Poetry

I was recently asked asked where and how I got the inspiration for the poetry I write and I thought I'd post my response here as a blog post since it would also be useful for this blog.

Firstly, I am inspired by the writing of great poets such as Tennyson, Longfellow, Sir Walter Scott, Chesterton, Whitman's Oh Captain, My Captain, Dickinson and others. Also, songs by Wickham, Switchfoot and others have also inspired me. Probably the main reason why I want to write poetry, and why I take the time to sit down and find a theme, a meter, and a rhyme scheme, is because poetry is a beautiful expression of thoughts and nature and whatever else comes to my mind. It's music on paper, music without the form of songs. As several people said,  I could put my poems to song, but then they wouldn't be poems. Skilful poetry, (and I'm not asserting that I'm a skilful writer) can be as beautiful (and I believe is and more so) than song. I don't like free verse that is not alliterated or written with some sort of pattern and rhythm. I don't like it because it's not poetry anymore, it's prose. Poetry takes prose and gives it a beautiful polish and finishing touch. Without the rhyme and the meter, alliteration and rhythm, poetry is just a story. Poetry is not easy. It must be written well to be beautiful and many of the great poets became great because they used rich language and perfect rhythm.

The ideas for my poems come from nature and my reflections on Bible passages. They also come from topics I have been thinking about or discussing. They're also from my stories, books I have been reading and other things. I get my motivation from these ideas, because when I see something beautiful I want to praise it or if I read a Bible passage I want to use poetry to discuss it with fuller meaning or acknowledge the wonders of Christ. The ideas don't just come to me though, I have to look around me and find something I admire or appreciate. (Right before I wrote, 'The Hosts of the Sky are Marching' I was on top of the hill beside our pond watching a storm come in. Things like that I considered so beautiful that I immediately wanted to run inside and write a poem to describe it.) When I think of something I want to put to words in a poem, I think of descriptive words and rich language to express my opinions. Poetry takes time, and nobody can perfect it on the first try. (For instance, I wrote 'Mysterious Depths' four times before I found what I have now.)"

A little bit more detail and answer to the question, "How Important is Rhyme to Poetry?

In my opinion, poetry sounds much better with rhyme. I think that rhyme is incredibly important to poetry, but I think poetry can sound good without it. Alliteration is beautiful if done well. (I have read Beowulf, the original poem and Tolkien's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight so I have had experience with alliterated poetry.) Non-rhyming poetry is hardly poetry, it's prose. True, there are various poems that are non-rhyming which are enjoyable to read, but, generally speaking, rhyme is more beautiful. Unfortunately, many of the judges in poetry contests these days are biased towards non-rhyming poetry and prefer it over rhyming which aggravates me exceedingly. Rhyme is important for poetry to retain it's title of poetry. The Encarta World Dictionary describes poetry as:

 "literary works written in verse, in particular verse writing of high quality, great beauty, emotional sincerity or intensity, or profound insight"
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

If non-rhyming poetry is a 'writing of high quality' and 'great beauty' than it is poetry, but I have come across few non-rhyming poems which I have enjoyed reading. My least favorite poets would be those who are not able to capture a sense of rhyme, beauty, and rhyme in their poetry well enough, such as some of Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, and all of Carl Sandburg as well as several other inferior poets, inferior, in my belief, and not as well known, because their writing is not a 'writing of high quality' or of 'great beauty' though some unrecognized poets are exceedingly good. Anyway, these are my thoughts on poetry. What do you think?

gwyn


                           

A Poem

This is a poem which I wrote recently and submitted to a poetry contest. I am still waiting for the results however and I don't have very high hopes. Anyway, here it is:

A grotto sheltered by the sea
Possessing a history of mystery,
Waiting in silence with an untold past
Waiting to be revealed at last

Visibility weak in the gathering gloom
Hiding the treasure in the lagoon
The starlight glints on where it lies,
Illuming the cave to the voyagers eyes.

First the boat ride through the midnight,
Then the searching for the moonlight,
Shining down the rocky shaft
While the lapping water laughs,

"Ghosts of galleons, lost in the deep,
Blue-silver beauty, glory in sleep.
The end of the line for many a ship,
Where shadows dance and gray waves dip,
And weeping gulls lament the tide,
Who knows how many sailors died?'

-gwyn

A Race

A poem I wrote:

The excitement building, we watch and wait

As the starter ascends unto his chair,

A stallion shuffles, behind the gate

The rider steadies him with care.

The noise subsides, the silence is heard

The riders stare between their horses ears

Perked and tense waiting for the word

Suddenly it comes and the air is rent with cheers.

From now till the end its one long cheer,

As the riders rush on down the track,

The beating of hooves, the thrill and fear

But the trumpet is blow, there is no turning back.

Bent bodies crouching, shouting voices

The stallion passes to the lead,

Past all the lashing whips and noises,

That characterizes this mass of steeds.

The stallion and bay the lead do take

The crowds loud roar rings up to the air

From the heights of the bleachers at the Stakes,

“On,” they cry, “win the race, if you dare!”

They’re neck and neck as they run down the course

 The onlookers whistling and applauding them fine

The stallion surges to the front by his pure force

And leaps across the finish line. 

