I have just finished a MOOC on poetry writing. I was curious to see if it would steer me away from my very basic rhyming metre that I call my dum-di-dum style.
It didn’t, but there were some opportunities for having your work reviewed by fellow writers on the course. I was dipping into the course material on rare moments during the day, so didn’t get the full benefit of immersing myself in the experience. I also am a bit hesitant to embrace the social side of the course. Hundreds of people leaving comments that are frequently so off the subject you wonder if they read the course content at all.
There were some very interesting sections on styles of poetry, and the comments shared unusual styles and examples of poetry I had never heard of. Limericks were popular, as were haikus.
Other ideas, such as dropping at least three lines from your first draft, were instructive. The idea being that your first line might be when you are trying to find your way in to the poem and the last line might be a rushed attempt at wrapping things up neatly.
Reversing the order of the lines might throw up insights. There was an interesting poem that had a symmetry where the last line was the same as the first and the duplicated lines in between met in the middle.
To rhyme or not to rhyme w.as addressed and left me in favour of the former. It stops me rambling in prose and clarifies what I am trying to say by having a structure to hang it on.
odespinner 