I was personally introduced to poetry through the limerick. I grew up reading Edward Lear's Complete Nonsense and having my mother and grandma recite silly rhymes to me. Limericks stick in your head due to their uniform metre and rhyme scheme, which is probably why I can recite so many of them today (much to … Continue reading Limerick: A Beginner’s Guide
Blank verse is a fairly straight forward concept to get your head around (but it is not to be confused with free verse, the two are incredibly different.) Blank verse follows a non-rhyming, strict metrical pattern, usually iambic pentameter. Blank verse became very popular during the renaissance, and the most famous person to use it … Continue reading Blank Verse: A Beginner’s Guide
If you have never written a poem before, the prospect might be daunting, looking at a blank word document or sheet of paper and feeling the pressure to produce something Shakespeare would wish he wrote. But poetry shouldn't be daunting and inaccessible. It's just words, after all, and every single person reading this knows words. … Continue reading Write Your First Poem in 5 Steps
I often think of a sonnet as a swan- romantically gliding across the surface of a lake, while beneath the surface the flippers of poetic artistry are working ten-to-the-dozen. (not the most seamless of metaphors, but anyway.) Sonnets seem like a straight forward poetic form, but they are far more tricky to do in practice. … Continue reading The Sonnet: A Beginner’s Guide
