Ekphrastic Poetry

By Laurie Epps

Ekphrastic Poetry is the topic for January 2014. But before we go any further, we must discuss what ekphrastic poetry is. Loosely, the word Ekphrasis means the writer is making a comment about another art form or is making a response to it.

A classic example is John Keats poem, "Ode to a Grecian Urn." I will be writing this style all month, and I welcome you to also send entries for my January 30, 2014 column.

Twas the Night Before Finals

By Laurie Epps

With finals recently over, the topic of this poem is near and dear to my heart. When my girlfriend beamed with pride over her son's poem, I listened to the words thoughtfully. When I stopped laughing, I thought, "Hey, it's pretty good."

Happy Winter Break to all the college students out there. For now, enjoy. Merry Christmas everyone.

Thanksgiving Bird

By Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy

Turkey Tree

Thanksgiving is here - you can tell by the Christmas decorations and music everywhere! The main Thanksgiving decoration, though, is the turkey. From the golden-brown skin on the table to the slender wishbone on the kitchen windowsill, we revel in the turkey, even if we don't care that much for eating it.

Although the turkey was not Benjamin Franklin's first nor his official recommendation for the symbol on the Great Seal (these were the rattlesnake and a scene of Moses and Pharaoh, respectively), he had this to say about the turkey:

Writing Challenges

By Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy

One way to focus on your writing practice is to participate in a challenge. Most are familiar with NaNoWriMo, in which the participants try to write 50,000 words (the length of a short novel) during the month of November. But some write to write something shorter - like poetry. What challenges are out there for them?

For those looking to do something short and sweet, there's NaHaiWriMo, a month with daily challenges in writing haiku. As in all of these challenges, you are provided with a topic each day, and you try to write your best haiku about that topic.

Words of Thanks

By Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy

November has been a month of thankfulness in the United States since the Civil War. Since right from the beginning, Thanksgiving has been associated with war. So it is fitting that we offer thanks early in the month for our veterans - those who have fought for us, and returned to model their sacrifice in their civilian lives or their continued service.

We give thanks for them, and we give them thanks. Unfortunately, it is often all we can give those who have given themselves wholly for us. Let’s use what we’ve been given - words - to participate in some way in the gift these warriors have given to us.

The Internet

By Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy

The Original Internet Explorer Logo

We all have a love\hate relationship with the internet. We can’t imagine life without it, unless it’s when we’re telling our kids how bad we had it back in the good old days. I don’t know about you, but I rarely pick up pen and paper anymore, or read a book that isn’t formatted for screen. Virtually all of my writing is done and distributed by bits and bytes.

Acrostic Poetry

By Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy

If you are looking for a challenge, or for inspiration, a fun way to play with words is to try writing an acrostic poem. In an acrostic poem, the first letter of each line is part of a sequence, usually a word or a phrase. A well-known biblical acrostic poem is Psalm 119 (118), in which each stanza has all of it’s lines begin with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet in order.

How to Write Poetry for Children (And Everyone Else, Too)

By Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy

A young friend read this poem to me earlier this week, and then she read it over and over. It caused me to consider what makes a poem connect with its readers, even when it is something so simple as this:

My Kitten

By Marchette Chute

Kitten, my kitten

soft and dear

I’m so glad

that you are here

Sitting together

just us two

You loving me

and me loving you.”

~from Surprises (I Can Read Book 3) Paperback by Lee Bennett Hopkins

What can we learn about connecting with readers from this simple children’s poem?

Use a Familiar Theme

Sitting with a kitten in your lap is a common pleasurable activity for nearly everyone, especially every child. Whether you are writing for children, women, theology buffs, or even men ;-) there is always something common to them that will develop that instant interest in what you have to say. I tend to be guilty of writing from obscure ideas that excite me but mean nothing to other people - they can be fun, but they don’t get feedback from the readers that makes writing a communal effort. Writing from the familiar goes to where the reader is and brings her to where you want to go.

Use Simple Phrases

Each phrase of My Kitten holds together alone as an idea to which every child can relate. This keeps the reader engaged and following the flow of the idea. While the phrases are simple, one has a depth of meaning that makes them both functional and essential to the concept of the poem.

