Fiesta Time: National Poetry Day Poetree Workshop

'... when the stars threw down their spears ...' 

William Blake

We gathered in Gainsborough Community Library in Ipswich for a National Poetry Day afternoon. The library had a Poetree in its foyer, and we were each invited to add a poetic leaf to the branches. Of course, we had to write the poems first!

It was soon time for a series of exercises designed to flex our poetic muscles. We played a kind of 'write a poem' version of Consequences, selecting words or phrases that could be incorporated into our own poetic offerings. So eventually, armed with ideas, words and phrases, we each selected a fine art picture ... and tried to harness our thoughts, ensuring that we had a brief but pretty well honed piece to transcribe onto our respective leaves.

Each person had been invited to bring and share a favourite poem, and we had the chance to say why our choices particularly appealed. I chose The Tyger by William Blake. It was one of the first animal poems to roar along into the poetic menagerie of my childhood. It is, I believe, a poem that can appeal to young and old alike. It celebrates the creative process, and you can almost hear the hammer banging away on the anvil as you read it aloud. Other selected poets included (among others) Eliot, Wordsworth and Yeats.

Poetree leaves, T.S. Eliot poems, pens, paper and coffee ...

... the leafy ingredients ...

... of much industry ...

We gathered by the Poetree ...

... to hang our leaves...

... on the green branches ...

... inside the green library building ...

... where a lot of fun ...

... was had by all!

This could be you!

Fiesta Time: National Poetry Day 2012

'when the stars threw down their spears ...' William Blake (artwork © C Gill)

I wonder how you will be celebrating National Poetry Day!

I am looking forward to the Gainsborough Community Library poetry workshop here in Ipswich. We shall be toning our poetry muscles and honing our poetry techniques. Each participant is due to present a favourite poem. No prizes for guessing which one I have chosen!

I hope to throw a link to NPD sites I see during the day ... so let's start with the official National Poetry Day site, which can be found here.

• National Poetry Day with the Poetry Society
• If you are in to txting, 'Texperiments' might be the activity for you.
• Poetry Prescription ... a panacea for all poetic ills
• Poetry Magazine (USA) reaches 100!

Ars Poetica (1): William Blake and Metaphor

'Little Lamb, who made thee?"
William Blake
Songs of Innocence*

I came across a fascinating article in the New York Times of 25 September 1910 (a century ago - almost!) in which Mr Arthur Symone is noted for having described Blake's imagination as 'visual' and of a kind more 'natural to a painter' (which, of course, he was - as well as a poet) than to an 'imaginative writer'.

According to Symone, the painter "sees an image or metaphor as a literal reality, while the other, seeing it not less vividly but in a more purely mental way, adds a 'like' or an 'as' and the image or metaphor comes to you with its apology or attenuation and takes you less by surprise."

We all know the power of metaphor today in our writing; but are there still instances, I wonder, when a simile does the trick in a way that cannot be matched?

How about:

• My love is like a red, red rose (Robert Burns)

• The Albatross fell off, and sank
  Like lead into the sea (Coleridge)

• The ranks pulled closer, tight as a mason packs a good stone wall (Homer in translation)

What poets have said:

• All metaphor is poetry (G.K. Chesterton)
  

• Simile and Metaphor [are] things inessential to poetry (A.E. Housman)
  

Do take a look at this article by Tim Love, and see what you make of the given examples of metaphor and simile. The one by prize-winning poet, Alice Oswald, stands out for me.


* N.B. The Little Lamb poem by Blake includes a line of metaphor about the vales rejoicing,
presumably paraphrasing biblical metaphors such as this one from Psalm 65:13:

'The pastures are clothed with flocks;
the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.'