Prompt #189 – SummerScapes

Today marks the summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Every year on the solstice, I read some or all of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and think about the time I visited Stonehenge to watch the sun rise on Midsummer morning. After the severe winter we had here in the northeastern U.S., this spring and summer couldn’t come quickly enough, and now that summer is here, it seems a good time to celebrate with a poem that’s light, lovely, or filled with a sense of summer fun. With that in mind, our prompt this week is to simply write a poem about the solstice, midsummer night, summer, or any aspect of summer that makes you feel good. 

Guidelines:

1. Make a list of happy summer memories and select one memory from your list to write about.

2. Write a funny summer poem.

3. Write a poem about any character from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (Titania, Oberon, Puck). Or write a poem from the perspective of one of the characters.

The entire play may be read here: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/midsummer/full.html

A list of characters from the play: http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/msnd/characters.html

4. Do a stream of consciousness poem about summer. Think about summer and just start writing. Write for about 10 minutes and see where your thoughts have lead you.

5. Using your five senses as inspiration, create a “SummerScape” that includes summer’s sights, sounds, scents, tastes, and touches.

6. Write something "magical" (or a summer fantasy) in a poem about the summer solstice.

Tips:

1. Make your poem a kind of celebration. Have fun with it. Think warmth, bright skies, sunshine, flowers, leafy trees, children playing outdoors, swimming pools, sailboats, lazy days, vacations—think fullness and abundance.

2.  Use sound (alliteration, assonance, anaphora) to give your poem a sense of summer.

3. Keep your tone light.

4. Use line and stanza breaks that enhance your content.

5. Remember: nothing superfluous—no extra words, lines, phrases, images. Don’t include anything that your poem doesn’t absolutely need.

Examples:

"After Reading Tu Fu, I Go Outside to the Dwarf Orchard" by Charles Wright

"In Summer" by Paul Lawrence Dunbar

"June LIght" by Richard Wilbur

"Summer Night, Riverside" by Sara Teasdale

"Wildflower" by Stanley Plumly

Happy Summer solstice, dear blog readers!

"Then followed that beautiful season... Summer.... Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape Lay as if new created 

in all the freshness of childhood." 

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

May this summer bring you the "freshness of childhood" and much joy!

Prompt #188 – Conditional Clause Poems ("If" Poems)

Perhaps you’ve heard of “If” poems? These are poems characterized by conditional clauses (“if clauses”). Such clauses can be used to get a poem started or may be inserted in various places through the text of a poem.  Poems of this type are not the typical “what if” sort of poem. They do something more.

Note: A conditional clause is a type of adverbial clause that states a hypothesis or condition, real or imagined, and their consequences. A conditional clause may be introduced by the subordinating conjunction if or another conjunction, such as because, unless, provided that, or but. Like other adverbial clauses, a conditional clause may before or after the clause on which it states a condition.

One of the most famous “if poems” is “If—” written by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling begins with a conditional clause and goes on to add interest by creating a kind of causal tension when he contradicts his “if” clauses with details, contradictions, and contrasts. There are also “result” clauses that follow the “ifs.” Here’s the beginning of Kipling’s poem:

If you can keep your head when all about you  

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,  

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;  

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

In “King of the River,” Stanley Kunitz does much the same thing and keeps us, as readers, waiting for what will come next. His long sentences create suspense and a sense of mystery and expectation as the poem’s momentum begins and is sustained. Here’s the beginning of “King of the River:”

If the water were clear enough,

if the water were still,

but the water is not clear,

the water is not still,

you would see yourself,

slipped out of your skin…

Adrienne rich begins her poem “For this” with a conditional (“if”) clause:

If I’ve reached for your line (I have)

like letters from the dead that stir the nerves …

Her third stanza continues:

If I’ve touched your finger

with a ravenous tongue

licked from your palm a rift of salt

if I’ve dreamt or thought of you

a pack of blood fresh-drawn …

As you can see in the three examples, conditional clauses create mood, conditions, limitations, dependencies, and expectations.  Along with “if” clauses, others that work similarly include “but,” “although,” “when,” and “because.”