Use Feeling Words

Feeling words connect with the reader on a visceral level, both physically and emotionally. Words like “soft and dear”, “glad”, and even “sitting together” help the reader feel your ideas, not just understand them intellectually. And good poems, as with most good writing, are about the feelings that are evoked.

Personalize

Personalization doesn’t have to mean putting the poem into the mouth of the reader as we see in this poem. It does mean connecting with the reader’s experience, and using it to create a new experience in the reading of the poem. We as poets want our work to belong our readers in a way only each reader can experience. This poem accomplishes this in multiple layers, from the familiar activity of holding a kitten to the love we experience by being together with someone.

Here is a children’s poem suitable for this time of year - I hope it connects with you:

Mom called my brothers and me for dessert

We shot in like a cannon blast

I knew she was serving my favorite treat

And I did not want to be last

There, slopping out of our mammoth-skull bowls

Was that yummiest, oozy glop

Three towering dollops of cold eyes cream

With congealed scary on top

I gobbled it up like a monster should

Using all my fingers and toes

I ate it so fast that I choked real good

And gobs of it shot out my nose

I like to sling food at my brothers’ heads

But I love eyes cream so much more

So I used all my tongues and tails and teeth

And I licked it up off the floor

Now that my big furry belly was full

And I had swallowed every slurp

I flopped down in front of the monster box

And let out a monstrous burp

My brothers all burped out loud just like me

Then we started to scream and hop

"Bring us some more of our favorite stuff:

More eyes cream with scary on top!"

Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy is a freelance writer and poet living in the upstate of South Carolina with his wife and four children. To find his daily poetry entries, log onto: 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bad-Bad-Boy-Publications/557182874309579

or find him on Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Kenneth-OShaughnessy/

Finding Poetry in Prose

By Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy

One of my favorite authors, Ray Bradbury, primarily known for his short stories, has been called a poet, and actually published several books of poetry. But it is actually his prose 
for which he has been called a poet.

Occasional Poetry

By Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy

Have you ever heard about an event and said to yourself, “Someone should commemorate this with a poem”? Poems written for the specific occasions are, appropriately enough, called “Occasional Poetry”. An occasional poem we should all be familiar with in America is The Star Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key.

Words in Their Natural Habitat

By Kenneth A O'Shaughnessy

Words in Their Natural Habitat

Poetry is the natural use of words, even more natural than expressing facts. In fact, the word “expression” describes the purpose of poetry: it is used to communicate a feeling or idea in much the same way that a facial expression is.

The earliest human written document is poetry, the Epic of Gilgamesh. Like virtually all early human writing, this epic poem describes the relationship between man and the gods. Nearly every religion’s scriptures use poetry to communicate ideas about God.

The Ebb and Flow of Love

By Laurie Epps

This past semester in my Art History class we had a creative writing option in lieu of our term paper assignment. Being a creative writing major, and completely burnt out on a thesis driven paper, I just embraced to express myself and my ideas in a different way.

Of all the portraits, Portrait of a Young Woman by Mary Louise Elisabeth really resonated with me. I imagined the subject of this French rococo painter to have the sweet and precocious nature of Marianne as in Sense and Sensibility of Jane Austen. So I just went with my idea, and much to my essay's delight. Please send a query to my email for a copy of this essay. Embedded in the essay, was a poem from her suitor. I will share with you his poem to her below.

Crying Myself to Sleep

By Laurie Epps

May is known for May flowers, Mother's Day, and honor to our military. But this month, I am dedicating to the unsung Mothers. There are mothers out there, that never got to hold their baby, or bring their baby home. Miscarriage is so misunderstood by those who have never had one. Nothing can prevent it from happening, and if you are past ten weeks of pregnancy it means you go to the hospital to have a baby that you never bring home. This is for the moms and dads who have suffered this loss.

Lost Child of Mine

Thoughtful Thursdays: A Poetic Column

This month I wanted to do a little something different. As a veteran, and mom to three living children, and grieving mother to yet another three babies: I dedicate this month's column to you, the unsung mother's of the world. Without my own losses, these poems would not exist. I open my heart, and my empathy to you.

