Ezra Pound - Slates his Critics in his Poem "E.P. Ode"

 

"E.P. Ode Pour L'Election de Son Sepulchre" (E.P. Ode on the Choice of His Tomb) is the first poem in the series of eighteen poems comprising Pound's Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, first published in June 1920.

Pound's Contempt for his Critics

Unfortunately, the poems were frequently misconstrued by Pound's readers, who admired the persona of Mauberley and missed the point that Pound used the mask of Mauberley as representative of the critics of the period, who discredited him. Jo Brantley Berryman says, in the "Preface" to Circe's Craft: "The voice of Mauberley echoes many of the prevalent attitudes and judgements that frustrated and antagonized Pound"  Pound's motivation, therefore, is to express his contempt of those critics.

Challenges for the Pound Scholar

Donald Davie questions: "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley is a mask that continually slips... What is the mask for, if, as often as not, the poet throws it off and speak vulnerably as and from himself?"
Berryman blames the confusion between Pound and Mauberley on Pound's own ironic wit. "For more than six decades, Pound has been, in critical commentary, the victim of his own irony."

What is an "Epode"?

"E.P. Ode Pour L'Election de Son Sepulchre" contains a pun in the poem's title, which begins: "E.P. Ode." "The term "Epode" in classical literature is a lyric metre or after-song of sombre character following a strophe and anti-strophe," says Peter Brooker. (An epode is a form of lyric poem written in couplets, each of a long line followed by a shorter one, while a "strophe" is a section of this.)
The poem is described by Pound as a farewell to London, which ties up with "epode" in its sense of departure, of being an "after-song." This London is symbolic of a declining, decaying empire and against this, Pound contrasts the beauty and Ariel-like spirit of ancient Greece: 
"Christ follows Dionysus, / Phallic and ambrosial / Made way for macerations. / Caliban casts out Ariel." In the allusion to The Tempest in the last line, Pound is complaining that delightful Ariel is banished by the careless cruelty of sloppy, formless Caliban (the id), symbolic of a declining, uncaring England.

Pound - the Dreamer of Dreams

"Like the "dreamer of dreams" Pound relies on his "murmuring rhyme" to "suffice," and on the reader to read his meaning. It is inevitable he will be disappointed, for even the first line: "For three years out of key with his time," suggests uncertainty of meaning. We must ask: "In what way is Pound out of key?" Berryman says: "Mauberley... suggests that E.P. has been born out of his proper time because he was "born / In a half-savage country."
However, Berryman explains, at no time does Ezra Pound consider himself behind the times or out-of-fashion. On the contrary, he is a forward-thinker, ahead of his time, and any instability in communication between poet and reader/critic is, in his view, the responsibility of that reader/critic.

Art is Always in Advance of the General Consciousness

Pound, born in Idaho, left for New York before he was two years old and he takes issue with the uninformed opinion associating him with the roughness of the American frontier. Pound responds to the critics of Mauberley as follows: "The worst muddle they make is in failing to see that Mauberley buries E.P. in the first poem; gets rid of all his troublesome energies."
Even allowing for the poet's occasional arrogance and indignation at being misconstrued, he is correct in recognising that art is always in advance of the general consciousness and is of little use to contemporary culture. This lagging behind of the general consciousness is a way in which meaning is deferred. It is deferred, simply, until readers are ready for it - and this must have been a blow to Pound's ego.
Berryman explains that the years 1914-1917 were Pound's Vorticist years, a time when he produced work which he regarded as his most important. Pound says, in his essay on Vorticism: "In the "search for oneself," in the search for "sincere self-expression" one gropes, one finds some seeming verity. One says, "I am" this, that or the other, and with the words scarcely uttered, one ceases to be that thing."