Guidelines:

1. Begin by writing a list of “ifs.” Think about things in your own life, in the natural world, etc.

2. Follow with a list of “then” statements so you have “ifs” and “thens.”

3. Reflect on your lists for a while. Do any of the ideas link or match up?

4. Begin a poem with one of your “if” clauses, add an appropriate “then” and continue. See where the poem leads you.

5. Remember to start out by thinking in terms of “ifs” and “thens,” but don’t be limited by them.

6. Try writing a poem like Kipling’s in which you set up the characteristics or necessary qualities for some personal kind of success.

7. Using my prose poem below, write a poem that looks at something which made an awareness occur. Create a setting, configure a truth, move from the specific, individual experience to something more universal

If It Hadn’t Been

We wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for the rain, the wind-loosened trees (this quiet shelter); and I wouldn’t tell you how nothing wonderful ever matches its memory, how not going home is a sadness we all carry. I wouldn’t tell you what I know about losing, how what we keep is never all that we need.

Acknowledgment: Shot Glass Journal, Issue #13

Tips:

1. Simply writing an “if-then” poem isn’t what we’re working toward. Conditional clauses, yes, but we need to expand, switch gears, make a point, and create striking imagery.

2. Try a little anaphora—repetition. You may want to use several “if” clauses within the text of your poem. read the examples and see how they use but don’t overdo repetition.

3. A really good poem almost always has two subjects—the obvious subject and the implied or suggested subject. Think about that.

4. A good ending is one that readers will remember—an ending with punch and purpose, an ending filled with meaning. Work on creating a powerful “dismount.”

Examples:

"If—" by Rudyard Kipling

"For This" by Adrienne Rich

"King of the River" by Stanley Kunitz (audio)

Submission Tips for Summer by Guest Blogger Donna Baier Stein

With summer quickly approaching and, hopefully, some leisure time for all of us, this seems a good week to think about submitting poems to journals. I’m delighted to present our guest blogger this week, the publisher of TIFERET Journal, Donna Baier Stein, whose long career in writing, editing and publishing provides the background for some practical and invaluable journal submission tips.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Donna at Tiferet since 2006, and here’s a bit about her by way of introduction: Donna Baier Stein's poetry and prose have appeared in Poet Lore, Beloit Poetry Journal, New York Quarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Phoebe, Confrontation, and many other journals and anthologies. Her story collection Sympathetic People, a finalist in an earlier Iowa Fiction Awards contest, was published last year by Serving House Books. Awards include a fellowship from Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars, a scholarship from Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the PEN/New England Discovery Award, honorable mention in the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, four Pushcart nominations, and more. Donna was a founding editor of Bellevue Literary Review and is founder and publisher of TIFERET Journal. You can visit Donna online at www.donnabaierstein.com.

From Donna Baier Stein

As writers, we want to pass muster first with our own internal editor. Then, when the work feels ready for a wider audience, we push our word babies out into the world, hoping to catch the eye, heart, and approval of a publication editor. 

This process doesn’t have to be as daunting as it sometimes feels.

After viewing thousands of manuscripts submitted to Tiferet Journal and Bellevue Literary Review, I can tell you how off-putting sloppy formatting, spelling errors, and slow beginnings are to an editor you want to impress. There are always other manuscripts waiting to be read.

So here are 5 tips to increase your chance of success with an editor:

1. Start strong. As my Missouri aunt used to say, “Don’t hide your light under a bushel.” The longer it takes your writing to hook the editor’s attention, the less likely a positive response.

2. Fine-tune mercilessly. Remove every unnecessary word. Read your poem aloud to hear its internal music. Language is your medium; use it expertly.

3. Spell check. Use standard formatting and type fonts. Fair or not, handwritten submissions begin with one strike against them.

4. Include a short, professional cover note.  List prior publications if you have them but don’t worry if you don’t. The work is judged on its own merit. What is not necessary, and somewhat detrimental, is to write a long treatise about why you have just started writing.

