I write here because my reply was too long in coming and too long for a youtube comment. 1. Whether it be a novel, a record or a poem critical acclaim and commercial success rarely coincide. Which is a problem for critics and educators whose curriculum is influenced by critical arguments. I think the problem comes because critics don't ground their analysis and comments to lay opinion; to determent of critical arguments. In days of T S Elliot, I have read extracts from his critical texts, he was concern that his opinion not simply be conceit. Whilst analysis done by practising poets, seem to embody T S Elliot's restraint, lots of modern critics 1

In a recent Adam Gary YouTube stream I left a comment that the first step in writing poetry was to obtain a set of headphones phones, write and then record what you have written and listen to it through headphones. Whilst researching a poem of my own I found the following explanation on Reddit by Bruce Williams. My paraphrase When you hear your own voice through bone conduction. Vibrations o sounds in the throat resonate against bones in the jaw. This vibration is conducted up the jaw to the middle ear. But when anyone else ( including microphones) hears your voice they are hearing your voice transmitted through air. The above is why using recording and headphones is important when starting to write poems, but also the first step in editing

Just a note because I keep hearing from people I respect that you read a dictionary. All languages create syntax and semantics. because you need these elements to read. I write the poem, then when a word I used doesn't create the correct nuance or doesn't create the sound I want I look up a dictionary or thesaurus. These tomes are tools. Poems need meaning and sound to be synchronised within the poem. Hope this helps people that have an idea they can't quite put on paper.

Points to remember 1. Inmates may come tp your program for reasons other than a love of poetry, release from boredom, to look good for probation etc 2. Inmates may not have confidence with pen and paper. So think of oral record sessions 3. Find out there preconceptions of poetry. 4. Survive the tits and bum jokes. Can other people that have teaching experience think of other issues, tactics

The problem with Craft books like Grammar books that preceded them is, they focus on the mechanics of writing without starting from a focus on what the writer wants to say. Burns noted that types of poems used types of metrical patterning, this post will borrow from Kipling's poem 'to a boy' to look at what metres say Trochee ( stress, unstressed) trips, says Kipling, , so my imagining is this would convey 'being in love', 'joyous about something' etc Spondee (stress, stress) solemn, stalks, says kipling. For me a spondee asserts, creates a finality as in 'so there' Iambs ( unstressed, stressed) march says kipling. For me they also convey a horses gallop, steam engines rhythmic chugg, sounds of mechanical engines. That these sounds are rarely heard these days is why a large number of people now don't know what an Iamb is. Three feet metre Anapest (unstressed, unstressed stressed), leaps and bounds says kipling . Fry gives an example of the metre as ' in a spin' and 'understand' which shows the two moods that I think anapests capture. Dactyl (stressed, unstressed unstressed) Fry gives word example 'agitate'. Spinning pool also says what the metre captures. Amphibrychys ( unstressed, stressed, unstressed) hastes with a stately stride says Kipling. The loss of statecraft in the modern world males Fry example immoral more pertinent. There are others read Fry's Ode Less Travelled p120 for them. When starting to write you start with the story. Stories create rhythms, the point to this post is to consider how sound arrangement along a line augments meaning. Do you agree? Does the different metres above mean different things to you. The biggest problem with what I am writing is that accents change stresses of a word. I find Auden difficult because I can't create an Oxford accent in my head. Interested in your comments. Please write if don't agree at all oe else I will keep filling up this thread.

Hi all I found this little gem whilst reading the complete works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge I purchased on Amazon. The new philosophy he was addressing was an Empiricism driven by claims of common sense and purposefulness,, driven by metaphysical examination rather than today's rationalism driven by formal logic. However the denial of emotional considerations and use of flowery language still has contemporary relevance. Published in 1801 this poem still rung a chord with me. Also may be useful for a Xanadu escape room. ' DRINKING verses THINKING or A SING AGAINST THE NEW PHILOSOPHY My Merry men all, that drink with glee This fanciful Philosophy Pray tell me what good is it? If ancient Nick should come and take The same across the Stygian lake I guess we ne'er should miss it Away, each pale, self brooding spark That goes truth hunting in the dark, Away from our carousing! To Pallas we resign such fowls Grave birds of wisdom! ye're but owls And all your trade but mousing! My merry men all, here's punch and wine And spicy bishop, drink divine! Let's live while we are able While Mirth and Sense sit, hand in glove, This Don Philosophy we'll shove Dead drunk beneath the table

Burns wrote in iambus and regular metres, his poetry divided into stanzas, the rhyme scheme is repeated in each stanza,,, gives the stanza shape. Stanza types Standard Habbie, used for conversationalstyle poetry, or humorous comment The first three lines and fifth line are tetrameter; the two short lines, lines 4 and 6, are diameter Spenserian stanza (Example The Cotters Saturday Night) This stanza form was associated with an archaic and magnificent style of language , lofty thoughtss and aspiring sentiments. It has 8 lines of iambic pentameter and one finaliambic hexameters, rhyming ababbcbcc Tam O Shanter is a four beat meter closest to ballad meter These notes are from 'Robert Burns Selected Poems' edited by Kenneth Brown CUP 1998

So I have been listening to Conversing with Poets and listen to discussion on editing. It is not whether you edit or don't edit but what purpose has editing. The songs that survive over decades, well past the fad, have a synchronising between musical structure, the sound of the words and to a lesser extent these lyrics meaning. So editing should be to work out the kernel to the poem, what is it's message: then is the structure, sound of the words and there meaning synchronised to convey to you that message. What others make your poem you cannot dictate so responsible for it. Love to hear others comments

@Shen Friebe @Marc A Brimble @Bendy Nguyen @Adam Gary intersted in your ideas. You don't need to use highbrow terms, but your poetic competence gives you insight. Stephen Fry in an 'ode less travelled' p24 states 'the organising principle behind the verse is the metre not the sense'. I am by no means as learned as he and have no disagreement with this statement, but organising a verse is not primary to expressing a poetic idea. Before verse comes consideration of 'what am I trying to express'. This i believe is where meaning reigns supreme. Form including: rhythm, rhyme scheme, stanza length, etc all need to add to meaning. But also the comprehension of the reader needs to be considered. Whilst a temporal change within a line or stanza i believe creates confusion and loss of meaning, a temporal (tense) change between stanzas is ok, as long as it adds sense to the message of the poem. Whether the poet was conscious ( ie intended) the change doesn't matter. I have great admiration for Elizabeth barret browning as poet, but having read 'Essay on mind' rhyming couplets, even when broken into chapters, is not the form to communicate nature of intelligence. The form and content separated to the point when I struggled for the meaning. In fact I only finished it because I was in lock down. Whereas her husband, Robert Browning uses heroic verse as a tool of irony in 'the last duchess ' see Stephen Fry p 205 -6; the nobleman narrator's attitude is indicated by the form although the content of the poem is how his jealousy led to killing his wife. I would love to hear your ideas even if you think this unimportant.