Ambiguity in Pound's Poetic Persona 

In establishing who is speaking, one might ask: "Who most admires elegance, Pound or Mauberley?" A passage from Donald Davie's Ezra Pound may help clarify this: "Too much of Hugh Selwyn Mauberley is attitudinizing." Davie explains that Pound elaborately attempts to be urbane, but as he is naturally shy in social situations, his persona fails. "Accordingly, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley is a mask that continually slips," says Davie. It seems that in this initial poem, Ezra Pound is trying to be the fictional character Mauberley, but failing, and that the lines about the elegance of Circe's hair may be a point at which the slippage is particularly revealing.

Pound includes classical allusions from Greek mythology to Shakespearean tragedy, and his use of other languages, including Greek, sometimes blur meaning.
Certainly, the Hugh Selwyn Mauberley poems present a challenge to the Pound scholar who, having unpacked the meaning of language, then questions which opinions belong to Pound and which to the persona of Mauberley. 

Note: Pound sometimes named, and sometimes numbered his poems. Verses numbered II to V are separate poems, and not part of the "E.P. Ode."

Sources:Circe's Craft, Jo Brantley Berryman, UMI Research Press, Michigan, 1983.
Ezra Pound, Donald Davie, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1975.
A Student's Guide to the Selected Poems of Ezra Pound, Peter Brooker, Faber & Faber, London, 1979.
Hugh Selwyn Mauberley, Selected Poems, 1908-1969, Ezra Pound, Faber & Faber, London, 1977.

Ezra Pound, Anti-Semitist - a Troublesome Concept for Lovers of Great Poetry

Ezra Pound, Poet
Public Domain

Ezra Pound was born in 1885 in Hailey, Idaho and moved to Philadelphia with his parents before he was two years old. He travelled widely throughout his lifetime, studying, lecturing and meeting other authors and poets, among them Yeats, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and the philosopher T.E. Hulme. On 20 April, 1914, Pound married Dorothy Shakespear. He met T.S. Eliot the following September and was responsible for editing Eliot's The Waste Land in 1922.

Pound lived in Italy with his family for several years, but revisited the United States in 1939 in an attempt to prevent war. The poet had met Mussolini in 1933 and was impressed by the order the dictator imposed on Italy. An anti-Semitist, Pound was broadcast on Rome's radio in 1941 speaking against the Allied cause, an action that alienated some of his friends.

Ezra Pound on Trial for Treason

The United States declared war, and in 1943, in Washington, in absentia, Pound was accused of treason. From 1945, he was held in the U.S. Army Detention Training Centre near Pisa, then flown to Washington to stand trial in 1945. The following year, the poet was sent to St. Elizabeth's Hospital for the Criminally Insane, but was declared unfit for trial.

His friends, among them Eliot, Hemingway and Robert Frost, persuaded the authorities to release him and he subsequently return to Italy to live with his daughter.

An Imagist Manifesto

Ezra Pound was influenced by medieval literature and troubadour ballads. He was also strongly attracted to the aesthetic theories of the philosopher, T.E. Hulme and, in 1913, wrote an imagist manifesto with F.S. Flint which was published in Poetry Magazine.

Its aims were conciseness of expression, concentrated moments of experience, experimentation, concrete imagery and a musical rhythm rather than a rhythm that relies on the metronome. Authors who contributed to the magazine included Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Amy Lowell and William Carlos Williams.

At that time, Pound described himself as an imagist, and valued economy and precision in language. This later caused a quarrel with Amy Lowell, because in Pound's view, she inappropriately called herself an imagist. So incensed was Pound by the fact Lowell ignored him, that he wrote to her publisher, MacMillan, to complain and subsequently she had to find another publisher.

Vorticism - the Art of the Abstract and Non-Representational

From 1914, Pound was to become a committed supporter of the concept of vorticism, a movement of modernism that ran until around 1917 and promoted the abstract and the non-representational in painting and writing, preferring sharpness of definition. Pound defines vorticism as being: "the point of maximum energy."

