How to Write a Poem for People Who Can't Write Poetry: Part 2

1. Introduction: Hello, My name is Sophia and I'm a writer and writing instructor. Welcome to the second class about Hello. My name is Sophia and I'm a writer and writing instructor. Welcome to the second class about how to write a poem for people who can't or hate writing poetry. In this class, you can learn how to write a poem on your own without even coming up with the structure or the phrasing yourself. Even if you think you can't write poetry at all, you can become a part using this technique. 2. Choosing a Poem: How does it work? We're going to start with an existing poem and we're going to borrow the writer structure and phrasing and put our own ideas into them to make it, make it. Now the first step is to choose a poem. For this course, we're going to choose a very structured poem. And the type of pain that's often suitable is what's known as a list or catalog parent. As the name suggests, these types of poems that organized like a list of objects, ideas or images. They tend to be highly structured and that's what we're looking for. Because we're going to use that structure to make it. This poem that's written in free verse without an obvious rhyme scheme. And I did it without too much of a strong or repetitive rhythmic meter. Using this type of model will help give you freedom when you come to write your own version of the poem. It allows you to put in whatever ideas you like. For the purposes of this course, I'd suggest you to use something fairly short. So a task is manageable. Though, of course, if you get comfortable with this technique, you could use a longer poem eventually, if you'd like. Now, for the purposes of demonstration, I'm going to choose a fatty old catalog poem. It's out of copyright. It's called, I hear America singing by Walt Whitman. Db aware that when you choose your own parents are lots of poems of this type catalog poems are still in copyright. While it's okay to play around with them for your own enjoyment and learning. You won't be able to publish your WACC. The first thing I'm going to do is find the poem online. Then I will copy and paste it into Word processing program. I've got it in Google Docs here. Now's a good time to choose a poem of your own to work on. Of course, feel free to pick any catalog poem you like for any of us, highly structured pilot in case you need some pointers to give you a starting place. Harrison poems that could work with this type of technique. We've got a few by memory slot Holub, microarrays and the hands. This has been done at least once already. By all means you can make your inversion. Jenny Joseph, the really famous poem about being an old lady, warning Mary Oliver. A lot of her poems are not exactly catalog poems, but they're really highly structured and they would be useful. This kind of poetry technique nonetheless. I'm sure there's others, but the already structured, but a few that you could use a listed here. You've got the less now, so you feel free to pause the course here on this clip while you choose your poem, if you need to be able to see this. 3. Analysing the Poem: Now the next thing to do is read through the poem and analyze their Tibet. It's useful to get an overview of the payment at this stage because this will help you work out how to transform it into something personal to you. Key things to look out for the structure or organization. If the power m and the key themes or ideas. Say back to the example. This is how the poem guys. I hear America singing. America singing the varied carol of I here. Mechanics, each one singing hairs as it should be, nice and strong. The Carpenter singing hairs as he measures his plan, copy. The Mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off, whack. The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat. That can singing on the steamboat that the shoemakers singing as he sits on his bench. The hottest singing as he stands. The woodcutter song, the plow boys on his way in the morning or at noon intermission over at sundown. The delicious singing of the mother, of the young wife at work. Or if the girl selling or washing each thing in what belongs to him or her and no one else. The day, what belongs to the day. At night. The party of young fellows, robust, friendly in with an open mouth, that strong, melodious songs. Now to analyze the structure, the first line establishes the central motif, the idea of America singing. The idea of singing and song is repeated many times throughout the poem and links all of the lines of the poem together. Each line mentioned working person or people. It says they're singing and often gives a little more detail, for example, about how they're singing or what they're doing while singing. For example, in the line, the Carpenter singing hairs see meshes his plank or beam. We've got the person, the carpenter, followed by reference to singing and then information about what he's doing, he's singing. Now in terms of the theme to me, this example poem seems quite patriotic and perhaps a bit old fashioned. It was written in 1860, so that's over a 160 years ago. It's about the common people of America being united by some way represent the joy and pride they taken being industrious and then newly found that capitalist society. Now as you may be able to tell from my accent, I'm based in the UK, and I'm recording this in 2020 t, which is nearly a 140 years after the poem was originally published. The themes in Whitman's permanent, particularly personally or