On Writing Poetry, Part 2

This section talks about adverbs, nouns, and verbs in poetry, but first, the capitalization of titles. In all titles for prose and poetry verbs are capitalized, even if they are only two letters long, such as am, be, and do. The first word in a title is always capitalized, even if it is a two-letter preposition, as in Of Human Bondage, Of Mice and Men, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Adverbs and adjectives are capitalized, though articles are not unless they are the first word of titles, as in “The King’s Speech” but “Speak of the King.” Prepositions are capitalized if they are more than five letters, as in “Over the River and Through the Woods” but “Through the Woods and over the River.” All sources may not quite agree with this about prepositions, but my guide is The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, and what many editors prefer.

According to Nobel laureate, García Márquez, the –ly adverbs should never appear in your writing. For example, the adverb happily. The reader cannot know by this word if the happy one is tickled pink or laughing his head off, for the adverb carries no picture that the poet sees. Others of this ilk are awfully, kindly, quickly, slowly, and terribly, but there are oodles more. Whenever you are tempted to use such adverbs, switch gears and go for the exact noun and the powerful verb: perhaps ransom instead of money and cheesecake instead of dessert; zoomed instead of went and trilled instead of sang.

Nouns are a problem with many but it’s easy to understand the solution: use concrete nouns. Concrete nouns are names of things you can touch, such as desk, chair, plum, tree, and money. Touch, remember. This does not include hear, taste, smell, and see. The names of the senses themselves are not concrete nouns, but abstract ones. Here are some abstract nouns that ordinarily do nothing for your poetry: love, beauty, pain, time, death, yearning, happiness, joy, sorrow, contentment, excitement, surprise, faith, longing, and those that end in -ity, -acy, -ness, -ment, -ion, and the like. These do not paint a picture. One famous poem, “How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, is the exception to this rule. However, she uses several one-syllable abstract nouns in the fourteen lines, such as death, love, depth, height, and breadth, and only three or so longer abstractions, being, level, and passion, if my memory serves me right.

Right on the heels of not using the –ly adverb comes the recent stress on cutting down on adjectives. This has always been true but if you haven’t read much and long of poetry, this probably got past you. My favorite tip is, “Cut to the bone.” Have only necessary words on the page. Leave out very, for example. In these two expressions: “It was cold” and “It was very cold”, which one is colder than the other? It can depend on how you read them aloud, but treating them alike, I say the shorter sentence is colder. It can be super cold without icicles hanging from it.

Of course, all parts of speech are for our use, just as the passive voice is for our use. We just have to read widely and long and study how good writing merits being called good. That can take a lifetime, but what a life! If anyone wants to know, I opted some time ago to write prose and not poetry. But if I do not stay occupied with the prose, poetic phrases pop into my head and I long to write poetry. These blogs are a fast job, for I’m not aiming for immortal prose, but for just communication. More TLC goes into my other writing. By the way, Dr. Seuss spent a year writing The Cat in the Hat. Do you have that kind of patience and determination? I spent most of a day recently writing a short story and have been picking at it every day since. Until a submission has gone out, I do pick at it until the reading indicates no better options

Part 3, the final part, will be about the turn of the phrase. That’s where the beauty comes into poetry or into any writing.

♥