To Rhyme Or Not To Rhyme?

That certainly is the question so many poets toy with when they first begin to write poetry. They have the words inside that want to come out, but they're not sure of the best way to go with their words.

Many poets, including well published ones, tend to write rhyming poetry, other well published poets may never write rhyming poetry. So, as a new poet, which way should you go? The question can tie your head up in knots, so you never get any poetic words on the page at all.

The answer though is simple. Write the words down first, play with them until they shimmer and shine and can bring to the mind of the reader of your poem what you want to show them. This can be an image that struck you, a person you know, an experience you wish to share and a million other things. Then give your words to the world and let others tell you whether they can see what you wanted to show them.

You can do this in a strict poetic form, such as a sonnet or villanelle, or you can do it with the free-est free verse ever. The important thing is to get the words down and polish them until they do their work.

If you end up writing free verse, be prepared to listen to the doubters, who will never agree to free verse being poetry, rather than cut short prose. These people are wrong. That's all there is to it, they are wrong. Poetry is not prose. In prose, the words are put down on the page, one after another until you run out of room for that line and start the next. With poetry, you carefully consider where the line best ends, which word goes best with which other word, and how the whole thing looks, and feels on the page.

There have been many fine writers who have written further on this subject. I'm not going to write much more, except to say this - for me, the poem tells me whether it will be a rhyming poem, or free verse. The poem knows.

Anyone For Cricket?

I received a lovely little book in the mail yesterday. It was a book of poems, all about cricket! If you think cricket's boring, then you'd have to take that back, because the poems in this collection are terrific.

The poems are the best poems from the 2011 Cricket Poetry Award, and there is a great variety of poetic styles. It was the third year of the competition. Entry is open to poets from cricketing nations around the world, with the award worth $2000!

If anyone's interested in knowing more about this, go here - you'll find everything you need to know on the site. The whole thing is a fascinating melding of sport and art, with a painting competition being held annually as well.

So, if you like your cricket with class, shy not have a go at writing your own cricket poem. there is so much passion about this amazing game, it's sure to attract some fantastic entries again this year - and your poem can be one of them.

I'm already thinking about my own poem. My poem, when I write it, will be some kind of remembrance of my older brother, Jeff West, a keen cricketer at the Gaza Sports Club, and a fine club member. Left hand spin was one of his things...

Come on Aussies!

Poetry competition winners

I'm the only person in the entire world who knows the names of the winners from the Adelaide Plains Poets Inc poetry competition. The judge has chosen the poems, but doesn't know the names of the winners. I know, and I'm not telling!

I'm not here to brag about knowing something no-one else knows (well, only a bit), I'm here to beef up a bit of interest in poetry, particularly amongst students. The love for poetry waxes and wanes over the years, and I fear at the moment it may be waning.

There aren't enough teachers out there with a big enough love of poetry to help their students to learn to love poetry too. I've played a small role in fostering a love of poetry in others, with my involvement with the Adelaide Plains Poets poetry competition. I've been the President and competition of APPI since the group began in 2005.

The entries for the competition have come from all across Australia, and the numbers of entries were rising every year, until a health issue I have, slowed my efforts in 2010/2011, when very few entries were received, because people just didn't know about the competition.

This financial year my health has been better, or at least I'm dealing with it better, and we received a strong entry again for 2012. The quality of the winners is impressive, and the judge very much enjoyed judging the entries this year, as have other judges in other years.

The winners of the competition will be announced at the next Gawler Poets at the Pub on 25th of March, 2pm at the Prince Albert Hotel. The prizes for this competition are good, with a prize pool of at least $500 available for winning poets. The details of the next competition will be announced on this blog, in writers centres around Australia, and in other places where poetry is loved and spoken of.

There's a Facebook page for Gawler Poetry Readings, and there will be details there too. Go there and read all about the fun and games with Poetry in Gawler!