5. Be patient. Editors really are inundated with manuscripts. At Tiferet and most journals, review is a multi-step process, with different levels of readers.

Here at Tiferet, we look for writing that is so truthful it may elicit goose bumps. Writing that resonates emotionally. And specific to our publication, writing that offers a glimpse of the invisible world, that reminds us of all that is sacred in our lives.

_________________________________

Many thanks, Donna!

To order Donna's books via Amazon.com, click here.

To visit Tiferet Journal online, click here.

_________________________________

For lists of journals that accept submissions during the summer, please be sure to visit Diane Lockward’s excellent blog (Blogalicious):

Summer Journals A-F 

Summer Journals G-P 

Summer Journals Q-Z

_________________________________

Prompt Ideas for This Week

(Nope! I didn’t forget …)

Guidelines:

1. Write a poem about the end of spring, the beginning of summer, or summertime,

2. Write a poem in which you highlight the tastes (or remembered childhood tastes) of summer (lemonade, Kool Aid, marshmallows, watermelon, BBQ, etc.). You may want to use a sense other than, or along with, taste for this.

3. An alternative prompt is to read Donna’s poem "The Yellow Brick Road" and let it inspire you to write something about an imaginary place or thing and its relative or metaphorical meaning to you.

Tips:

1. Focus this week on sensory perceptions (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell).

2. Remember that imagery is used to suggest all the objects and qualities of sense perception in a poem—such images may use literal descriptions, allusions, or figures of speech such as similes or metaphors.

3. Keep in mind that the best poems typically contain some element of mystery or understatement. 

Good luck with your submissions!

Prompt #187 – Haiku: Honoring the Art of Detachment

 

Haiku’s origins have been traced to a form of Japanese poetry known as haikai no renga, a kind of linked poetry that was practiced widely by Matsuo Bashō (1644-94) and his contemporaries. Over time, the first link in a renga, the hokku, evolved into the haiku as we understand it today. A minimalist form of poetry, haiku has been popular among modern poets since the 1960s, when a western-world haiku movement generated increased interest in the form. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Billy Collins, John Ashbery, and Paul Muldoon have written haiku, and haiku-like poems are found in the works of such literary greats as Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and Richard Wright. Although something other than “mainstream” poetry and very much its own genre, haiku is a unique and demanding form to master.

In traditional Japanese, the haiku is typically written vertically on the page  (from top to bottom). Each haiku contains seventeen onji (sound symbols). However, early translators were mistaken when they assumed that onji were equivalent to syllables in the English language and that haiku should be written in three lines containing 5,7, and 5 syllables respectively. Although incorrect, these “defining” qualities of haiku are still regarded as “haiku format” by many. A more acceptable standard for English-language haiku is 10-20 syllables in 3 lines with a longer second line and shorter first and third lines. That said, the parameters are often stretched depending on content and meaning. Three lines have become the norm, but haiku of one and two lines are also seen, and syllable count varies

Traditional haiku contain a kigo (season word) to indicate the season or time of year in which the haiku takes place, along with two phrases (or images) that are inherently unrelated but are juxtaposed to show some commonality within a particular experience. Normally, one idea is presented in the first two lines and then a switch occurs in the third. Alternatively, a single idea is presented in the first line and a switch occurs in the second and third lines. Nearly every haiku has this kind of two-part, juxtapositional structure. The shift is achieved with what is called a kireji or cutting word, which “cuts” the poem into two parts. The kireji is a kind of caesura (and similar in theory to the volta in a sonnet) that signals a pause in the poem’s “thought” and suggests a parallel to the preceding phrase, the following phrase, or provides a “dismount for the poem that offers a finely tuned sense of closure. 

Haiku is, in a sense, an art of detachment in which the poet is removed enough from the subject to write without self-interest or self-absorption but, rather, with a sense of both inward and outward direction. The best haiku are life-affirming and eternity-conscious, spontaneous and unpretentious but entirely focused and either gently or startlingly profound.

Note: The word haiku forms its own plural – haikus is incorrect.