culturally relevant to me. This is why the poetry technique I'm going to teach you in a minute. It's going to come in handy because we're going to delete everything in the pattern that's not relevant to us and make it all right. But before we do that, it's over to you to analyze the structure of the poem you've chosen to work on. So have a think about the following. First of all, the structure. This includes a number of standards. That means versus, if there's more than one stanza, could include the number of lines. In particular. Probably most importantly for this poetry technique that we're going to delay to look for any repeating words, ideas, or phrases. In a lot of the poems that I suggested for you to use. The repeated phrases will occur at the start or near the start of lines. Then when you've had to think about the structure, consider the content of the poem. What are the main themes, ideas, or messages of the poem? And then think as well about how relevant they are to your life and perhaps how you could make them more relevant. 4. Creating a Framework: Now you've analyzed the palm, you're going to delete the content so that only a structural shallowest of the poem is left. This will provide the framework within which you're going to explore your own ideas. Let's take a look at how this stage wax say, I'm basically gonna go through the whole time and any of the words that are more about the content, that's the patriotic theme than the structure of the poem. I'm going to take out, I'm just going to replace them as placeholders. If we take a look, America, that's obviously patriotic, so I'm going to replace it. Just put a little place holder there. Similarly. Little a left. Then Carol's I'm gonna take that out. We could leave it because it's related to singing. But for me it's quite loaded, old-fashioned question. I'm gonna take it out. And then there is a mechanics. Mechanics we're gonna take out because that's definitely content. That's like a type of person. But we can leave, That's quite just part of the structure of the pattern. Each one singing again that structural, his life and strong. Here're some content was probably related to the mechanics and people in America. So I'm going to take those out. Similarly. I'm gonna say carpenter is going to come out when leaving with it about singing. He measures his plank or beam. I think we're gonna take measures out. And then plank. Just to give you an idea, I end up with something like this. Now pause the video here for a moment. Before we go onto the next stage, Habakkuk deleting the content from the parameters. So you end up with a framework like the one we've just looked at. Now, don't worry too much at this stage about what you live in or take out as there'll be plenty of opportunity to edit this later stage. This is really just to get you going over to you. 5. Your Idea: Now you've got your structure. It's time to decide what you'd like to replace the missing content works with. For example, the word saying is really crucial to the structure of the Whitman poem I trace. We could have replaced this as well with something like running, playing. So on any other participant words ending in ing, we could've used that repeated over and over in place of singing. But I have chosen to keep singing in the skeleton. Now I've got to find something else besides the mechanics and the housewives and so on. Whitman mentioned, I've got fun, something else that can sing. To fill out these gaps in my structure. I could have replaced Whitman's people with other people, perhaps like support workers, teachers, grandparents and so on. People who I see around me, my suburb of the UK where I live. For me at the moment, I've been really connecting to nature and interested in environmental issues, particularly especially over lockdown when I've been outside a lot more. I'm going to choose nature sounds as my same nature is going to be what's singing. I'm, I now have a think about your poem. What themes or ideas, but you like your opponent to have that fit with the existing structure, but are relevant to your life and your interests. 6. Writing the First Draft: Now once you've got your structure and theme or ideas, this is where the magic begins. You've got to transform the bare framework into a poem if you're right. Let's take a look at how I fill in the gaps in Whitman's poem with nature themed words. Now, for the title at the moment I've got, I hear that blank. Now if my theme is nature, I could choose I singing. And likewise here that's just gonna be the same as it was in the original, applying the same title. And first, the first line. I hear that are singing the varied something I had. Now this is Carol was originally, say, let's change it to another word to do with the type of song. Let's have choruses, as in like dawn chorus, because that's what I said, the buds. Then we can pick that theme. I've actually those off. But each one thing has as it should be, something and something say, how would you describe the song? Should we say bright and clear? Because at least spaces that were two adjectives. Originally said, we'll replace them with two adjectives. Something else that's sayings, the whales, whale singing as he now what was whale day? I find, finds his friends. Say what else can make a noise in nature as he makes ready for. Now actually, we had mixed ready for work or leaves off what we could actually put that back from the original. Because BSD work hard. This is just a first draft. Then let's just do one more and then I'll, then