The movement was inspired by Pound's friend, the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. One of vorticism's leading figures was painter and author, Wyndham Lewis, although the term "vortex" was first used by Pound himself.

The highly-charged energy suggested by the term found favour with Wyndham Lewis and this helped vorticism to become a movement. However, Wyndham Lewis argued with another member of the movement and broke away in March 1914, forming yet another group, The Rebel Art Centre . They were joined by the sculptor, Jacob Epstein and a number of poets.

The Holocaust - Pound's Influence on Public Opinion

Pound died in Venice on 2 November, 1972, seven years after the death of his friend, T.S. Eliot. Elaine Feinstein points out that many writers assumed the worst prejudices of their time, including anti-Semitist, T.S. Eliot. She says, of Pound:

"The case against Pound is far more troubling. Pound actively contributed to the climate of opinion in which the Holocaust was allowed to happen."

This makes Pound, in Feinstein's opinion, "uncomfortable" for poetry-lovers, despite the great debt we owe to him.

Source:

"The Voice of Pound," Elaine Feinstein, PN Review No. 138, (Poetry Nation Review) Founder/Editor: Michael Schmidt, 1999.

T.S. Eliot – Deconstructing The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Echo and Narcissus
Painting by Nicholas Poussin
Public Domain

Appreciating the many of layers of this long poem can be confusing.

In his book, T.S. Eliot: the Poems, Martin Scofield says that “Prufrock”, "... as well as being a mask for the poet, is an "observation." Eliot's use of masks allows him to diversify freely in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock so that, on the surface, the poem is a combination of fragmented social observations of his failed attempted relationships with women. Even Prufrock's name is ironic and is deliberately provocative. "Pru" stands for "prudish" while "frock" is a female garment, so that the name sounds a little like the old British insult for a hopeless man: "a big girl's blouse."

On a deeper level, the poem is a "theatre of consciousness... Prufrock's interior monologue." It is this which makes its fragmentary arrangements logical and the irregular rhyming scheme appropriate. Contrasts and unexpected changes of style/voice feature in the poem. the confidential style of the opening stanza, "Let us go then, you and I, / When the evening is spread out..." juxtaposes with, "Like a patient etherized upon a table." The language provides shock value, but is evocative. The simile is less confusing when considering Eliot's view of the evening as the still, unconscious time, when noise and bustle of the working day is over.

Ambiguity and the Double-Self

Authors of critical studies offer various interpretations of the identity of the initial "we" and the subsequent "you and me" in the poem. As a poetic device, it is clear the first line deliberately draws the reader in. Martin Scofield suggests: "One's first sense is that it is the person, presumably a woman, to whom Prufrock is addressing his love song." Scofield encounters problems with the more ambiguous "you and me." He says, "Prufrock is addressing himself in his song, addressing a kind of alter ego." He likens Prufrock's "self-love and self-absorption" to "The Death of Saint Narcissus."

Robert Southam, quoting Eliot, says. "I am prepared to assert that the "you" in "The Love Song" is merely some friend or companion... and that it has no emotional content whatsoever," although later, Eliot contradicts himself by asserting he is "...employing the notion of the split personality." Southam's conclusion is that Eliot had borrowed from Bergson's "Time and Free Will" which develops the idea of the double self, "one aspect being the everyday self... the other a deeper self."

The questions posed and the defences dredged up from Prufrock's anxious, appeasing self are in the common language of dialogue. They seem to need, yet seem not to expect, an answer. The paradox arises because, throughout the poem, Prufrock portrays himself as victim, out of his depth in society. His unease is expressed in lines such as: "... prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet." He has succumbed to his destiny, although a part of him continues to cling to hope.

Verb-Driven Emotion

Eliot uses metaphors which are melodramatic, yet at the same time distressing. "And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin / When I am pinned and wriggling on a wall." Much of the emotion in Prufrock's predicament is expressed in the use of verbs: sprawling, pinned, wriggling. Ultimately, Prufrock is a man bereft of power, unable to believe in himself as he is, nor to change into his perception of what others, in his view, might expect.