Foaming Sea

I stand on top the rocky crag

And look below on foaming sea

A world of spray in billowing flags

Of color grey with vast majesty

I descend to the shore and wade on through

The roaring waves and sand below

Without restraint I plunge into

The blueness of its sparkling glow

I feel water surrounding me

I swim through caverns in the deep

I smell the air of salty sea

And hear the gulls above me weep.

What hand such majesty could compose?

What ability in the Maker’s mind?

Covered in stalactites, blue-silver grottoes

Who can tell the treasures one might find?

I work my way back down to the sea

Where the sand is crushed by the waves

I see the dangerous rocks in the deep

How many of those mark a man's grave?

Spanish galleons, lost at sea,

The desperate fight between nature and man

Sinking, dying, in black waters eerie

The end of that sea-race those sailors ran.

Come to my grotto, lost in the deep,

Sheltered from the tide in my silent lagoon;

Now but a whisper, glory dead in sleep,

Beached in my grotto, lit by the moon.

A.J

The Hosts Of the Sky are Marching

The Hosts of the Sky are Marching

On a night when the wind is blowing,

As I stand on the shore of a lake,

When the clouds above me are growing,

And change and form the wisps of a snake.

I feel a sudden rustle,

I’m no longer in reality,

The clouds begin to hustle,

And the earth below grows misty.

That’s when I know their marching,

 The hosts of innumerable size,

They form and start their arching,

As they move across the skies.

Then the God of Glory thunders.

The earth shakes beneath His throne,

And all the population wonders,

What is it they have sown?

The majesty of the sky is old,

Made with a wondrous strength

An awesome wonder to behold,

No man can grasp their length.

Who can measure their endlessness?

Who marked the heavens with a span?

Who could form their vastness?

And hold it in the hollow of His hand?

Oh, for the touch of the Maker’s hand

Many of us on earth do long for,

We stand high upon our castles of sand,

And reach upward to an open door.

A golden door, never closed,

A way through, a way between,

A way to Holiness and He who arose

A way to glory, and things unseen.

A.J

J.R.R. Poetry

AT THE GREY HAVENS
Day is ended, dim my eyes,
But journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship's beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the sea.

Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
the wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
beneath the ever-bending sky,
but islands lie behind the Sun
that i shall raise ere all is done;
lands there are to west of West,
where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I'll find the heavens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the star above my mast!
-JRR Tolkien


THE LITTLE HOUSE OF LOST PLAY (Mar Vanwa Tyaliéva)
We knew that land once, You and I,
and once we wandered there
in the long days now long gone by,
a dark child and a fair.
Was it on the paths of firelight thought
in winter cold and white,
or in the blue-spun twilit hours
of little early tucked-up beds
in drowsy summer night,
that you and I in Sleep went down
to meet each other there,
your dark hair on your white nightgown
and mine was tangled fair?

We wandered shyly hand in hand,
small footprints in the golden sand,
and gathered pearls and shells in pails,
while all about the nightingales
were singing in the trees.
We dug for silver with our spades,
and caught the sparkle of the seas,
then ran ashore to greenlit glades,
and found the warm and winding lane
that now we cannot find again,
between tall whispering trees.

The air was neither night nor day,
an ever-eve of gloaming light,
when first there glimmered into sight
the Little House of Play.
New-built it was, yet very old,
white, and thatched with straws of gold,
and pierced with peeping lattices
that looked toward the sea;
and our own children's garden-plots
were there: our own forgetmenots,
red daisies, cress and mustard,
and radishes for tea.
There all the borders, trimmed with box,
were filled with favourite flowers, with phlox,
with lupins, pinks, and hollyhocks,
beneath a red may-tree;
and all the gardens full of folk
that their own little language spoke,
but not to You and Me.

For some had silver watering-cans
and watered all their gowns,
or sprayed each other; some laid plans
to build their houses, little towns
and dwellings in the trees.
And some were clambering on the roof;
some crooning lonely and aloof;
some dancing round the fairy-rings
all garlanded in daisy-strings,
while some upon their knees
before a little white-robed king
crowned with marigold would sing
their rhymes of long ago.
But side by side a little pair
with heads together, mingled hair,
went walking to and fro
still hand in hand; and what they said,
ere Waking far apart them led,
that only we now know.
-JRR Tolkien

The Race Of Men

I wrote this poem:

The Race Of Men
We once were a people strong,
In the years and decades gone by,
And are now but in a fighting song.
We, who were kings year-long.

We once were a people strong,
And had we kept true we’d have never seen death
But that was ages and ages ago,
In years long by-gone.
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We once were a people of light,
We fell into darkness and lost that light,
We tried to stand back up again,
But that was the end of the race of men.

After that we forgot our wrongs
We fell back into the way of the tongue,
We held no leash, and once again,
We failed, we, this race of men.

Some of us were saved, but very few,
and we received a truthful promise,
that has come down, From us to you,
Down through the long ages of history’s mist

And now, in this present age,
We’re only a part in the story of what has been
And for that part, a single page,
We are glad to be noticed in the race of men.

Now it comes down to your decision,
If you’ll follow truth, with strength and precision,
Or like us all, who fell into sin,
Will you forget, the race of men?