I'll leap over TSA, the wolf. That's another animal that makes noise. The wolf singing what belongs to him in his stuff that belongs to him, his lap. The lion singing on the open plane. We've got two bars here. Because we took two words out of the original. I'm going to put two words in that. Like say, by the time I've been through the whole pie, am I end up with something like this? It's very much a first draft. It doesn't completely make sense or flow, but I'm just gonna read it to you to give you an idea. I hear the US singing. I hear the US singing, the varied choruses. I hear those of birds, each one singing his as it should be bright and clear. The whale singing hairs as he finds his friends are feed the beads, the B singing his as he makes ready for work or leaves off. The wolf singing. It belongs to him in his lab. The lion singing on the icon playing. The saccade is singing as he sits on his branch, the grass office singing AIC weights. The cricket song, aspera is on his way in the morning over at noon intermission or at sundown. The delicious singing of the mouth above cat. Or if the tiny kitten at rest, the ocelot setting, settling or sleeping. Each thing what belongs to him or her and no one else. The day, what belongs to the day. At night. The parliaments of young owls wise, majestic, singing with open mouth, that strong, melodious songs. In terms of this rough draft, the next task will be for me to add further to create something more polished and that is fully coherent and it makes sense. Just before I show you that stage, it's over to you now. It's time to write the first draft of your poem. Half a guy, and I'll see you in the next video. 7. Editing: Now we've got our rough draft. It's time to turn it into something more polished. I do this by rereading and tweaking here and there as necessary. Let's dive in and take a look at how this black. Just going to read through the poem and look at which things I think fly on, which makes sense, which maybe need to change. So let's start from the top. I hear that are singing the varied choruses I hear. I think that flows quite well. So we're going to leave. That is if the birds, each one singing hairs as it should be bright and clear. And say birds is like, Hey, there could be more specific. So I'm going to change it to those are the bell, but that's a type of bird that has a particularly bright and clear. So I could then each one is saying, should be writing clear. Now there's an awful lot of male pronouns like his hay, and so on in this poem that may reflect the period in which it was written, remember about 160 years ago. Men very much dominated society because we're bringing us up to date, making it relevant to us. Now. I'm going to change some of them say, each one singing, as it should be bright and clear. Balancing out the gender pronouns, mixture of his and hers better reflects the balance of genders and societies are dying. I think. That's carry on the whale singing hairs as he finds friends or food that scans quite well. A little bit of alliteration finds friends food. I'm going to leave that be singing hairs as he makes ready for work or leaves off work. Now, I'm actually going to change history because female BSD collect pollen as well. This is just creating a balance. The other thing I just noticed her a singing. Now, bees don't really saying, I know that motif of singing was really key to the structure of the original poem. But now we're on our edit. We can actually start changing the structure as well as my content. I'm gonna change it to something that would be actually does to make it make it a bit more sense. The humming has exhibit more sense. The wolf singing what belongs to him in his life. The lines singing on the open plain states saying, let's not have howling because that's a bit predictable and everyone says wolves howling. It will calling what belongs to him in his lab. If we change that actually belongs to U. Again, to get this gender balance. The lion singing again lines can't saying Do you not have roaring, that's too predictable. Ground leg, the open plane. I'm just going to go through in this vibrantly workout what we come up with. I guess you've got the idea by now, so I'm going to speed up a bit so we can jump to the final product. Once I've done this edit, looking at both the words I've added and some of the words in the structure that we retained from the original poem. This is what I end up with. I hear the singing, singing, the varied choruses. I hear a bell beds, each one saying hers as it should be bright and clear. The whale singing hairs as he finds his friends or food. Be humming has, as she makes ready for work or leaves off work. The wolf coding what belongs to her in her the line grounding on the open plane. The saccade or worrying as he sits on his branch. The grasshopper scraping as he waits. The crickets chirp. This barrier is on his way in the morning or at midday or at sundown. The delicious powering of the multiple cats. Or if the tiny kit and at rest, or if the ocelot settling or sleeping. Each singing what belongs to him and the order of the day, what belongs to the day. Night Watch of young Nightingale's proud, peaceful, singing with open hearts that brave, melodious songs. Now for me, pass in me because I've spent a lot of time connecting with nature during virus lockdown. This time is a lot more meaningful than the original. But I want to hear from you and now it's time to make your final edits and share your patterns. I'm looking forward to reading them.