The Poetry Room

Tag: poetry

  • 9 Famous Authors’ Tips for Writing Better Poetry

    9 Famous Authors’ Tips for Writing Better Poetry

    Some crazy tips you ain’t ever heard off

    Writers have all sorts of interesting suggestions and advice on how to write and the things that motivated them to write their greatest pieces of work.

    Some of their tips might be practical like, get enough sleep, or write outside in a beautiful environment, but others are downright batty.

    Each writer has their own superstitions and best practices, but I bet you’ve never heard of some of these before!

    Take a look at 9 tips on how to write better poetry from some of the greats.

     

     

    1. MAKE TIME FOR TEATIME

    Samuel Johnson once said of himself: “[I am a] hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.” The end result was that he reportedly drank 25 cups in a single sitting.

     

    2. AN APPLE A DAY …

    .. is best eaten in the tub. Agatha Christie would chow down on the fruit while taking a bath and dreaming up ideas. If fresh apples aren’t your thing, Friedrich Schiller had an alternative use: letting them rot under the lid of your writing desk. Whenever he needed a hit of inspiration, Schiller would lift the lid and let the putrid stench lead him to brilliance.

     

    3. DON YOUR BIRTHDAY SUIT …

    James Whitcomb Riley—known as the “Hoosier Poet”—would rent a hotel room and strip down to do his writing. Counterintuitively, this was actually a means of self-preservation, as the nakedness kept Riley from going to the bar.

     

    4. … HAVE A SOAK WHILE YOU’RE AT IT …

    While Riley fought to keep himself out of the world in order to write, Edmond Rostand fought to keep the world out of his writing space. He became so frustrated by interruptions that he ended up sitting naked in the bathtub to work.

     

    5. BOOK A HOTEL ROOM

    Maya Angelou holed up in hotel rooms like Riley, but stayed clothed (as far as we know). The author would rent a room in her hometown by the month as a dedicated place to do her writing. Angelou had all the decorations removed and requested that housekeeping refrain from cleaning, for fear that a valuable scrap of paper might get discarded.

     

    6. GET FRISKY

    The verdict is out about whether it helped George Sand’s (a.k.a. Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin) writing, but her lover, fellow author Alfred de Musset, found it exciting when Sand would waste no time between lovemaking and writing. That’s probably for the best, since Sand often wrote between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.

     

    7. BEFRIEND A FELINE

    Edgar Allan Poe wrote works “Annabel Lee” and “Ulalume” with his beloved cat—named Catarina—sitting on his shoulder. While she wasn’t black, Catarina is also believed to be the inspiration for the 1843 story, “The Black Cat.”

     

    8. THERE’S ALWAYS OPIUM

    It’s not one to try at home: Samuel Taylor Coleridge wasn’t shy about his use of opium and even said that Kubla Khan was inspired by an opium dream. Coleridge was interrupted while writing the poem and ended up forgetting the lines he needed to complete the structure as originally intended. It wasn’t published until some 20 years later, and only then because Lord Byron encouraged it.

     

    9. ADOPT AN ALIAS

    It might serve you well to escape within yourself, just as T.S. Eliot did after the success of The Waste Land. Eliot started renting rooms in London’s Charing Cross Road and became “Captain Eliot” or “The Captain.” If that’s not enough, incorporate makeup into the mix. Captain Eliot was also fond of wearing green face powder and lipstick to look like a cadaver.

     

    Article credit: MentalFloss.com

  • Science Shows Something Surprising About People Who Love to Write

    Science Shows Something Surprising About People Who Love to Write

    Did you know the benefits of writing go far beyond building up your vocabulary.


    I find writing to be one of the most enjoyable activities. There is nothing that I like better than to sit on my couch at the end of the day with a cup of tea and write for an hour or so.

    If you are a blogger, a journalist, a poet or an author then you are in for some good news!

    The act of writing has some INCREDIBLE benefits to your body. At first I thought that this could just be to reduce stress levels, the way meditation does, but according to the article below the benefits reach far beyond that.

    So if you have been procrastinating on whether to pick up that pen or open up your computer, hopefully this will motivate you to get a move on!

    Additional Information

     

    ***

     

    No matter the quality of your prose, the act of writing itself leads to strong physical and mental health benefits, like long-term improvements in mood, stress levels and depressive symptoms. In a 2005 study on the emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing, researchers found that just 15 to 20 minutes of writing three to five times over the course of the four-month study was enough to make a difference.

     

    By writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events, participants were significantly more likely to have fewer illnesses and be less affected by trauma. Participants ultimately spent less time in the hospital, enjoyed lower blood pressure and had better liver functionality than their counterparts.

