The poetry of it all….

Most of my posts have been about fiction - but this one is a shot out to all the poets out there!

I have written many poems - MANY. I have a drawer full of them. Some are handwritten, some typed, some in cd and thumb drive forms. There's my thick portfolio from my college "creative poetry" class, a notebook that was started when I was about 10 or 11, another from what I label "the darker days" in high school. Again. Many!

I don't write as many poems these days, mostly because my head is lost in the clouds of fiction flying from the recesses of my mind. However, I still do write them - sometimes even to practice figurative language in a more free form environment.

(As for those who passed their literature classes years ago - figurative language uses figures of speech for impact and color. Alliterations simulate similar sounds in the sentence. (See what I did there, with the "s" sound?) Similes use the words "like" or "as" to compare things. (Ex: His breath smelled like the ocean had spit out its dead.) Metaphors serve a similar purpose, but without the use of "like" or "as." (Ex: He was a breath of fresh air.) Personification gives human qualities to something that isn't. (Ex: The tree reached towards the heavens, holding its leaves for the sky.) There are many more types of figurative language, but I will stop there.)

The use of poetry is an excellent tool for any writer to utilize when stuck in the muck and mire of the mundane. (Sorry, I just can't stop myself!) It helps remind us to bring color to our pages - even the most technical of dialogue can be spruced up with a touch of figurative language.

The Boy

Little tuff of light blonde hair,

He's only four years old,

But leaves his tired mother's side,

Ignoring what he's told.

Shamelessly and there to shock,

He wanders to the street,

And right before our very eyes,

Lets his pants fall to his feet!

The embarrassed mother runs to him,

As the crowd all laughs inside,

Her naughty little boy just runs,

With butt bare, he tries to hide.

But when she caught him in her arms,

Of that I won't forget,

She covered him with kisses,

Not saying what she might regret.

(An example of what popped onto a page when I had a writers block, years ago…this ties in, a bit, to writing the antics of children (previous blog post), I just imagined what an observer may have thought about a scene with my son and I. It worked, too - wrote me right into novel land!)