Dear friends,

I have always been told that poetry is the most difficult languge to understand, needless to mention how it will likely turn out to be for the non-native language users. But after my years of probing into English poetry learning and writing, I find that these seemingly unintelligible lines are starting to make sense to me. And to be honest I am not only talking about the free verses appearing in the Modern times but classical poetry written hundrerds of years ago. It is rather a matter of time and determination. Alhough writing poems now is still of great difficulty to most of us, we should not be prevented from writing them at all. Learning through pratice is the best way or the real shortcut lots of people are trying so hard to get for efficient language learning. And I think this is the biggest difference beween learning English in China where you seldom use the language and learning it in America where you are whether actively or passively make most of this daily necessity. The same with poetry learning and writing! I am quite aware that as a beginner I do not write well or even right, but so what?

Let me show you here one of my works :

[em07]

The Little Preacher

-----To Myself and by Myself

In the middle if the night,

The gray candles lit,

The star eyes shut,

The little preacher's lips turned dry and white.

Out if the house were running strange cries,

Which disturbed the childhood stories

That were roaming wild in a spiritual space,

The little preacher's hands shook twice.

Within the quiet flesh of pale life,

Heart pounding like death,

As if in a crowd of mid-air.

The little preacher's but talking alone

In delight.

Who shall come and pity such a creature

Born in darkness but shone on by light?

May you be shown a wand of magic

And rest content as a faithful little preacher.

[em01] I cannot help laughing at this revised English poem written a month ago by me. I do not even remember what I meant when I first wrote it! Could you help me out by telling me what it means? Or just show me the real-sense poems written by yourself.

CharlietheAprilfool

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-5-14 21:54:37编辑过]

Website for poetry learning and writing recommended: http://teenwriting.about.com/od/writingpoetry/tp/ElementsPoetry.htm

I cannot tell the exact meaning of your poetry,but I can feel that you must be very lonely,esp. in the midnight!And you must be disappointed in what you are doing now.You want to change this badly,however you yourself can't help![em06]

Dear Anthony,

Thanks for your interpreting of my poem written at such silly impulse. By the way, do you like poetry?

Best wishes

Charlie

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-5-14 22:41:42编辑过]

depressed?

downhearted?

I cannot get you!

Dear Joyen,

Ha ha! I knew you could not! It does not even make any sense to myself. I just somehow enjoyed writing it!

Best wishes,

Dear Charlie,

I am sorry to tell you the truth that i don't like poem and i know nothing about poem.I feel it's very cool being able to write peom.And poetry is the highest level of a language to express one's feeling or attitude.Though I don't like poem,i wish that one day i could write out one of my own poems.But i am afraid that will be a longterm dream.And maybe i would do my best to make it come true.

[em16]

Dear Anthony,

Definitely, poetry is the highest level of a language, which means you do know something about poetry though.

Charlie

What is Poetry?

"A poem in an exploration rather than a disquisition." By this, Robin Skelton means that a poem isn't a way of stating something you already know in a clear and precise manner. Instead, it is how a poet tries to figure things out -- a way of trying to organize one's thoughts and feelings about a subject, to find a pattern in the chaos and come to some sort of resolution or conclusion.

More mundanely, a poem is "a metrical composition" or "an elevated composition in verse" (The Concise Oxford Dictionary). When we think of poetry, we think of lines and stanzas, rhythm and rhyme scheme, fancy language and beautiful words. Sometimes we think writing poetry is easy: it just flows out and every word is perfect and you should never edit or you'll lose the energy of the work. Other times we think we're just no good at it and we'll never be a poet and we should just stop trying.

Almost any poem can be improved by revising (some poems will need more revisions than others), and nearly everyone can become a better poet, if not a good one. The biggest key to poetry, aside from learning the technical details, is finding the right things for you to write about. They won't be the same as the right things for someone else to write about.

What to Write About

As with any kind of writing, poets generally write about things that they feel strongly about. The first task in becoming a poet is to find out what affects you the most. What are the things that make you angry, that make you shiver or cry or grind your teeth so hard it hurts? Even if those topics seem trivial, if they cause a strong reaction in you, then you will be able to write honestly and strongly about them, and make them seem no longer trivial to your readers.

Once you discover the things that affect you, you may need to push on one step farther. As Robin Skelton says:

Knowing that one has a complex, confused, and emotionally stimulating attitude towards ships or shoes or sealing wax, however, is not enough. It is not enough partly because the very attaching of those simple labels makes these subjects seem in themselves simple, and partly because if we explore further we may well find that ships and shoes and sealing wax are merely defensive euphemisms for an obsession with drowning, a nervous tension at the thought of travelling, and a very disturbed attitude towards authority and law.

So think carefully about the things that disturb you or fascinate you or frighten you, and see if you can figure out why you have that reaction. You may find that you then have the subject matter for a poem (or, more likely, many poems).

The above artical is from http://teenwriting.about.com/library/weekly/aa041403a.htm

Charlie

I have the same feeling as Anthony,Charlie:maybe you don''t like the life at present ,but,something you can''t control.In my life I don''t like so many things ,but,I have no choice but go on ,I don''t want to accept my failure at present,maybe one day I will conquer myself and reach the top of successful mountain!

At last,to Charlie and others:如果你能激我上进，那是因为你比我站得更高！如果你是一只雄鹰就请自由地飞翔吧！你终会找到属于你的那片!

Best wishes!

the last part is : 如果你能激我上进，是因为你比我站的更高！如果你是一只雄鹰就请自由地飞翔，你终会找到属于你的那片天！

When I try to express something I always make some mistakes ，I’m sorry for that!

前一句我本人通过Charlie对我们接近两年的教学，我想对Charlie说的一句肺腑之言，后一句是我送给大家的话！Thank you !

that child is your soul, maybe

Being a preacher is tired,so why not find yourself and being yourself,just like u said, do u think u can change someone?

I have typed thease sentence four times,how precious~~~~~~~~~~