Eliot uses dramatic irony. "I should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas." Again, the self-derision is intensified in "scuttling," a verb used to describe the low, crawling progeny of the earth, to which Prufrock, half-humorously, compares himself.

In the poem, women appear only as disembodied eyes and arms, for example: "Arms that lie along a table, or wrap around a shawl," Although erotic, this emphasises the absence of an individual whole woman, revealing Prufrock's inadequate, fragmented personality. The repetition intensifies the tiredness of a defeated Prufrock, driven to continue behaviour patterns that, since they are all he has ever known, represent his only means of communcation with the external world.

Time is a recurring feature. Southam says that Eliot is: "...echoing the words of the preacher in Ecclesiastes iii, 1-7: "To everything there is a season." Also, he refers to the process of death and rebirth: "There will be time to murder and create." He is frustrated with the chaotic, unstable elements of time: "For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."

This is a man for whom time is the enemy. It has made him old and undesirable. He reflects on his wasted youth: "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." When he says: "Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in on a platter," he identifies with John the Baptist.

Eliot, Hulme and the Inner Life

Southam quotes Hulme, a philosopher admired by Eliot. Hulme describes the inner life: "...compared to a continual rolling up... for our past follows us, it swells... consciousness means memory." Eliot takes on this concept, asking, "And would it have been worth it, after all," and five lines later, "To have squeezed the universe into a ball / To roll it toward some overwhelming question." Scofield comments: "The mind of Prufrock is unable to cohere into a single train of thought, unable to squeeze "the universe into a ball..." Prufrock admits this failing. "Is it a perfume from a dress / That makes me so digress."

The most musical lines in the poem, with their stunning assonance, appear towards the end. "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown." The final line is a paradox. "Till human voices wake us and we drown." This is a tantalisingly ambiguous ending to the poem. Scofield says, "... the "reality" of the waking state may be less vital and real than that of the dream." Mermaids, traditionally, lured heroes from their tasks. If Scofield's suggestion is correct and that this allusion is intended by Eliot as central to the poem's meaning - then Scofield's assertion that: "... it is upon the rack of the eternal feminine that he is broken," applies equally well to the line.

It is a fitting conclusion when considering the theme of the poem. Certainly, from Prufrock's, or Eliot's viewpoint, it absolves him, finally, from personal responsibility for his fragmented condition.

Note: Although American by birth, T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) became a British citizen at 39 years old.

The Waste Land and Other Poems, T.S. Eliot, Faber & Faber, 1940 (reset 1972.)

T.S. Eliot: The Poems, Martin Scofield, Cambridge University Press, 1988.

A Guide to the Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot, B.C. Southam, Faber & Faber, 1968.

Three Inspirational Thoughts of Coming Spring on New Year's Day

Photo Copyright Janet Cameron

I So Liked Spring Last Year...

by Charlotte Mew (born in 1869)

I so liked Spring last year

Because you were here

The thrushes too-

Because it was these you so liked to hear-

I so liked you.

This year's a different thing-

I'll not think of you

But I'll like the Spring because it is simply spring

As thrushes do.

Quote by WWI Poet Wilfred Owen

A Poem does not grow by jerks. As trees in Spring produce a new ring of tissue, so does every poet put forth a fresh outlay of stuff at the same season. 

Anne Bradstreet: 1612-1672 - Early North American Poet

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. 

More to read:

What I Love and Hate About Poets

Seigfried Sassoon – The Rear-Guard

Siegfried Sassoon, Wikimedia, Public Domain

The poetry of the “war poets” communicates in words the full horror of the 1914-1918 First World War. Siegfried Sassoon was born in September 1886 of a Jewish father and Roman Catholic mother, and he died in September 1967 of tuberculosis. He was awarded the Military Cross during active duty for risking his life to rescue another soldier. His German first name does not indicate German ancestry; his mother chose it because she had a liking for Wagner operas!