Acknowledgment: The essay part of this prompt (above) first appeared in 

Tiferet: Literature, Art, & The Creative Spirit (Digital Issue, April 2014)

Guidelines:

1. Haiku describe things in a very few words – they never tell, intellectualize, or state feelings outrightly. They never use figures of speech (similes, metaphors, etc.) and should not rhyme.

2. Haiku is more than a simple genre or form of poetry—haiku is a way of seeing, a way of capturing experience, a kind of “aha” moment or instant when something in the ordinary captures our attention and leads us to a closer, more concentrated look at its connection to nature, and human nature.

3. Haiku don’t have titles, although haiku sequences do.

4. Brevity is key, along with a sense of immediacy (written in the present tense) and often a sense of relationship between nature and human nature. Some haiku poets feel that one measure of a haiku’s success is its ability to be read in a single breath. Most will agree that a successful haiku is characterized by crystal-cutting clarity and in-the-moment presence.

5. Haiku are about spiritual realities, the realities of our every-day lives, and the realities of human- and natural-world relationships. Most importantly, haiku honor the inside of an experience through attention to the outside.

6. Compact and direct, haiku appear to be light and spontaneous, but their writing requires careful reflection and discipline—haiku may even be considered a kind of meditation. Finely-tuned powers of observation reveal the haiku moments that happen continually in the world around us.

7. Don’t be bound by any notions of 5,7,5 syllable structure—focus instead on use of season words, two-part juxtapositions, and objective sensory imagery.

Tips:

1. Bashō said that each haiku should be “a thousand times on the tongue.” Before writing anything, read many haiku from a range of sources to get a “feel” for the form. Be sure to read some haiku that have been translated from the Japanese, but spend more time on good haiku written in English. Read some of the haiku aloud.

2. After you’ve read many haiku and have a sense of what they’re about, think about an experience you’ve had.

3. Remember the season in which you had the experience, and then think of a word or phrase that suggests that season. For example, peonies is a season word for spring; snow and ice are season words for winter. A simple phrase like “autumn leaves” can evoke feelings of loneliness and the coming of darkness (shorted days, longer nights) in winter. While many haiku appear to have a nature focus, they are more-specifically based on a seasonal reference that as much about nature as it is within nature.

4. Organize your thoughts into approximately three lines. First, set the scene, then suggest a feeling and, finally, make an observation or record an action.  Write in the present tense, don’t use figures of speech (similes, metaphors), and keep things simple.

5. Be sure to include a contrast or a comparison. Remember that haiku often present one idea in the first two lines and then switch quickly to something else in the third. One of your goals is to create a “leap” between the two parts of your haiku without making too obvious a connection between the parts or leaping to a distance that’s unclear or obscure. At the same time, you must reveal the emotions (not ideas) that you want to communicate without stating them overtly.

6. Try to think of haiku in terms of your five senses—things you experience directly, not ideas or your interpretation or analysis of “things.” Think in terms of sensory description and avoid subjective terms.

7. Spend time working on punctuation. In poems so brief, punctuation is important. Read some of the examples and see how other haiku poets make punctuation work for them in their haiku.

Examples:

From the Japanese Masters

Winter seclusion –

Listening, that evening,

To the rain in the mountain.

— Issa

My life, –

How much more of it remains?

The night is brief.

— Shiki

Over the wintry

forest, winds howl in rage

with no leaves to blow.

— Soseki

No one travels

Along this way but I,

This autumn evening.

— Bashō

Contemporary Haiku from Frogpond (Journal of the Haiku Society of America)

Frogpond 37.1 • Winter 2014

Frogpond 36.3 • Autumn 2013

Frogpond 36.2 • Summer 2013

Frogpond 36.1 • Winter 2013

Frogpond 35.3 • Autumn 2012

Frogpond 35.2 • Summer 2012

Frogpond 35.1 • Winter 2012

Frogpond 34.3 • Autumn 2011

Frogpond 34.2 • Summer 2011

Frogpond 34.1 • Winter 2011

Frogpond 33.3 • Autumn 2010

Frogpond 33.2 • Summer 2010

Frogpond 33.1 • Winter 2010

Frogpond 32.3 • Autumn 2009

Frogpond 32.2 • Summer 2009

Frogpond 32.1 • Winter 2009

Frogpond 31.3 • Autumn 2008

Frogpond 31.2 • Spring/Summer 2008

Click Here for Contemporary Haiku from Modern Haiku Magazine

  