With great homage, and my dearest sympathy, I wish you all a very Happy Mothers Day. 
~From one mom to another

Recovery

Thoughtful Thursdays: A Poetic Column

April is National Poetry Month

Not all poetry is happy. I think of tragedy as leading to the most powerful and sublime of all poetry. We have all had our struggles. The first five years I lived in South Carolina, I was always sick. I grieved three miscarriages, and had numerous surgeries. This poem is a reflection about one of them.

Thoughtful Thursdays: A Poetic Column

On Good Friday 2007, I took my entire family down to see where my grandparents lived in the low-country of South Carolina. This was a reflective journey and a response to a story I had published about my tea parties in this old house with my beloved Grandmother. To view this story, click here Tea Time with Bammy

Thoughtful Thursdays: A Poetic Column

Modern Poetry has a different meaning depending on who you ask. But relevant poetry is very time specific. That would change almost daily. Today I'd like to talk about where art, poetry, and reality collide. I am going to give you a poem relevant to our times.

Writing Sonnets

Happy Valentines Day! The most famous type of love poem is the sonnet. So today, I'd like to talk to you about what makes a poem a sonnet, and next week we will begin to talk about how to write a sonnet, and share some local authors contributions to the sonnet. This is not your Hallmark type greeting, instead it is an art form with a very different musical sound to it that resonates sentiment.

What is a sonnet? 
Sonnets were made popular by William Shakespeare. Generally speaking, most sonnets have 14 lines and four quatrains.

• Sonnets have a very definite rhyme scheme. (Example: ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG)
• Sonnets are written in iambic pentameter. This means that each lines contains ten beats (syllables). What makes it iambic is that they alternate stressed and unstressed syllables.

Four Quatrains:

1. First Quatrain: This should establish the topic of your sonnet. Rhyme scheme: ABAB (4 lines)

2. Second Quatrain: This should establish the theme of your sonnet. Rhyme scheme: CDCD (4 lines)

3.Third Quatrain: This should round of the theme of your overall sonnet. Rhyme scheme: EFEF (4 lines)

4. Fourth Quatrain: The soul purpose of the fourth quatrain is to act as a conclusion to the sonnet. Rhyme scheme: GG (2 lines)

So give it a whirl, and you'll be writing sonnets in no time. Next week, you'll learn how to write sonnets and there will be a poet showcased. For now, give it up to the guy that started it all. 

Thoughtful Thursdays: A Poetic Column

Hello. My name is Laurie Epps. I am a senior at Anderson University and I have been writing for most of my life. My first love of writing was Poetry, so it would stand to reason that my first real column would be devoted to the craft of words and alliteration that I love so much. I hope you will come back every Thursday to see my latest work, as well as, spend time to get to know different sorts of poetry with insightful columnists who will teach you how to write it yourself.

Just so that you learn a little more about me as a writer, I received my first poetry book when I was seven years old. I memorized nearly every verse, and I was captivated by the beautiful words of poetry. Through the colorful pictures and words rich in imagery, I escaped to another world.

This past Christmas, my dad sent me my beloved old Poetry book. I cried when I opened it. It was like a long lost friend. So much of my childhood was wrapped around it's words of rhyme.

When you open my poetry book, you can tell which verses were my favorites because of the acid stains from my hands on its pages. Every stain has a memory, and an imprint from my childhood. Inside the front cover, you can see where I wrote my name in cursive for the first time.

This poem in particular, I recited to my fourth grade class from memory. My teacher was delighted that I memorized such a long poem. She was also told my parents that the other students were on the edge of their seats listening to my poem. It was the first time I can remember feeling proud of myself in my young life.

I am so excited to take this journey with all of you. Come back every Thursday, and we will begin the conversation.

Thoughtful Thursdays: A Poetic Column

Beginning
January 31, 2013

1writerlaurieepps.blogspot.com will offer a weekly column devoted to poetry. This column will start with the basics. First we will explore different types of poetry, and what makes them that type of poetry. We will offer instructions on writing the various types of poetry, and give current poets a chance to showcase their work.

So get to writing! We would love to hear from you.