Poetics

Free verse, vers libre, is not void of meter and rhythm; rather than following a strict metrical pattern, it creates small unites of different metrical patterns, together making a cohesive whole of different patterns, at best creating a rhythm changing with the mood, theme, and tone of the poem. Free verse is all for an “elastic” rhythm, and plays more on the subconscious than the conscious, as opposed to the stricter metrical poetry.

Having said that, I want to offer a few basic advices on poetry:

1. In poetry, brevity and economy of language is important. Meaning, every word should strive for the best impact. This gave rise to the idea that adjectives should be avoided; so often, especially in novice work, adjectives are used to make the sentence seem pretty, without offering anything to the poem as a whole. Good use of adjectives add new light on the noun (through contrast, double entendre [double meaning], synaesthesia, onomatopoeia, juxtaposition, chiaroscuro, and so on), are integral to the poem’s overall meaning, and / or show some presence of the narrator.

2. Work on one aspect of poetry before you go on to the next. Don’t try learning, say, rhyme and enjambment, sonics and meter, at the same time; it’s like wobbling an egg on a teaspoon, or tipping the mug full of liquid, hoping it won’t spill.

3. When you post your poems to workshop forums, or read critiques to other poems, you will often encounter the workshop-advice “this has too many abstractions, and so the poem does not resonate; try to go for the concrete instead”. However, that does not mean you should “never” use abstractions. One trick to use it successful could be to ground it in / juxtapose it with the concrete. The trick is to know when to use it, how to use it, and—most importantly—what it does to your work. As Pound said: “Go in fear of abstractions.” Notice he does not say never to use abstractions, but be constantly aware of them.


On inspiration:


Much of this is rooted in what a mentor has told me, and then experienced by myself. Meditation is included; it opens up doors for the creative mind to expand and search, to the gold mine of associations.

When writing poetry, I try to look from within and out. Great sentences spring from something genuine, with a good execution. The genuine, aka the inspired, is breathtaking in its multitudes of possibilities. Meditation is actually a good way to reach the state of inspiration; it allows you to remove yourself from the preconceived. I believe poetry is an act where we become closer to our true selves, and that, when we reach this state, is when we create honest, genuine poetry. As T. S. Eliot said: “Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.”
That “deeper” feeling T. S. Eliot speaks of, is where inspiration springs forth. In reaching that state, all you see of the world comes from within. You look from “within” and “out”. One could say inspiration is where you penetrate through your personal truths that lack connotations and preconceived notions by others. Clichés, on the other hand, are truths by others that are not your truths, that are the preconceived notions of others. To put it simply, truth is what we create of it; when inspired, we have moved beyond others truths and into our own.

Closely related to inspiration is the deliberate poem versus the surprising one. I have learned one should try to avoid deliberate; it is usually a sign of lack of inspiration. Even if the technical is great, it does not manage to become what T. S. Eliot calls “Genuine poetry communicates before meaning”, to transcend (to reach that other level that is our subconscious, our soul). There’s a small cliff between discovery and deliberateness, the latter of which can often feel—or be—didactic. Whereas discovery makes you feel you walk the line of inspiration and unraveling along with the writer, deliberateness / didacticism makes you feel you are walking the line after the writer walked it.


Critiquing


The most important thing with critiquing is to know and decide what the poem needs; or, if the case is many needs, figure the main aspects that—in turn—would help subordinates. Thematic critique—i.e.: offering the poet an interpretation of the poem—should only matter when the reader is unable to comment on any technical level, when the writer does not manage to convey what he wants, or the message is integral to the appreciation of the poem.

When you encounter a poem, try parse the sentence. That way, you can find the faults with the poem. Maybe it is the line breaks, not doing enough double entendre or making the poem cohesive; maybe it is the sentences, being too “fabricated”—as if each lacked something to be there between them; maybe there is no rhythm, no sonics; maybe the poem seems void of interesting sentence-structure, trope, or just full of trite phrasings, clichés, and abstractions, the latter three through which the poem turns too general to be remembered.

If I have the time, this is the time when I will start examine the poem. While suggestions are always good, my critiquing style tends to say where the poem falls flat, or where it cringes, leaving the actual job of finding a new way to re-work the poem to the writer, unless I have a clear idea of what the writer wants with the piece. The reason I seldom do so is because the writer knows best; the critiquer’s job is to offer alternatives on how the poem can improve. How it will, is the writer’s job.

A good way to structure a critique could be to begin with your overall impressions, wend to suggestions; then try to find something good or worthwhile in the piece. Even though sugar-coating is not the way to critique, some encouragement is always appreciated, even subconsciously, from those sharing their poems.