Poetry of Direct, Personal Experience

Sassoon’s poems, like those of his fellow-poets, Wilfred Owen and Rupert Brooke, are touching accounts of very personal experience, yet at the same time, they are often uncomfortably direct and colloquial, so that they actually accuse those responsible for the carnage. The Rear Guard is one of his most haunting poems.

“Groping along the tunnel step by step, / He winked his prying torch with patching glare / From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.”

In the above lines, Sassoon is trying to convey to us the reality of being a common soldier as he “gropes” his way along, winking his tiny torch, smelling the unpleasant smells – all of these are ordinary everyday things and yet, this is an ordinary, everyday man in an extraordinary situation. He personifies, as an enemy, “the unwholesome air” The use of the past continuous tense at the beginning of the poem invites us to accompany him on this horrific journey, as he is groping, prying, sniffing.

In the beginning of the next stanza, he contrasts his plight with that of the soldiers above ground:

“Tins, bottles, boxes, shapes too vague to know,- / A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed; / And he, exploring, fifty feet below / The rose gloom of battle overhead.”

The use of the word “rose” is unexpected and gives a mystical, sinister image of the battle being waged overhead.

Dawn's Ghost

An horrific encounter begins in the second half of the second stanza, running over into the third.

“Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie / Humped and asleep, half-hidden by a rug; / And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug. / "I'm looking for Headquarters." No reply..."

"God blast your neck" (for days he'd had no sleep), / "Get up and guide me through this stinking place." / Then, with a savage kick at the silent heap, / He flashed his beam across a livid face / Horribly glaring up; and the eyes yet wore / Agony dying hard ten days before; / And twisted fingers clutched a blackening wound.”

Using rough soldier’s language in his dialogue, and rough soldier’s behaviour, Sassoon involves us in the stress and frustration of men faced with the possibility of violent and sudden death: We sense the recoil in Sassoon’s description of the dead soldier with his livid face and whose eyes still betrayed the agony of an appalling death.

The imagery at the end of the poem is stunning, with its personification portraying what these men had become:

“Alone, he staggered on until he found / Dawn's ghost, that filtered down a shafted stair /

To the dazed, muttering creatures underground, / Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound. / At last, with sweat of horror in his hair, / He climbed through darkness to the twilight air, / Unloading hell behind him, step by step.”

That dawn should be a ghost would seem, in an ordinary world, a contradiction. There is a sense of otherwordliness in the men in the fighting tunnels, a non-humanness in their being, as well as a sense of futility, for the soldier must go on in spite of his mental anguish.

A Challenge to the Assumptions of War

Siegfried Sassoon became a conscientious objector. Through his courageous, plain speaking, both in his personal life and in his poetry, he challenged the assumptions about war in a powerful way. Here is the first paragraph of a letter, as it appears in Pat Barker's Regeneration, entitled "Finished with the War, A Soldier's Declaration."

"I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it." The letter is signed S. Sassoon and dated July 1917.

Sources:

Selected Poems, Siegfried Sassoon, Faber, 1968

The Poetry Foundation

Regeneration, Pat Barker, Viking, 1991 (Please note this is a biographical novel and based on both fact and speculation. The quotation used above is a factual one.)

Anna Laetitia Barbauld – To Mr. Coleridge on Romanticism

Romanticism idealised the pastoral. Image Copyright Janet Cameron

To Mr. Coleridge was written by Anna Laetitia Barbauld to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, after she met him in August 1797. She was deeply admiring of his work and character, although, sadly for her, Coleridge turned against her in 1812, together with many other poets and critics. Her crime? - she had criticised Britain's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars. 

Tragically, Barbauld was deeply hurt by the bad reviews and did not publish anything else from that time.

