Feelings
 


Jane Sharp - Writer,Crete.

HOW TO WRITE A HAIKU
 
Write three unrhymed lines with a philosophical flavour, the first line must have five syllables, the second line seven syllables and the third line five syllables. More often than not the Haiku is about Seasons but I like to use it in other ways too. It's bending the rule - no law against that!
 
 
GETTING STARTED WITH FREE VERSE
 
When you have experimented with a few Haiku why not move on to more ambitious free verse. Just write down your thoughts in short, meaningful lines. Don't be too 'wordy', paint a picture of what you are thinking.
 
Now you have the shape of the poem. You know what it is about and you can see clearly in your mind what you are describing. The only thing is sometimes what you start with can be totally different to what you end up with, never mind, the thought process can be a strange thing. Don't worry too much about rhyme, but do think about the rhythm of the lines, reading your words aloud will help you with this. The main objective is to write a poem that other people can read or hear and get the picture. It has to touch them in some way, they have to understand it even though that may take a little analysis. But hey! let's not get too deep into this. For now just get writing!

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The Papa smiles and
The wisdom of Sofia
Is in his aura

 
SELF INDULGENCE
 
In the Lemon Tree Caf
with a wedge of passion
I numbed at the cost
Of my new hair-do,
Consoled only by each
Crumbly fork-full.
I watched a loner
With his quiche and Daily Mail,
He seemed too frail
To eat quiche at three:
He must have been more
Hungry than me.
The squeshed cappacino
Sounded exciting
But I made do with a
Bitter black Columbian.

Write Down Your Feelings
 
When writing down your feelings, remember, there are different ways to approach the end result. Here are two totally different poems, the first draft is 'chatty', words as they came. The second is a structured poem created from the first draft but producing a totally different feeling.
 
Morning (Structured poem) 
 
A dragon hump looms in zulu three hundred light,
Holding the blackness back beyond the moon,
An earth-edge boundary on night patrol.
  
The east-arc spot tracks its flank spilling
a Gulag beam onto the periphery,
Where sentinels stand to guard deep hollows
  

Ready for Apollo to kiss the dark.

And virgin loam flushes with that first touch

Making shadows yawn and creatures scurry.
  

Dawn-song echoes spheres to wake all earthlings,

While lambent-light floods the hump with morning

And orchis - cretica smiles at the day.

  

Morning (First Draft)
 
It's morning,
It's early morning
It's very early morning.
The soft spot is tracking across dragon humps
Kissing dark places,
Making virgin land flush warm pink.
Shadows wake and stretch,
Flowers unbend and stand tall,
Smiling at the sky,
The chorus begins,
Mice scutter for cover,
Lizzards whip over cold boulders
Exposed by the crazy day.
 
I am stiff, not yet kissed,
Cold,
Eyes peeping,
Slothful, underpowered, head not raised.
I'm not sad, it's just the way it is.
"How ye feeling?" I'm asked by Mr Wideawake.
"Like shit!"

ENJOY READING MY POETRY

HAVE FUN WRITING YOUR OWN

LOOK, THEN, INTO THINE HEART AND WRITE - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Writing is very theraputic. Take a pen and a notebook, and no matter where you are: in the countryside, in the middle of a busy shopping centre, sitting at home alone, taking five minutes at work or at a party, whilst on a bus or train, or looking out to sea, infact anywhere, write down your thoughts in as brief a way as possible or exactly how you are thinking at that moment and you will have the basis for a poem or a piece of prose. Some poems can be written straight off, but the more you write the more you see untidy edges that, by following a few rules, can easily be straightened out. There are some excellent books that will point you in the right direction to writing better poetry. And, don't forget the opposite side of the writing coin is reading. Make sure you read other poets' work and that way you will discover different styles, what is 'in' at the moment and what is considered 'old fashioned'. If you are submitting work to magazines make sure you know the genre each particular magazine publishes. So, look, then, into thine heart and write!