at different pause for the reader. When you include a punctuation mark, such as a comma or period, your readers going to take a small pause. When you include a line break. Your readers going to take a medium pause. And when you break to a new section, your reader is going to take a long pause. So my best advice is to start writing out what you want. Don't necessarily worry about the windbreaks. Let them happen organically. If you feel like you're riding along in there. So maybe via line break there, go ahead and make a line break. You feel like there should be a section break. Go ahead and make that section break. We're going to go back in the very final section and we're going to look at these things more in detail. Start looking at your details. How do you want to construct the poem? Do you want it to be linear? Do you want it to move forward in time? Do you want it to move backwards in time? Do you want it to skip around in time? Do you want to start with details and end up with the point of your poem. Or you want to start with the point of your poem and flush out to details. Don't be afraid of poetry because there really aren't real, whoops. There's really no right or wrong way to construct a poem. If you're struggling with this a little bit, my best advice to you, if you want to be a poet, is to read poetry. There are so many resources out there where you can find free poems on the internet. I highly recommend looking at some of these poems, trying to figure out why did this person had a line break there? Why did they put a section break there? Why did they put a punctuation mark there? You don't need a Rhein. You don't need to have any kind of specific form. In fact, for this particular exercise, I'd recommend that you don't try a specific form. That you don't try rhyming unless there's something that comes naturally to you. For this first poem that you're writing. Or maybe this is not your first. Just be fearless and just write. Do what feels right to you. Get that first draft down, read it out loud. This is absolutely the best thing that you can do when you're trying to construct a poem. Read it out loud. As you read your poem, listened too, where you take posits. This will help you to determine if we should change a line break. If he should change his section break, if something is missing, if that sounds a little bit to sycophantic, read out loud. Read out loud again. Read, just align. Read it to someone else. Start putting together the body of that poem. Posa down below in your class project. So that we can comment on your poem so that people can tell you what they feel from it, what they see from it. And this is going to help you with the final step in creating this poem, which is turning it into the piece of art that you want it to be. This doesn't have to happen immediately. Take your time. Sometimes the best thing that you can do is walk away. If you're struggling, if you're getting frustrated, if its just not coming together the way that you wanted to try some of the techniques that I gave you in brainstorming or simply walk away, take your hands off of it. You know how sometimes you can't remember a fact. You see an actor on a TV show and you know, there is something else which you can't remember what it is. And they move on and you stop thinking about it. And later on that day or the mill deny, or next day, you remember what film actor was in? The same thing happens with poetry. It happens to you with every single poem that I write. If I get frustrated and walk away later on, uh, had the idea that's going to make an exactly what I want it to be. So I encourage you now to really take your time. Take all of those ideas that you got from brainstorming all of those details and start to put together this moment in time. Read it out loud. Posted below. Comment on at least three to four other classmates projects. Let them know what their point made you think and feel. What do you think the moment was about? Did you understand it? Did you feel that the windbreaks made sense? Don't take this part personally. When people give you constructive criticism on a piece of writing, especially in this class, I, and I encourage you all to be this exact way. We're trying to help, not hinder. They'll tell anybody that they're poem is terrible because it's not, it's just unfinished. Hope you're for, help your classmates to finish their poem. In the last section, what we're gonna do is we're gonna take those comments, were going to take all the pieces that we have together and we're going to turn it into that final poem. So pause now. Take as long as you need to get that first track done, and I'll see you back for the last section.