Hillary Roth

Lyric Essay

Lyric poetry has been around for centuries, its exact origins are unknown, but there are references dating back to Aristotle’s Poetics. The two Renaissance writers that have made it world renown are Petrarch and Shakespeare with the 14-line sonnet and their own meters.  Presently, the most common form of lyric poetry is that found in songs on the radio, and few are aware that it does not have to rhyme, follow a certain pattern, or need to be structured. In the classroom the focus has been on lyric poetry we have learned about it through chapters from Stephen Minot’s Three Genres, classmates’ pieces, and by working on our own poetry. 

Stephen Minot’s Three Genres is a work that covers poetry, fiction, and drama to illustrate the process and tools of Creative Writing. Our focus currently has been lyric poetry starting with Chapter 1 “What Makes a Poem a Poem?” and ending with Chapter 11 “Poetry: From Craft to Art”.  Chapter 3 “Sources: Where Poems Come From” teaches where to pull poetry from when writing (i.e. friends, family, self, feelings) and ambivalence, this is vital when writing since it teaches us how to be multi-dimensional. Chapter 4 “Images: The Essential Element” is key to poetry because poems are built on imagery, the importance of what we see in our minds when we read poetry, discusses the use of abstraction, strong nouns, figures of speech (i.e. simile, metaphor, hyperbole, pun, synecdoche, cliché), symbolism, and images building off of each other. Symbolism is very important because going back to Shakespeare it has been a large part of poetry. It is the use of one object to represent a myriad of thoughts and images. As illustrated in this excerpt from Chapter 4

A symbol adds density of meaning to a poem…uses an image that exists as part of the poem and informs the reader that it has a greater range of meaning. If that strikes you as confusing in the abstract, consider these examples

First, here is a simile (in italics) describing an older woman.

My mother is almost weightless now,

Light as some fly left to die on the window sill.

Here is the same image handled as a metaphor:

My mother is almost weightless now,

A fly left to die on the window sill.

We learn that the woman is a part of the poem and that the fly is being used to create an image and connection to something tangible. Other chapters in the handouts go on to educate us in the basics of writing poetry and the vital importance of the many instruments that go into the art.

During the last five weeks in class there has been a constant delivery of emotional, entertaining, and educational poetry. Classmates reading their poetry and allowing us inside to see their creations, has inspired, motivated, and taught us all more about lyric poetry. We have also been able to touch on the differences of epic, dramatic, narrative and lyric poetry; furthermore, an epic poem is an extended, lengthy poem (i.e. Iliad), a dramatic poem touches on more humanistic feelings rather than imagery, and a narrative poem tells a story. In class there has been a variety of works covering a multitude of topics, all eliciting different emotions and reactions, from Tara’s quick piece on Jack Daniels to Alicia’s that was more akin to a narrative on the West.  The workshop allowed the class to commune over the works, we dissected, suggested, and edited each one together, and continued this through draft-exchanges online for those who did not present in class.

I have learned from my own works “I am her Father” and “Can you, Papa?” about the difficulty behind writing poetry and that sometimes coming back a few days or weeks later can really help to enhance your work. All recommendations made by the people that participated in my draft exchange allowed me to view my work through their eyes as they described the emotions and thoughts they felt while reading it. I found inspiration to write the poems through my own experiences, emotions, thoughts, and memories. Moreover, it was very difficult for me to write anything that was not “real” to me, which I thought was odd since I have no problem writing fictional prose.  Writing this piece was stressful since I have never written poetry, but it has also been enlightening and beneficial.