     

    It turns out writing can make physical wounds heal faster as well.

     

    In 2013, New Zealand researchers monitored the recovery of wounds from medically necessary biopsies on 49 healthy adults. The adults wrote about their thoughts and feelings for just 20 minutes, three days in a row, two weeks before the biopsy. Eleven days later, 76% of the group that wrote had fully healed. Fifty-eight percent of the control group had not recovered. The study concluded that writing about distressing events helped participants make sense of the events and reduce distress.

     

    Even those who suffer from specific diseases can improve their health through writing. Studies have shown that people with asthma who write have fewer attacks than those who don’t; AIDS patients who write have higher T-cell counts. Cancer patients who write have more optimistic perspectives and improved quality of life.

     

    Writers are doing something right.

    Article Credit: Mic.com

  • Read “The Cinnamon Peeler”

    Read “The Cinnamon Peeler”

    One of The Most Beautiful Poems by Michael Ondaatji

    If I were a cinnamon peeler
    I would ride your bed
    And leave the yellow bark dust
    On your pillow.

    Your breasts and shoulders would reek
    You could never walk through markets
    without the profession of my fingers
    floating over you. The blind would
    stumble certain of whom they approached
    though you might bathe
    under rain gutters, monsoon.

    Here on the upper thigh
    at this smooth pasture
    neighbour to you hair
    or the crease
    that cuts your back. This ankle.
    You will be known among strangers
    as the cinnamon peeler’s wife.

    I could hardly glance at you
    before marriage
    never touch you
    –your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
    I buried my hands
    in saffron, disguised them
    over smoking tar,
    helped the honey gatherers…

    When we swam once
    I touched you in the water
    and our bodies remained free,
    you could hold me and be blind of smell.
    you climbed the bank and said

    this is how you touch other women
    the grass cutter’s wife, the lime burner’s daughter.
    And you searched your arms
    for the missing perfume

    and knew

    what good is it
    to be the lime burner’s daughter
    left with no trace
    as if not spoken to in the act of love
    as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

    You touched
    your belly to my hands
    in the dry air and said
    I am the cinnamon
    Peeler’s wife. Smell me.

     

    Take a look at Miachel Ondaatji reading The Cinnamon Peeler to a group of avid listeners.

    The way he reads really brings the poem to life. You can almost see the images flash in your brain and smell the cinnamon permeating the air as the poem draws to an end.

    It’s a completely different experience when an author reads their own work. They don’t always pause when you pause or have the same rhythm in their voice as they dance over the words.

    It’s a whole different experience.

    Check it out!

  • Richard Armitage Would Like To Read You Romantic Poetry *swoon*

    Richard Armitage Would Like To Read You Romantic Poetry *swoon*

    His Voice Just Makes it a MILLION Times Better!

    If you don’t know who Richard Armitage is, it’s time to get educated!

    You might have glimpsed his stoic, debonair form in North & South, or his unforgettable role in The Hobbit. Two vastly different roles, but that just shows how talented the man is!

    I have a friend who goes berserk every time she sees him and I can sort of see why. Not only is he easy on the eyeballs but he does have a deep, rough, velvety voice.

     

    And when he reads poetry… the effect is well… how about you listen for yourself!

    Listen to Richard read “I Carry Your Heart” by E.E.Cummings. 

     

     

     

     

    Image credit: RichardArmitageConfessions

  • Some of the Most Powerful Excerpts From Poetry

    Some of the Most Powerful Excerpts From Poetry

    Famous Lines From Our Favourite Poets

    Many of us have heard or seen famous lines of poetry (even if we are not aware of it). Sometimes it could be in a movie we are watching to illustrate some poignant theme, it could be something you were forced to learn in school or a play, or perhaps stuck on the wall of a person you know.

    Either way, these excerpts stick in our minds for a reason because they are powerful and moving. Either they reflect something of ourselves or make us see the world in a different way.

    Here are some of my favourites below.

     

    1.

    She walks in beauty, like the night
    Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
    And all that’s best of dark and bright
    Meet in her aspect and her eyes…

    Lord Byron

     

    2.

    He was my North, my South, my East and West.
    My working week and my Sunday rest.
    My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song.
    I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

    W.H. Auden

     

    3.

    Tell me, what is it you plan to do
    with your one wild and precious life?

    Mary Oliver

     

    4.

    Do not go gentle into that good night,
    Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

    ~ Dylan Thomas

     

    5.

    To be, or not to be: that is the question:
    Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
    The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
    Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
    And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
    No more; and by a sleep to say we end
    The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
    That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
    Devoutly to be wish’d.

