Poetry

This post is, as the title states, about poetry. I have been learning about poetry recently and, it isn't as simple as it seems. Believe me. There are a lot of things that need to be considered when writing a good piece of poetry, not some kid language like:

I love u,
U love me,
We are one big family.

Try writing that for your poetry assignment, but don't say that I told you to do so.

There are many different kinds of poetry. There are the traditional poetries which actually rhyme. You can't find many poems written in 2010 which rhyme although many songs still do.

LIMERICKS

Then there are the limericks, which are basically funny, ridiculous poems. They are the type of poems I love the most. However, the tricky part to writing a limerick is that it usually consists of five lines and the whole poem is normal except for the last line. The first two lines and the last line usually rhyme while the third and fourth lines usually rhyme with each other as well. Here are two samples:

There was a young lady from Lop
Who drank a large bottle of pop
She drank it so quick,
Every sip, every lick
That she swallowed the bottle and pop

This one is exceedingly ridiculous and humorous, so, five-stars!!

There was a young man from Perth,
Who was born on the day of his birth.
He was married they say,
On his wife's wedding day
And died on his last day on earth.


Now I am going to try to write a limerick myself.
Here goes nothing!!

There was once a gangster named Dave,
Who was feared and hated all of his days,
Till one day he died,
And the people rejoiced,
And poured burning kerosene on his grave.

Not bad, if I say so myself...



In every poem, there are lines, which you probably know, and stanzas, which are like paragraphs in stories. There is also a tone in every poem and a pace.

I will elaborate more on pace since it is quite difficult to understand.

Read this tongue twister out loud:

She sells seashells on the seashore.
The shells she sells are seashells I'm sure.
But if she sells seashells on the seashore,
Then the shells she sells are seashore shells.

Then read this other tongue twister out loud too:

Peter Piper bought a peck of pickled peppers,
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper did pick,
So if Peter Piper did pick a peck of pickled peppers,
How many pecks of pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?


Compare the two. You will definitely notice that the first tongue twister is slower than the first. This is because if you pronounce 'p', it is kind of quick, but if youu pronounce 's' the pronounciation will lag so it is impossible to make the first tongue twister seem faster than the second even if you read the first much faster than the second.