Details for the next annual competition will be announced here when they come out, and in the meantime, take a look around the blog, and get involved in talking about poetry! After the winners are officially announced in Gawler, they will be published here, and the judges' speech will be published here too.

The speeches from some of the earlier judges are published on this blog, search for them and you can read about what they thought. If you'd like to know more about any of this, feel free to contact me, my details are on the home page here.
Carolyn Cordon, President and competition secretary Adelaide Plains Poets Inc

Writing Poems that will Never See the Light of Day

Yesterday I wrote a new poem. I was early for the Gawler Poetry Readings to begin, so I got out my lined paper and began writing a new poem.

The writing of this poem had two purposes. Firstly, it was something to do while I waited for everyone else to arrive, and secondly, it was an opportunity to record some of my thoughts on the interesting political matters that had been attracting a lot of my attention.

The political matters pertain to the leadership of the Australian Labor Party. I went a little mad on Friday and Saturday, avidly following tweets to #respill, where the political comments flew fast and thick. I put in some tweets of my own, and picked up and lost a few followers, having some of my own tweets retweeted. This was a little bit of a thrill for me.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about here, don't worry, it's not actually terribly important, in the greater scheme of things. No lives were lost, and only metaphorical shots were fired. I like to pretend I'm one of the 'players' in political journalism, but of course my readership and follow numbers are minimal... It amuses me and keeps me off the streets, so that may be a good thing!

Anyway. The leadership challenge has happened now. Australia still has its first female prime minister who far too many of my fellow Australians hate, and the opposition leader is still abhorrent to me. We shall see how it all pans out over the next few days, weeks or months.

I may get out that poem I wrote yesterday, or I may leave it to sink into obscurity. It doesn't matter, the words are down, and my time was spent in a way I enjoyed. All poems are important to me, but they're not all important for the same reasons...

Do you ever write poems that aren't necessarily there to be shared? Please tell...

After My Month of Poetry - January

Last month was a full on month of poetry, not  just for me, but for many others. Well known
Queensland poet Kathryn Apel called for interested poets to join her for the month of January to be part of her Month of Poetry team.


Many others joined her, and were given the choice of either posting a daily poem, or posting an occasional poem. There were no penalties if one didn't meet the criteria, but I, and I suspect many others, became addicted to meeting the challenge of writing and posting a new poem every day.


The website where this took place was a closed site, and participants were given passwords to get into the relevant part of the site. It was extremely well run, and the poets seemed to thrive there. We were encouraged to not just post our own poem, but to read and comment on the poems of the other poets there. It was in effect an online critique group.


The poets involved were wonderful, some of them very fine poets indeed, and I read some wonderful poetry in the month of January 2012. I've become Facebook friends, and a Twitter follower of a few of the Month of Poetry members, and I hope the connection will continue and strengthen over time.


In December, when I let Kathryn know I was keen on joining this site, I had no idea exactly what I was letting myself in for. I had hoped I'd write some poems and hoped I could manage one a day (challenging!), but I had no idea of the joy and creativity burst that would occur.


I found it was easy to write a poem every day, and I in fact wrote more than the thirty one poems, one a day, that the challenge demanded. I in fact wrote at least one poem every day in January and on some days I wrote more than one poem (I wrote at least 45 poems in January). I was thrilled with that, and I was thrilled with the way my writing for January went beyond the writing of poetry. 


I found more things to write about, and began to post to some of my blogs much more often than usual. This is pleasing to me. I call myself a poet and writer but if I can stick with the increased blog posting, I'll feel comfortable enough to call myself a blogger too. I'm getting more followers on my blogs, especially this blog, so that day is getting closer.


A great side effect of the Month of Poetry for January is the increase in creativity with my various kinds of writing, which is still going on now, after January is over. I hope to keep this up, and continue writing more, and more often. I've written more poems this month than any other month, apart from January 2012, my Month of Poetry. 


So thank you so much to Kathryn and all of the lovely poets who kept me company for January 2012!