Hi again folks
Thanks for sticking by me. I'm sorry for not posting too regularly recently but life's a bummer and has to rear its ugly head just when you were getting into the swing.
Still, I'm back and the old engine is up and puffing and it is time to let off some steam.


While I was doing some bedtime reading I found this insight that I've never really thought about but seemingly thoroughly understand:

    "There are secrets in music and poetry. Secrets few knew and even fewer understood. Their power often stole into a listener subtle as the memory of scent on a drawn breath, less than a whisper, yet capable of transforming the one gifted, an instinctual ecstasy that made troubles vanish, that made all manner of grandeur possible - indeed within reach..."

    I have probably got the wrong end of the stick with this one but I think that he is saying that poetry and music do not have to be blunt instruments that we, as the authors use to ram our message into our readers' forebrains but more like acupuncture needles that pierce the thick "skin" of our conscious minds and alter the pathways beneath to allow our older, more primitive brains to receive and react.
    The same author goes onto say:

    "A skilled storyteller, a wise storyteller knows that at certain moments in the course of a cycle of a day and night, the path into the soul of a listener was smooth, unobstructed, a succession of massive gates that swung open to a feather's touch. This was the most precious secret of all. Dusk, midnight and that strange period of sudden wakefulness known as the watch - yes, the night and its stealthy approach belonged to the heart"
(Reproduced without permission - Steven Erikson "Toll the Hounds" pp 553)

    That has to be some of the truest fictional writing I've ever read. It must be why ghost stories work so well as the sun dies or the moon coats all with its glistening light.

    Could it be possible that make up poems and break up poems can be easier to write at certain times of the day?
    Dawn, the rising of the sun, the new day could be a brilliant time to write a life-affirming make-up poem. A new day, a new love life, a new you ??
    The same could be said of dusk, the drawing down and out of the evening light, the increase in the darkness, the reducing temperature could very well mirror the ending of a relationship, the cooling of the fires between you, the specter of a time coming, alone and lonely.

    Can that be turned over..would the best time to end a relationship be the first thing on a sunny morning when the warmth outdoors could thaw the resulting ice in the heart? The making-up done in the evening when companionship holds back the encroaching, perceived fears of the night?

    Even further.. end a relationship on a Sunday morning, make-up on a Friday night? Finish with them in the Spring and mend in the Winter?

    Hmmm.. worth a thought isn't it?

Limericks
As I said back in "Lesson 1": limericks  are short, stand -alone poems that are only 5 lines long. Being short, you the poet, have to use the right words to get your meaning across.

The history of why limericks are called "limericks" is very cloudy. The common thought is that the name stemmed from an Irish drinking game where each contestant would sing or say a whole verse and then the next contestant would say his piece. Repetition and pausing were not allowed and were punishable by forfeits (usually drinking ones!). As these verses were usually dependent on rhyming place names with people, the city of "Limerick" gave massive problems with rhymes unless a truly gross word was used. This is the idea why so many limericks seem to start:
"There was an old man from Tralee... " etc. etc.
This gave rise to most Limericks being foul, nasty rhymes but funny with it.

This is one of the most common Limericks out there; you may recognize it!

Hickory, dickory dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one
The mouse ran down
Hickory dickory dock

As you can see Lines 1, 2 and 5 are rhyming with each other and lines 3 and 4 also rhyme with each other.
They also have a fairly rigid syllable structure:

Hick | or | y | dick | or | y | dock
The | mouse | ran | up | the | clock
The | clock | struck | one
The | mouse | was | done
Hick | or | y | dick | or | y | dock

Seeing as this is a blog about breakups and makeups;  how about a breakup limerick then:

He thought her a bit over-rated
She said that he was out-dated
Strange as it seems
They both had bad dreams
Now they are two, unrelated!

Personally I would think that using Limericks as a style of breakup poem would be difficult due to them being on the whole funny, nonsense verses.

Why bother with poetry?

Poetry is the expression of a thought, an idea, an emotion or a story in a particular way that has a flow and a rhythm created by the sounds and syllables in it.

As an acquaintance of mine (Mr. D. Siluk  Ed.D.) has written:
"First if you can write poetry well, you can write anything well, it is the highest form of writing, or is suppose to be. Second I repeated what I had said the first time, go check the bookstores, they got large sections of poetry. There is art and skill in poetry. And third or forth, poetry is a little story the author is telling you, and yes, they have to condense it, and most often go according to a style, and it can be often times only read by someone who has experience what you have, but then so is prose in a way, it is just that prose is smoother to read. And if you use a lot of adjectives, you might be getting into poetic prose and you don't even know it."
You can find the whole article here: Questions On Poetry(From the Smart Guys)

I like that first point "...if you can write poetry well, you can write anything well...".
Why? Simply because you have to think when composing poetry. You have to think about what you are trying to say, you have to think of the words that will carry the most "punch", you have to think of style, rhyme, rhythm, meter. Which leads me onto the second point he stated :" There is art and skill in poetry ". There sure is !

All types of poetry are often written in several styles. These styles are defined by the number of lines in each stanza or verse, the syllables used in each line or how rhyme is used and so on. Here is a list of the main styles of poetry that I'll be discussing over the next few days.

Limericks, Haikus and Cinquains:
These poems have one thing in common; they're short! Each of them is only three or five lines long. They are useful in getting the reader to use his imagination when he reads the lines. They can be funny, thought-provoking and/or even educational!

Couplets, Quatrains and Sonnets:
Couplets are the most popular and most widely used style of poetry where the verse (or stanza) is made up of 2 lines which rhyme with each other.
The Quatrain is a 4 line stanza where the 2nd and 4th line rhyme and have a similar syllable set-up.
The Sonnet is a stand alone 14 line poem usually made up of 3 quatrains and 1 couplet

Free Verse and Ballads:
Free Verse is as it sounds. It follows no rules (or possibly breaks them all!) when it comes to structure, rhyming or line length and is getting to be quite common with modern poets.
Ballads are an older style of writing poetry where the poem tells a story. They were usually sung and so they had a "verse" of 8-10 lines and a "chorus" or refrain of 5 lines where the last line was always repeated.

Epics, Iambic Pentameter:
Epics are seriously long poems that are very descriptive. Some of them are so long that they become books in their own right! "Beowulf" or Homer's "Iliad" are examples of epics.
Iambic Pentameter seems to be a fairly complicated way of writing poetry. Basically "iambic" means that there is a short syllable followed by a long syllable and the "pentameter" means that the short and long is repeated five times. It sounds difficult but once you see the examples you'll understand!

OK. Here endeth the first lesson!

John

P.S. If you know of anyone who would like to see their poetry online then ask them to leave a comment and I'll put them up on this site for free.

Breakup Poems' Blog

Hi, welcome to  Breakup Poems' blog.
Here you will find helpful tips on poetry and how to use to use it to...well, do whatever you want with it... whether you want to diss your ex or try and mend those burning bridges.
Also you'll find tips and methods on breaking up, making up and all the stuff in-between as well.
I also hope to add videos and audio as I find good/useful ones..if you have any tips then please leave a comment and I'll check them out