RHYME
For most of recorded history, poetry has rhymed. Whether at the end of a line or within the same line, poems used to have the same sounds in some sort of recurring pattern. It was considered a sign of good craftsmanship. This also helped people remember the poem or song during the long centuries before poems were written down.
About a hundred years ago, this pattern started to change. Poets like Ezra Pound in America and T. S. Eliot in England created poems that did not rhyme, and this helped to start a revolution in poetry. Other poets got tired of always having to make poems rhyme and they started writing something called a PROSE POEM. Prose is the way we write and speak in everyday life.
GRAMMAR
- For most of recorded history, strict adherence to the rules of grammar was
considered essential to writing a good poem. - Poems had to be written in complete sentences. All the punctuation had to be
correct. The ideas were supposed to be in logical order. - Again, about a hundred years ago, poets started breaking all the rules or
making up their own forms. If you look at a book of modern poetry today, you
may see: (1) Lines made up of one word (2) No punctuation (3) No capitaliz-
ation where there should be and (4) Ideas that seem to have no logical
connection. - If you want a perfect example of all these modern changes, the poetry of Jim
Morrison, lead singer of The Doors is a good place to look. His books, The
American Night, Wilderness and The Lords and The New Creatures demon-
strate the best and the worst of modern poetic writing.YOUR POEMS
What this means for you is that you don’t have to be worried about writing a perfect poem or about creating a masterpiece. No one can criticize you for lack of form or for bad grammar. Just try to convey your message in the most powerful and personal form you are capable of and just let the words fly!