And, by way of sharing, a few of my own:

migrating geese –

once there was so much

to say

       (1st Place Henderson Award, 1984, http://www.hsa-haiku.org/hendersonawards/henderson.htm#1984)

between the moon

and the billboard,

a jet liner rising

       (42^nd Street Art Project, displayed on the Rialto West Theater Marquee, NYC, 1994.)

a flurry of bats

and then

the Milky way

       (Haiku Quarterly, First Prize, Autumn 1989)

moonrise:

at the edge of the words,

we listen

      (From Castles and Dragons, 1990)

through darkness

churchbells on the cusp

of the hill

       (From Questi Momenti, 1990)

Prompt #186 - Transport and Travel

I recently put together the video below, based on Nic Sebastian’s reading of my poem “The Trains”—a poem that goes back to a childhood time that, for me, continues to inform the present.

Thinking about trains “transported” me into thoughts about the different ways we travel (in our daily lives to and from work or school, to and from the grocery store, etc.), the ways in which we travel for recreation and education, and the metaphorical travels we take. “Travel,” more than just getting from one place to another, connects us to other people, to other cultures, and can engage us in the art of adventure.

For this prompt, let’s think about how we “travel” and write related poems.

Guidelines:

1. Think about all the ways we get to where we want to go—actual modes of transportation: horses, cars, trucks, trains, subways, boats, planes, bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles, trams, baby carriages, elevators, hay wagons, monorails, wheelchairs, ziplines. Make a list of types of transport that you’ve used. Which of these conjure up especially memorable times. Select one to write about.

2. Today, we have various modes of transport that we, perhaps, take for granted. Imagine what life would be like without one or more of them.

3. How is “travel” a metaphor for a time, place, or experience in your life? Or, how is a particular form of transport a metaphor for something in your life?

4. What’s your favorite type of transportation?

5. What’s your best travel memory?

6. Is there a funny travel experience in your life?

7. Have you ever been in a situation in which you felt emotionally “transported” to another time or place?

8. Think about time travel (what it means to journey through imagination, a time machine, or a wormhole).

9. Consider this T. S. Eliot quotation, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” Can you relate Eliot’s words to a travel or transportation experience in your life?

10. Think about this quote from Buddha: “It is better to travel well than to arrive.” What does this mean or suggest to you? Can you apply it to a personal experience?

Tips:

1.  Don’t explain everything. Leave room for the reader to enter and be part of your poem.

2. Avoid clichés and the ordinary. Create images that are unique (and don’t be afraid to be different, take chances, experiment).

3. Because this poem is about travel, find ways to evoke a sense of movement in your poem. (Think in terms of language, form, and meter/sound—try to create a regular meter or metrical pattern for your poem.)

4. Use details sparingly—too many details can spoil an otherwise good poem. Don’t allow your poem to become cluttered with minutia. Too many details can make a poem feel claustrophobic.

5. Only include what’s essential. You know the old adage—if a poem only contains five good lines, then the poem should be five lines long.

6. Read your poem out loud and listen to how it sounds, then edit (tweak and refine).

Examples:

"The Railway Train" by Emily Dickinson

"From a Railway Carriage" by Robert Louis Stevenson

"Metro North" by Mark Doty

"In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound

from "Flying Home" by Galway Kinnell

"High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (video with Text)

"Portrait of a Motor Car" by Carl Sandburg

"The Flower Boat" by Robert Frost

"The Long Boat" by Stanley Kunitz

"The Empty Boats" by Vachel Lindsay

Prompt #185 – What You Don't Know (The Unexplained)

Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable.