Romanticism - a Challenge to the Enlightenment

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was - with William Wordsworth - a central figure of the Romantic reaction against the the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment stressed the importance of reason. Romanticism, on the other hand, idealised the qualities of intuition and the pastoral. Other prominent Romantic poets were William Blake, Lord Byron, John Keats and Percy Bysse Shelley, whose second wife was the Romantic novelist of "Frankenstein",  Mary Shelley.

Barbauld's lyric poem to Coleridge, written in blank verse, is one of romantic ideals and sensibilities, which, although a personal message for an admired poet, was also intended for publication. Her poem begins with a long, convoluted sentences that stretches over nine lines, beginning: "Midway the hill of science, after steep" and ending "Before the cheated sense."

Barbauld's language is neo-classic, and uses many of the conventions of eighteenth century verse, for example, the reversal of the order of words for rhetorical effect (inversions) and heavy use of adjectives, although it is fair to say that it is a feature of the 18th century neo-classic style that virtually every noun has an adjective. But then again, this complexity of sentence structure may well be deliberate as much as it is conventional, and is suggesting the "tangled mazes" referred to by the poet.

Barbauld's Feminine Writing

The poem is in strict iambic pentameter. In the early days of Romanticism, metrical neatness, a regular rhyme scheme and polished language mirror feminine fashion. Of course, the poem is in blank verse although Barbauld's use of assonance and half-rhyme is striking: "steep / feet" and "shapes / chase", although the rhymes are not at regular intervals. She will personalise an abstract nown by the use of an initial capital letter, following by employing the pronoun "her" in relation to it: "Nor seldom Indolence / these lawns among, / Fixes her turf built seat..."

She makes use of literary allusion, ie: that of the Greek enchantress who changed those to drank from her cup into swine: "And be this Circe of the studious cells." Circe, of course, is a metaphor for the metaphysical that Barbauld is warning against.

The Dangers of Abandoning Rationality

The poem is expressive of a futuristic fear, as she warns the young poet, Coleridge, of the danger of abandoning the rationality of science for "the tangled mazes" and "strange enchantments" of mysticism. She speaks of dubious shapes, eager foot, youthful ardour and unearthly forms to explain her fear that a talented young poet might be tempted to explore beyond what is good for him.

From a description of the journey away from the rigours of science to the enchantments of the mystical, Barbauld becomes specific about the dangers: "...and mystic visions swim / Before the cheated sense." Gradually, the adjectives become stronger, emphasising the poet's reservations about the metaphysical, for example: "And fair ambition with the chilling touch / Of sickly hesitation and blank fear."

Barbauld's lyric poem acknowledges and describes in the first half of the poem, the susceptibility that may entrap the unwary poet. "In dreamy twilight of the vacant mind," and "With moonbeam rainbows tinted. Here each mind / Of finer mould, acute and delicate." Later, the poet speaks of "fairy bowers", where she "Looks down, indignant on the grosser world."

A Warning against Abstract Philosophy

The poem laments a world that is lacking, and Barbauld's moralising, feminine writing is subtle, optimistic and persuasive as she warns Coleridge, not only against the mystical, but also against abstract philosophy:

"Nor seldom Indolence these lawns among / Fixes her turf-built seat, and wears the garb / Of deep philosophy, and museful sits, / In dreamy twilight of the vacant mind..."

Her warning to Mr. Coleridge is found in the final lines: "Not in the maze of metaphysic lore / Build thou thy place of resting! Lightly tread." She urges that the metaphhysical should be "Enjoyed but still subservient." The warning is followed by an attempt at reassurance: "Active scenes / Shall soon with healthful spirit brace thy mind," and then, in the final line, she ends on a note of optimism: "Now heaven conduct thee with a parent's love."

Through her implicit advice to deal with everyday reality, Barbauld seeks an ideal and, in this lyric poem, expresses her fear for the future loss of that ideal.

