Poetry in Three Minutes

      This is a quick and dirty introduction to poetry basics.  A slightly more comprehensive approach is "What You Need To Know About Poetry".

      You may want to pause the video in places and review each one a few times.

      By clicking on the titles ("Definition", "Basic Scansion", "Sonics", "Performing") you can read the underlying articles for each topic.

       If you have questions please feel free to post them below.

Learning Poetry - 1. Definition

     The first three minute video establishes the one word definition for poetry, regardless of epoch, culture, language, theme, genre, or form.

Learning Poetry - 2. Basic Scansion

 

      Here, one is introduced to the elements of meter.

 Learning Poetry - 3. Sonics

 

      At the root of poetry is sound.

Learning Poetry - 4. Performing

 

      The whole point of this mode of speech is performance.

 

Learning Poetry - 5:  Free Verse

       Free verse (not to be confused with prose poetry or prose qua poetry) and its niche.

Learning Poetry - 6. Rhyme

     The repetition of sounds in related positions.

 


      We hope you enjoy this series and find it helpful.

Earl Gray, Esquirrel

 

 

Cadas - Part IIa

Consider this almost complete effort:

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                                         This Won't Make Sense

    You bring us back to beaches, bonfires, flames that flutter like the wings of butterflies.  You tease a gap-toothed child.  A baseball game begins, the math of farm team hits and tries, of boys in shirts and shorts and gel-spiked hair.  They'll take the Number 7 subway train to watch some football, giants battling bears or other beasts.  One plays a video game.     

     The boss, in a hoop skirt and bobby socks, surveys the paintings of dancehalls and gifts.  The music rests.  The actors eat cupcakes.  The therapist observes.  Her reading glasses shift.  A Labrador detects a silent cue.  It barks.  It runs in rings and waits for you.  

     The sunlight fades your dress and curls, but you're not home until you hug your pup.  Drawing pink and purple lambs, a girl devours her chocolate peanut butter cup.  As tiny voices sing an old jazz tune caretakers pass along their business cards.  A spaniel traps a soccer ball and, soon, an artist grabs her pencils and regards the scene:  the dog's ballet, the jazz, the sheep;  all fit here like a horse and cowboy boots.  Beyond the pool we watch an arrow's steep descent, to land so deep within our roots.

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       Please feel free to give us your impressions below before viewing the reveal, including the final sentence.

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Cadas - Part I

What is your impression of this poem?

 

Paradise Has No Colonies

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