— Albert Einstein

Our universe is filled with mysteries that neither history nor science can explain. From paranormal occurrences to UFO sightings, to mysterious creatures and places, there are both hoaxes and real phenomena that exist in the space between legend and reality. Many of these defy forensics and psychology and exist only in the shadowy archives of the unknown. What is it about the odd and unexplained that excites our curiosity and stirs our imaginations?

We’ve all read about or seen TV documentaries or fictional accounts of a Bigfoot or another moving into a dense forest, planes going down in the Bermuda Triangle, alien abductions on dark country roads, and the ghosts of British royalty lurking in dark castle halls (some without their heads).

Along with unusual phenomena of the mind, such as feelings of déjà vu, there’s something about the mysterious and the unexplained that invites us to explore—to be thrilled and frightened by— such subjects.

Psychology suggests that the mysterious and unexplained are uniquely linked to human experience. They are certainly linked to human entertainment.

This week, let’s create some special “entertainment” with a poem about something weird, odd, or unexplained.

Guidelines:

1. Some subject ideas:

            Bigfoot

            Bermuda Triangle

Loch Ness Monster

            Stonehenge

            Jack the Ripper

Out-of-Body Experience

Ghosts (Poltergeists)

UFOs or Aliens

Crop Circles

Chupacabras

2. Have you ever had an “unexplained experience,” something otherworldly? If so, write a poem about it.

3. Is there a particular unsolved mystery that interests you (Bigfoot, Shroud of Turin, ghosts)?

4. Consider writing from the point of view of an unexplained creature or mysterious person (Jack the Ripper, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, a chupacabra, a ghost, an alien life form).

5. You might want to think about a spiritual or faith-based poem dealing with a subject such as the Shroud of Turin.

Tips:

1. Create a feeling or tone that fits your subject.

2. Use language that suits your content and tone.

3. Work on a sense of the visual.

4. Think in terms of sonic impression—the music you make in your poem. Figure out how you can use sounds to enhance the “music” of your words (alliteration, assonance, internal rhyme, off-rhyme, anaphora).

5. Pose a question that’s impossible to answer.

6. Can you move beyond the obvious subject of your poem and suggest a deeper meaning?

7. Try to create a concluding image that will startle your readers with its unexpectedness.

Examples:

"Stonehenge" by T. S. Salmon

"At Stonehenge" by Rosemary Dobson

"The Shroud of Turin" by Georges

"The Abduction" by Stanley Kunitz

"The White Fires of Venus" by Denis Johnson

"The Bermuda Triangle" by John Kinsella

"The Vampire" by Rudyard Kipling

"The Ghost" by Paul Mariani

"Shadwell Stair" by Wilfred Owen

"Spirit Birds" by Stanley Plumley

"The Loch Ness Monster's Song" by Edwin Morgan (Poem & Audio)

Prompt #184 – Opulent Odes

I’d never written an intentional ode before learning that I was going to be honored with the 2014 Kean University Distinguished Alumni Award. Apart from being profoundly grateful for such an unexpected honor, I found the idea of making a ten-minute speech at the awards ceremony a little daunting. I knew from the get-go that instead of a traditional speech, I’d much prefer to write and read a poem for Kean U.

It didn’t occur to me until much after the poem was written that it is indeed an ode, not in any formal sense, but definitely in spirit. I began to research the form, having little prior interest in odes other than perhaps Keats’s “Ode to A Grecian Urn” (and that only because I like Keats).

An ode is generally defined as a poem in which someone or something is addressed in an elevated style or manner and written in rhymed or unrhymed form with varied or irregular meter.

Historically, odes were invented and popularized by the Greek poet Pindar. Originally accompanied by a chorus and dance, and then taken to heart by the Romantic poets to convey strong sentiments, there are three types of odes: Pindaric, Horatian, and Irregular.

Pindaric odes contain a formal opening (a strophe) with a complex metrical structure, followed by an antistrophe (which echoes the opening) and an epode (the closing section of a different length and composed with a different metrical structure). William Wordsworth’s “Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” is a  good example of an English-language Pindaric ode.

