Creative Writing

[0007]

Poem: "Creative Writing," by Michael Van Walleghen from Blue Tango (University of Illinois Press).

Creative Writing

One of my students
has written a story:

It's the end of the world
and an alien spaceship

is circling the planet
trying to make contact.

Hello? Anybody down there?
But it's just as they suspect.

After the atmosphere ignites —
nothing. Not a whimper. Even

our germs are dead. Now
they'll have to start over.

What a drag! Other planets
in the galaxy are doing fine

but you and I, the human race,
we just can't get it somehow.

Perhaps reptiles might work
or something underwater…

And so it goes for fifty pages —
fifty million years in fact,

one dimwit, evolutionary dud
after another — until finally

Homo Erectus! our old friend
back again. Talk about irony!

The best minds in the universe,
eon upon eon of experiment

and here we are, right back
where we started, doomed —

perfectly ignorant, oblivious
to art, language, metaphor...

yet hearing voices nonetheless,
the genius of creation itself

mumbling at us from a cloud.
So what can we do after all

but sweat blood, struggle,
learn to write it down —

never mind the spelling
the ribbon without ink —

the lords of the universe
are circling the planet

like moths around a desk lamp
and the whole dorm is asleep.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

1. Is this yours?

[0007]

3. No, but I indeed like it very much.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

4. It just reminds me why I'm just not a very big fan of modern poetry.

No one uses rhyme, meter, or forms anymore. It's just stream of consciousness, lame imitation of prose garbage.

The beauty of poetry used to be that you could take the chaos of life and mold it into these complex and stringent forms. That was at least half of the talent involved.

Garbled text =/= poetry in this writer's opinion. But it's just my opinion and i know it.

[0007]

5. I respect your opinion very much Sir!

I think my favorite is Percy Bysshe Shelley. Especial "The Cloud"

I also like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's work. Who in their right mind would not like Henley's "Invictus"

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced or cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul

These are old old poems and will never die. I enjoy them also. Same as YOU.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

6. Now we're talkin!

Gimme PB Shelley, Keats, or Byron anyday! :bounce:

A spirit passed before me: I beheld
The face of immortality unveiled -
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine -
And there it stood, -all formless -but divine:
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:

"Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than He who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay -vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!"

[0007]

8. 'Tis very good indeed and leave much open to dwell upon.

[cssmall]

7. See....

I use meter and forms, but not rhyme unless I have to. I should find my villanelle and post it on here. I believe it's utterly pathetic, but at least it uses rhyme. :rofl:

Otherwise, I don't believe a poem has to rhyme for the sake of rhyme. In the end, a poem is a story of images, emotions, and feelings.

[Lavender Brown]

9. you must hate Williams Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

:)

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

10. Need I comment?

;-)

[Lavender Brown]

11. I once had to... in 4-6 pages

:crazy:

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

12. I'd have just taken the F and moved on.

:-)

[Tyrone Slothrop]

13. I disagree with you

As I stated below (or above), Mr. Van Walleghen was my professor of Rhetoric for several semesters.

I found that when I was writing poetry, it was much easier to write in syllabics or with some sort of rhyme scheme and meter. Perhaps this is just how my mind works, however.

Free verse requires the writer to make many more decisions about the content, the tone and the diction.

On edit: Of course, to each his own...

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

14. If you've ever tried it,

You'd know writing a villanelle is much, much more difficult if you're going to do it to any degree of decency.

Sorry, but your prof is copping out. And it's not really a "to each his own". There's a reason it was done like that for hundreds of years, and evolution isn't the reason it's not done now.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

2. Michael Van Walleghen

Taught me the writing of poetry for 3 semesters in college.

I like his work quite a bit, and he's genuinely both kind and fascinating. And he also has a great voice for reading poetry.