    ~ Shakespeare

     

    6.

    Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
    Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
    I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
    I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
    The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
    And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
    But last year’s bitter loving must remain.

    ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

     

    7.

    But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
    I have spread my dreams under your feet;
    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

    ~ Yeats

     

    8.

    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
    I took the one less traveled by,
    And that has made all the difference.
    ~ Robert Frost

     

    9.

    I wandered lonely as a cloud
    That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
    When all at once I saw a crowd,
    A host of golden daffodils;
    Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
    Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

    ~ William Wordsworth

     

    10.

    It doesn’t interest me
    what you do for a living.
    I want to know
    what you ache for
    and if you dare to dream
    of meeting your heart’s longing.

    ~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

     

    Image credit: thelatinoauthor.com

  • How To Make $225 An Hour Writing Poetry

    How To Make $225 An Hour Writing Poetry

    Turning Poetry into a Business

    We currently live in a time where job security is a thing of the past. You now have to be skilled at many things than ever before to get ahead and business are seem to be trending towards contracting rather than having full time employees.

    Being an entrepreneur seems to be the way to go!

    Welcome to what I think is a cool and creativity idea that seems to be growing and generating a tidy bit of income.

    Writing Haiku for free.

    Give these guys a topic, like your cat, a tree, peanut butter and they will haiku it for you! Venues are hiring them for $225 an hour.

    Check it out here.

     

    The idea for a poetry-writing business came about entirely by accident. In June 2013, college buddies Szentmiklosy and Zaltsman were playing with the idea of doing an interview series about entrepreneurship. They set up a little booth on a street corner in Williamsburg—which has the highest density of entrepreneurs per capita anywhere in the world—hoping to have focus-group-like conversations with anyone passing by.

     

    Since the two guys had a bit of a poetic streak, they thought they could write people haiku as a gimmick to draw them in. Little did they know that they had, in fact, landed on their own business idea. Within a week, they were asked to write haiku at a yoga festival. They agreed, and when they attended the event, they met Markuson, a performance artist who used typewriters and poetry in all her pieces.

     

    “It was amazing, like a unicorn bumping into another unicorn,” Markuson recalls.

     

    Together, they decided to collaborate and turn The Haiku Guys into a bonafide business. Their reputation spread by word of mouth, and soon everybody wanted to have haiku at their wedding, conference, or product launch. Markuson believes that people are drawn to them because poetry now seems like a foreign art; the slow process of poetry-writing often feels like a stark contrast to the fast pace of modern life.

     

    “People react in extreme ways when we write them poems,” she says. “They cry, they laugh, they tell us we can see into their souls. It’s a very vulnerable moment that people seem to get a lot of catharsis from.”

     

    Charging between $200 and $250 per hour, The Haiku Guys are able to rake in serious money by writing poems at events, especially since they sometimes attend up to six a week. None of the founders have quit their day jobs yet, though: Markuson and Zaltsman work at social media startups, while Szentmiklosy is a business consultant.

     

    “We all have jobs that we really care about and that are really important to us, so we’re not planning to become full-time poets anytime soon,” Markuson says.

     

    Article Credit: fastcompany.com

  • The Poetry of World War I

    The Poetry of World War I

    Beauty Out Of War

    World War 1 was a terrible time in our history, but nothing can match the sadness, pain and conflict that soldiers faced on a day to day level.

    It’s hard to find any beauty that comes out from war, but below are a few poems that had been written by those who fought that capture the life that was lived amongst the death and hope of returning home once more.

    Poetry can act as an unwinding, a release from the turmoil in your mind, to express feelings and thoughts that can never be said.

    Have a look below.

     

     

    Roughly 10 million soldiers lost their lives in World War I, along with seven million civilians. The horror of the war and its aftermath altered the world for decades, and poets responded to the brutalities and losses in new ways.

     

    Just months before his death in 1918, English poet Wilfred Owen famously wrote, “This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War.”

     

    Here is  a sampling of poems written in English by both soldiers and civilians.

