1. Why do you say NO RHYME? Don't poems have to rhyme?
Some poems do rhyme, of course, and many rhymed poems are wonderful. But when young poets look for rhymes, sometimes they forget to look for anything else. They allow the need for a rhyme to force the poem in a certain direction, instead of letting their imaginations direct the poem. If you write a poem about a dog, you should be free to use the word "Rowrf" if you want to, without a little voice inside you wailing, "But what does that rhyme with?"
2. Why write poetry at all?
Answer number one is: because it's fun. Answer number two is: because it's a lot of fun. And answer number three is: because sometimes you say something that surprises you. More than one writer has said that she/he writes to find out what she thinks or to learn more about who he is. Let your imagination fly free. Then sit back and see where it takes you.
3. If it doesn't rhyme, how do I know what a poem is?
Phew! Poets have been arguing about that one for hundreds of years. Emily Dickinson had it right when she said poetry was "desirable gooseflesh." When you read a poem, you should feel as if the top of your head was just blown off. A poem should make you laugh or cry or shiver or stare off at the stars. It should take you somewhere you've never been before, show you something you've never seen.
4. What are the rules for writing poetry?
There are no rules. Probably that's one of the reasons I've always liked to write it. A poet can do anything. (This is called "poetic license.") On the other hand, if you want to end up with something more than a bunch of words that look like they spilled on the page by accident, your poem needs to have a form. The secret of a good poem is that it does have rules, but that you get to make up the rules yourself and you get to make up a new set of rules for every poem.
5. Isn't an acrostic like rhyming, where you have to find something that fits? Doesn't it also restrict what you can say in your poem? If so, then why do you allow acrostic poetry for your poetry contest, but not rhyming?
Good question! And there are several answers. One is that English is a language that's not rich in rhyming sounds, so having to find a rhyme is usually more restrictive than having to think of a word that begins with a particular letter (most letters are used to begin many, many words so there are a lot more choices available for acrostics than for rhymes).
Another answer is that using a form of any kind can create an interesting poem because it can force the poet's thinking into a new direction. The poet can't just say the first easy thing that comes to mind because she/he has to also think about what the form requires. If the poet's lucky, the form can prompt totally new connections and ideas. But with rhymes, because there aren't too many of them available, some of them get used so often that they become cliches (moon and June, for instance). So using rhyme can prompt a poet to turn to something already familiar (and therefore not so interesting).
And the third answer is that many people think that poetry equals rhyming. I like to encourage young poets to explore the many other possibilities for shaping a poem.
6.Would you let me see some of your own poems?
Okay. Most of the poems I've written have been published in adult magazines, but here's one I thought kids might enjoy too.
When my son was very small, he used to think I knew everything (before he got old enough to know better!), and he used to ask me to explain things that didn't make sense to him. One of those things had to do with volcanoes, which he loved very much when he was little. It worried him that volcanoes could be beautiful and at the same time could hurt people. He asked me to explain why that was true.
Of course that's one of those questions that doesn't have an answer. All I could tell him was that sometimes in life, when we can't control what happens, we can try to control how we think about it. I thought if he always continued to see the beauty in volcanoes (like the gardens of roses that grow in winter where volcanoes warm the ground), then for him the beauty would always outweigh the destructiveness.
I must say thank you to The American Scholar, where this poem first appeared, for allowing me to reprint it here.
Volcanoes
At three, you already know that Mauna Loa
is the largest volcano on earth,
that cinder cones and shields
are the fundamental volcanic shapes,
that the caved-in summit
of Mt. Mazama is called a caldera.
At three, you are not satisfied with this.
You want me to tell you how
the earth can turn against us.
Together we watch on film the night-time sky
bursting with flame over Mt. Stromboli.
Fire fountains, burgeoning out of the hills,
the earth sending up ancient messages.
How can it be, you ask me,
beautiful and dangerous?
Outside you study the soft green
of April underfoot as though you saw,
beneath the bowed head of the arbutus,
warning glowing a dull red.
You think that I saw dinosaurs in childhood,
speak all languages, will tell you
everything. I can't say what was planted
in these fields that grow black rock.
I watch you tame the fire
with a three-year-old's joke,
keeping in the yard a pet volcano
that spouts honeydew: Mt. St. Melons.
The volcanoes you draw are delicate
blue triangles, thin blue lines
rising out of them, floating off the paper.
We read how in Iceland men build
greenhouses in volcanic fields,
mow grass in winter. Vision alters
what is seen - that is all I can tell you.
Never surrender your fine, particular eye.
Somewhere a man in his glass house,
inside the heart of a blizzard, harvests roses.
Sometimes I've also written silly, nonsense verses like this one:
I heard of a boy with a zipper
Which ran from his ear to his hip or
Perhaps from his knee to his nose.
However it was, when he chose,
He could walk outside in, concealing a grin
Under layers of skin.
Or of clothes,
Or put a fur coat right on a sore throat.
At least that's what I suppose.
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