Poetry Monthly

March’s brief was to use repetition in your work. Not as easy as it sounds because rhythm needs to cooperate, too. Thank you to Silver Spun Sand for the gift of her idea. Here are three gorgeous poems chosen for the distinct ways in which they use repetition:

Bear’s dynamic  poem is a kaleidoscope of rhythm, live with energy: http://www.abctales.com/story/bear/poetess-poetry-monthly

Philip Sidney bought us the music of broken glass and the highs of non conformity: http://www.abctales.com/story/philip-sidney/again-and-again-poetry-monthly

Rhiannon brings all the movement of water to a climactic sound release: http://www.abctales.com/story/rhiannonw/flowing-%E2%80%A6-poetry-monthly

This month I challenge you to make prose-poetry. A popular form with contemporary poets, it sits between prose and poetry with all the benefits of both.  Crucially, it looks like a block or passage of prose without the use of conventional line breaks and stanzas but sounds like poetry. It has a compelling beauty but it’s notoriously difficult to define with any ease.  Poets.org pins it down pretty well, ‘the prose poem maintains a poetic quality, often utilizing techniques common to poetry, such as fragmentation, compression, repetition, and rhyme.’ ( https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/prose-poem) So there you go. Write hard. The American poet Carrie Etter teaches prose-poetry and her blog site features some cutting edge prose-poetry for inspiration: http://carrieetter.blogspot.co.uk/ Also, see Helen Ivory’s literary prose and poetry webzine Ink Sweat and Tears which frequently features high quality prose-poetry: http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/

Please share Poetry Monthly with like-minded writers and new poets looking for spurs. If you can share the link on social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter, more writers will join and widen the chain of creativity.

See you next month and thanks for all your contributions.

Ray

Photo Credit: http://tinyurl.com/zndjr7z