     

    Channel Firing

    BY THOMAS HARDY

    That night your great guns, unawares,
    Shook all our coffins as we lay,
    And broke the chancel window-squares,
    We thought it was the Judgment-day
    And sat upright. While drearisome
    Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
    The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
    The worms drew back into the mounds,
    The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, “No;
    It’s gunnery practice out at sea
    Just as before you went below;
    The world is as it used to be:
    “All nations striving strong to make
    Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
    They do no more for Christés sake
    Than you who are helpless in such matters.
    “That this is not the judgment-hour
    For some of them’s a blessed thing,
    For if it were they’d have to scour
    Hell’s floor for so much threatening….
    “Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
    I blow the trumpet (if indeed
    I ever do; for you are men,
    And rest eternal sorely need).”
    So down we lay again. “I wonder,
    Will the world ever saner be,”
    Said one, “than when He sent us under
    In our indifferent century!”
    And many a skeleton shook his head.
    “Instead of preaching forty year,”
    My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
    “I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”
    Again the guns disturbed the hour,
    Roaring their readiness to avenge,
    As far inland as Stourton Tower,
    And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

    Such, Such is Death

    BY CHARLES HAMILTON SORLEY

    Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat:
    Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean,
    A merciful putting away of what has been.
    And this we know: Death is not Life, effete,
    Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen
    So marvellous things know well the end not yet.
    Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:
    Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say,
    “Come, what was your record when you drew breath?”
    But a big blot has hid each yesterday
    So poor, so manifestly incomplete.
    And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,
    Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet
    And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

    Rain

    BY EDWARD THOMAS

    Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
    On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
    Remembering again that I shall die
    And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
    For washing me cleaner than I have been
    Since I was born into solitude.
    Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
    But here I pray that none whom once I loved
    Is dying tonight or lying still awake
    Solitary, listening to the rain,
    Either in pain or thus in sympathy
    Helpless among the living and the dead,
    Like a cold water among broken reeds,
    Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
    Like me who have no love which this wild rain
    Has not dissolved except the love of death,
    If love it be towards what is perfect and
    Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

    I Have a Rendezvous with Death

    BY ALAN SEEGER

    I have a rendezvous with Death
    At some disputed barricade,
    When Spring comes back with rustling shade
    And apple-blossoms fill the air—
    I have a rendezvous with Death
    When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
    It may be he shall take my hand
    And lead me into his dark land
    And close my eyes and quench my breath—
    It may be I shall pass him still.
    I have a rendezvous with Death
    On some scarred slope of battered hill,
    When Spring comes round again this year
    And the first meadow-flowers appear.
    God knows ’twere better to be deep
    Pillowed in silk and scented down,
    Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,
    Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
    Where hushed awakenings are dear …
    But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
    At midnight in some flaming town,
    When Spring trips north again this year,
    And I to my pledged word am true,
    I shall not fail that rendezvous.
    Article Credit: Poetry Foundation
    Image Credit: nickflicks
  • Poet From a Tiny Island Nation Shames The World Leaders

    Poet From a Tiny Island Nation Shames The World Leaders

    Passionate Poem on Climate Change Hits Home

    This is an incredible poem that brought a standing ovation from all the world leaders.

    Jatnil-Kijiner talks passionately in her poem about the effects of climate change, especially in her own country. Her poem addresses her land, her ‘mother’, and promises that they as a nation will not let her down.

    I wouldn’t expect such a presentation at this event, but I was pleasantly surprised that her voice could be heard in such a compelling way. The video below is from 2014, but I believe the message will stay for a longer time yet.

    Check it out.

     

    Presidents and diplomats aren’t the only ones calling for climate action at the United Nations. During the opening ceremony of today’s climate summit, ​Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner—a 26-year-old poet from the Marshall Islands—spoke eloquently about the threat that rising seas pose to her country.

     

    Jetnil-Kijiner warned delegates of the high price of inaction and described the current challenge as a “race to save humanity.”

     

     

    Article Credit: MotherJones.com

  • (VIDEO) Poetry in an Argentinian prison

    (VIDEO) Poetry in an Argentinian prison

    Poetry That Frees The Soul

    Here is a truly touching video by Cristina Domenech who teaches writing at an Argentinian prison.

    She tells a moving story of helping incarcerated people express themselves and discover the freedom of language. Many of the prisoners wanted to put on paper all the things they couldn’t say or do. In prison you can never sleep, you can never close your eyes and feel safe, so Christina Domenech gave them a way to voice this torment and many others they found in prison.

    “It’s said that to be a poet, you have to go to hell and back. And they have plenty of hell. Plenty of hell.”

  • (VIDEO) Student Comes Out as Gay in Front of Class

    (VIDEO) Student Comes Out as Gay in Front of Class

    He did this with Style!

    Coming out can be one of the scariest things, especially to your parents or even your close friends. But Steven Boyle did it, and he did it in an epic way.

    Steven James Boyle talks about being gay and in love… to his whole entire class via spoken poetry. He interjects with humour by engaging his class to fill in the end of some of his poetic lines.

    He says:

    “While I’ve never been afraid of public speaking, the thought of telling a room full of people my innermost thoughts, scared the ever living shit out of me.”