Today, guys, let’s talk about writing more poetry.
Poetry? Again?
Oh, yes again! Poetry again!
Poetry is beautiful, and if you don’t believe me, check out the latest Instagram posts. All those posts are poetry, taken from Songs of Solomon from The Bible.
The Bible has love poetry?
Yes. And it’s lovely.
So, we’re talking more poetry today!
Now, where we last left poetry, we discussed staying grounded and avoiding clichés.
What else is there to poetry then?
Let’s discuss personal narrative poetry.
Narrative poetry? Doesn’t that contradict itself?
Not really. A lot of the poems that I have are narrative poems: they tell a story. I believe that’s because I like writing stories (can you tell?) So, the poetry that’s written comes out as a story, and that’s perfectly fine! You can tell a lot of a story in a poem.
But make sure it’s not too much of a story. If you want to write a story, write a story. But if you’re trying to tell a story through a poem, then the poem needs to remain a poem.
The poem version of Undaunted, for example, should be a lot shorter than the novel. It’s also important to realize that you may not get the whole story in the poem. I mean, condensing an entire story, or an event into a single poem can be hard unless again, we’re talking The Odyssey or something like that. But if you don’t want to write those kinds of poems, then I believe a narrative poem should highlight a specific part of the story. In this grand story that you want to tell, what do you want to highlight? Focus the poem on that. You may not get the whole story, but you are showing the most significant part of the story. What part had meaning?
Actually, God just reminded me that I did that for Undaunted! I didn’t know what to write for poetry, so I took two characters from Undaunted and turned them into corresponding poems! One was called Father and the other one was Son. It’s based on Cody and Drew in Undaunted, and I wanted to give backstory to their relationship.
Clearly, I didn’t share the whole story, but I did tell a story, but in small paragraphs. So if you want to tell a story through poetry, focus on something important. What’s the most important detail in this story that you want to tell? If it’s about a Father/Son relationship, maybe the most important detail is how the Father came to be who he is.
Start small. Don’t pick so many details to add in that you lose the big picture that you want to show.
So if you have a story, but you also want to write a poem, combine them. make a narrative poem. Pick one detail that you want to highlight in that story and then write a poem about that. If that doesn’t capture the whole story, then you should write a series of poems that all connect. Then, all your poems will tell the complete story, but poetically.
So be brave, beloveds. Do you know Who is on your side? God, your Heavenly Father is watching over You, smiling over you, telling you to keep going. Keep dreaming. Keep living.
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