Horatian odes are named for the Roman poet Horace and tend to be more tranquil and contemplative than Pindaric odes. Less formal, less solemn, and geared more to gentle reading than performance, Horatian odes typically use a regular, repeating stanza pattern. An excellent example of the Horatian Ode is Allen Tate’s “Ode to the Confederate Dead.”

Irregular odes have been written with a range of formal possibilities, sometimes recalling the themes and tones of Classical odes.  Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” which I mentioned earlier, was based on the poet’s experiments with sonnet form. Other well-known odes include Percy Bysshe Shelley's “Ode to the West Wind,” Robert Creeley's “America,” and Robert Lowell's “Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket.”

Of course, it’s not poetically incorrect to write an ode that’s not Pindaric, Horatian, or Irregular. You can make up your own form and simply write a poem that honors or praises someone or something in any way that you choose (see #6 under “guidelines”). So ... don't be frightened off by what may seem  lofty or ambitious. Have fun with this!

Guidelines:

1. Generally, stanza length, meter, and rhyme are flexible in ode composition, which leaves you lots of room for experimentation and creativity.

2. The ode is traditionally a longish poetic form. Because you’re honoring someone or something, you’ll want to include a fair amount of description and/or detail. Think about writing your ode in four-line stanzas with a minimum of about five stanzas.

3. If you choose to write a Pindaric Ode, remember that this form of ode traditionally tends to be serious in tone and often has a historical perspective. Typically, Pindaric odes celebrated deities, important people, places, and events (rather than more commonplace people or things) in a tone that was somewhat distant or detached and something less than passionate.  Keep in mind that Pindaric Odes repeat a three-stanza pattern throughout the entire poem (a triad that consists of the strophe, antistrophe, and epode).

4. If you choose to write a Horatian Ode, remember that this form of ode doesn’t have a fixed stanza length, but each stanza in your ode should have the same number of lines (as few as two or three lines or as many as 20 or 30 lines). Every stanza in a Horatian Ode should be the same length—if there are four lines in your first stanza, then every other stanza should have four lines. Traditionally, Horatian Odes are personal but are somewhat reserved with emotions more muted than wildly fervent.

5. If you choose to write an Irregular Ode, be aware that this form of ode has no predetermined number of lines and, unlike other ode forms, each stanza within a single ode can contain a different number of lines (though they may be the same or similar if you wish). An Irregular Ode might consist of five three-line stanzas that are book-ended by two stanzas of five lines each.

6. And … I’ll add the “Freeform Ode” in which you praise or honor someone or something without any attention to format all: no set number of lines, no set number of stanzas (stichic format is fine too), no rhyme, and no prescribed meter. You’re free to be as distant or as passionate as you like!

Tips:

1.  An ode should only be focused on a single topic, so choose wisely.

2. Think in terms of  person, object, place, idea, relationship, animal/pet, or a time in your life for your subject. Because an ode praises and honors its subject, be sure to choose a subject that will allow you to develop a strong emotional center.

3. Decide how long you want your ode to be, and be sure not to over-write it. Although odes  have been on the long side by tradition, that doesn’t mean yours has to be a long poem.

4. Decide on a stanza format that appeals to you (number of lines and number of stanzas). You may want to write for a while before making these determinations.

5. You may want to try a rhyme scheme for your ode—if you do, be sure to avoid the pitfall of  making meaning subordinate to rhyme.

6. Edit carefully and delete extraneous material, details, and overstated emotions.

7. Work toward a sense of elegance in both content and style.

8. Don’t be afraid to adopt a lighthearted approach, especially if you choose to write a Freeform Ode. You might enjoy writing an ode on an unexpected subject (i.e., a cockroach, a head cold, weeds in your garden, a person you dislike). Be sure to “play” with your idea through romantic language, linguistic frills and flourishes, and a convincing argument for praising your unexpected subject idea.

Examples:

  

"Ode on A Grecian Urn" by John Keats

"Ode to America" by Robert Creeley

"Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Childhood" by William Wordsworth

"Homage to My Hips" by Lucille Clifton

 By way, of sharing, click here to read the ode to Kean University that I read at the Alumni Awards Ceremony.