[Alassë]

yeah thats what i thought when i was flicking through the poems :D so i definitley see where your coming from. In The Riddle at the beginning or Zmarkan there is a poem that to me seemed to foretell the death of Dharin :confused: do you see when i'm coming from?

[Celebriän]

yeah or maybe Mirka's family? Can't remember if we know the circumstance of their deaths...

[alison]

True about the poetry - I use it to give a little depth, a sense of history, and to tangentially echo the story. Also, it's fun...

anyone know who Mercan Goldhand is? The poetry that i found him in is the part at the beginning of Innail..... oh yeah and who are the singers of Maldan? Arestor? Ulnar?


This is a very old poem in terms of the book, and dates from the days when Lirigon was called Lirion and when "the Ice Witch yet troubled the world", as Cadvan says when he sings it at Innail (this dates the story back to the time of the Elemental Wars; the song might date from Afinil). Maldan and Arestor were cities of that time; Ulnar a region near Lirion of which Mercan would have been the local Bard/Thane.

[soon2b_author]

Does "the Ice Witch yet troubled the world" also have somthing to do with the Ice Witch's importance in Maerad's life and the outcome of this war?

[Jennistar]

Which poem do you like the best and why basically!

Mine is the one with the dying person 'Oh crow surely I'm dying, And my mother doesn't know...' something like that anyway! It just resonates with sadness and I think it fits with the chapter before and the next coming up.

What's your favourite that you've written Alison?

xxx

[Celebriän]

not sure what happened to this thread... it seems to swap topics halfway through...

can anyone recommend a starting point for someone (moi) who wants to read and hopefully begin to understand poetry who has only been taught poetry at school.

All help appreciated. :D

[alison]

Threads do transform...!

I think my favourite poem at the moment begins Part 2 of The Crow - and for those who can't get the book at the moment, I'll paste it here as a preview -

To admire beauty without envy is love:
To lie in the darkened garden to hear the song
Of the unseen nightingale is love:
If you would hold a knife to your heart
To spare another, that is love:
To love is to give everything away for nothing,
To open your house to the dark stranger:
The world is a pit of fire and shadows,
Those who love throw themselves into it wholly:
Ah my heart, only you know best
How love is the mortal flesh burning in darkness.

Murat of Turbansk, Library of Busk

As for beginning to read poetry, Celebrian (and reading outside school is absolutely the best way to begin!)

It's hard to know how to advise you without knowing what you might like - there are so many ways to write poetry! Perhaps one idea might be to get a good anthology and just browse, seeing what you like. Anthologies are chosen by people, so they have different slants, which are sometimes fought over bitterly. You're in England, yes? Poetry pre-1950 is pretty well represented in most anthologies. I will say that generally anthologies of English poetry are a bit dull and conservative in the past 30 years - probably the best ones of English poetry since World War 2 are Chldren of Albion (edited by Michael Horovitz) or British Poetry since 1945 (Edward Lucie Smith) which are still both excellent, if outdated, introductions to contemporary British poetry. Good selections with some really wondrful stuff in them. Your library might have them, or maybe a good second hand bookshop.

Forget about "understanding" poetry, like you have been taught in school. Just try to read it, and if possible (even if everyone thinks you're mad) read it out loud, feeling the words in your mouth. Better still, if you can, read it to someone... Poetry is made to be read at talking pace, which is slower than most people read by sight, and the sound and rhythm of the words matter as much as anything else. They should give you pleasure, the same way music does. If it catches your eye, and you feel puzzled, don't worry. Just read it again and see what happens. Let it catch fire in your mind, let the feelings rise up and images happen. If it does nothing for you, don't worry; just move on to something else. And if something does catch your imagination, note down the name of the poet and see if you can find more work by him or her. There is a lot of good work published on the internet, and that's also a way to get books, since it's hard to find a lot of poetry in bookshops.

Basically, be patient, with yourself and with the poetry, stay curious, and if you're interested, you'll find work that excites you. And that leads on to other work, etc. Most of all, remember that it is there to delight you!

[Lemur_Girl]

Wow, that helped me alot too...all I was taught was: find two sets of words that ryhme and use them in a sentence...:D

hmmm, lately, I think I've been starting to grasp what poetry is, could you describe it as complex as a painting, or like a incredibly free form of writing?

I do better at these things when somebodie's talking about a painting, or work of visual art...maybe, Alison, could you describe it as a way to write a story in a very short context?

Am I making any sense?:o

[alison]

Hi Lemur-Girl - yes, you are making sense - people spend a lot of time trying to define what poetry is, and getting nowhere. Whatever definition you come up with, there's something outside it that you can call a poem...

One thing poetry isn't is "free form". Even if it looks like it is. It's probably the most disciplined language you'll encounter: it's language working really hard, doing many things at once. And yes, complex like paintings can be, only with the complexities of language as well.

[Lemur_Girl]

I see...thankyou for your words of expertise, Alison :D I shall try to work harder on the poetry side of my brain :D