{"id":3224,"date":"2012-06-18T06:00:33","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T11:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=3224"},"modified":"2012-06-18T06:00:33","modified_gmt":"2012-06-18T11:00:33","slug":"poetic-license","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=3224","title":{"rendered":"Poetic License"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cA poem is never finished, only abandoned.\u201d \u2013 Paul Valery<\/em><\/p>\n

I have a lot of respect for poets. I wish I could do what they do. My great-great-great grandfather was a poet. He wrote some of it as an underage kid fighting in the Civil War. I have a great admiration for the things he wrote, especially considering his writing environment. I’ve always felt a common artistic bond with him.<\/p>\n

A lot of people who read my writing assume that I must also write poetry. I have a pretty literary style and like to work with sounds and syllables. Unfortunately, I\u2019ve never learned to write it, though I do jokingly call myself a warrior-poet.<\/p>\n

Poetry has rules, oddly complex ones that require the bending of words into works of art. I wouldn\u2019t even know where to start.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I do like poetry, though. I use it regularly as an impromptu writing prompt if I feel like writing a short story but don\u2019t really know what I want to write about. I stole the idea from Ray Bradbury, who wrote a very famous short story called \u201cThere Will Come Soft Rains.\u201d Bradbury, who is a huge fan of poetry, got the inspiration from a poem of the same name by Sara Teasdale.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve come up with a couple of good stories by taking inspiration from various poets. I\u2019ve used Dickinson, Poe, and Plath for different beginnings.<\/p>\n

Poetry has a sense of economy that I admire. Every word has to mean something. Part of the reason I love to write flash fiction is because it utilizes that economy. When you don\u2019t have endless amounts of space, you are forced to be more creative in your transmission of plot and theme.<\/p>\n

That sort of creativity has given birth to what I believe to be some of my best writing. It\u2019s exciting, fresh, and pungent. They are more art than story.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, poetry has been forgotten a bit in the modern era. There are still poets out there, but there are fewer places for them to showcase their art.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shame really, in the modern ADHD world, poems, especially short ones, can be read in a few minutes. While interpretation of poems can be an endurance sport, the initial feelings they produce are immediate.<\/p>\n

This really could be the era of the poem and the short-story. Unfortunately, with the apparent downfall of our public education system in the areas of reading and writing, we aren\u2019t exactly exposing kids to enough short creative writing,<\/p>\n

Fortunately, for all of you, that is a rant for another time and place.<\/p>\n

Still, for anyone who is a writer, or wants to be a writer, there is something to be learned from reading poetry. It doesn’t have to be intimidating and it doesn’t require any special skill. Let the academics analyze till their hearts are content. All you have to be able to say is whether you liked the poem or not.<\/p>\n

When it comes down to it, all writing is about opening your soul and letting it drain upon the keyboard. Poets are never afraid to write with feeling. We shouldn’t be afraid to follow their example as writers or readers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cA poem is never finished, only abandoned.\u201d \u2013 Paul Valery I have a lot of respect for poets. I wish I could do what they do. My great-great-great grandfather was a poet. He wrote some of it as an underage kid fighting in the Civil War. I have a great admiration for the things he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[192,855,856],"class_list":["post-3224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process","tag-civil-war","tag-poetic-license","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}