Sources:
"To Mr. Coleridge," Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Romanticism, an Anthology, Ed: Stephen Bygrave, Open University Press, N.Y., U.S. 1996.
"Women Poets 1780-1930" Romantic Writings, Ed: Stephen Bygraves, Open University Press, N.Y., U.S. 1996.

Exercises to Get You Writing Brilliant Poems

Copyright Janet Cameron

The following exercises are intended to help people just starting to write poetry by giving them an idea and a specific procedure to focus upon. A procedure that includes a few small steps, or objectives, can make the process easier to address. It's worth remembering that every sentence starts with just one word and every paragraph begins with a single sentence.

Choose one thing

It doesn't matter what subject you choose, so long as it appeals to you. It could be the sea, a cabbage, a cottage, a woodland glade, an animal or a fish. Then write a few descriptive sentences about that one thing, using all the senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch.

When you have written your piece, see how many words you can remove without spoiling the prose or changing the meaning. (This part of the exercise is useful to share with a partner if you have one, so that each of you can make suggestions about how to tighten up the other's work.)

Now see if you can find more interesting words for those you have chosen. For example, "sycamore" is more specific than "tree," and "hyacinth" more specific than "flower." Now see if you can arrange your sentences into lines, making them as rhythmic as possible. You do not need to make them rhyme if you don't want to.

Write an acrostic poem

Take an interesting word: an abstract noun that denotes a quality or condition works well, for example: contemplation, reflection, or anticipation. (If you want to rhyme your poem, you might prefer to choose a word with an even number of letters.) Write the word vertically down the left hand side of your page. Each letter starts the first word of a sentence.

The final poem should, of course, relate in meaning to the abstract noun you have chosen.

Write a poem using only four senses

Choose a subject, and start off in prose. Use only the senses of hearing, smell, taste and touch. Do not use the sense of sight. This will stretch you and help you to make good use of the other four senses, which are sometime neglected if you tend to focus on sight alone.

Remove superfluous words, and again, try to find more interesting words for the ones you have. (Using a thesaurus to write poetry is frowned on in some circles, but I think it's okay when you're just starting.)

Put the prose into rhythmical lines. At this stage you can include one or two sight observations if it helps enhance your poem.

Write a haiku

A haiku is a Japanese poem of 17 syllables, in three lines, of 5-7-5 syllables. Traditionally, haiku are about nature, seasons and perception, although many poets break this rule, sometimes very effectively. Try to write with wit, close observation and poignant detail. haiku is about personal and immediate experience.

There must be a contrasting or surprising last line. No title or capital letters are needed, but you can put in a dash if you want to.

If you are not familiar with haiku, you can find many good examples on the Internet.

Try using simile or metaphor

A simile is when you say something is like something else: "She is pale like a ghost," or "He is as angry as a raging bull." A metaphor is when you say something is something else: "She is a ghost," or "He is a raging bull." Write a few sentences about how you feel about someone you know, or who is close to you.

Discard what doesn't work and try to find fresher ways of describing your feelings for that person in simile and/or metaphor. (But don't overdo it. One good metaphor is better than six poor ones in a short poem.)

Try the "13 ways of looking" exercise

The American poet, Wallace Stevens, wrote a poem called "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Choose a subject, anything that appeals to you, so long as it's not a blackbird. Write about it in thirteen different ways in the style of Wallace Stevens.

It might be a good idea to change your title after you have written your poem, to make it entirely your own.

Write a poem using prepositions as a springboard

Prepositions are those little words that express a relationship to another word, for example: before, after, behind, below, under, on, to, for, etc. Write a poem where each line begins with a preposition. Wendy Cope wrote a whole poem called "My Lover" using the word "For" to begin each line.

Use the same preposition for each line, or vary them if you want to. You could just write a number of different prepositions down your page, on the left hand side, and see where it takes you. You can be flexible and change them as you go along, if it helps the poem.

The best way to enhance your sense of rhythm (or pitch) is to read as much contemporary poetry as you can, and always, always, to write about what matters to you.