Flow

[Bob Pacey]

Dancers and poets have a lot in common. They both need to have a great sense of rhythm and flow; without those elements, a dance routine would look wooden and pitiable, and a poem would read as unnatural and tedious.

Don't confuse rhythm with rhyme - the two have little to do with one another. Rhythm is the flow or cadence of the writing; rhyme is a literary device that's used within the poem. And whether a poem rhymes or not, a lack of rhythm can be disastrous.

As a poet, you want to ensure that the flow of your words is natural; otherwise, your readers will find themselves concentrating more on trying to read the poem than on effortlessly enjoying it. One of the best ways to do this as a writer is to be willing to rewrite pieces until the poetry flows as fluently as possible.


Bob

[Dave Smith]

Hey Bob to true, I teach dancing with good rhythm but do you think I can write poetry not a hope.

TTFN

[Neville Briggs]

Course you can write poetry Dave, you've just got to take up the pen and begin. As someone has said, if you don't know where to begin. begin anywhere.

Bob, I don't understand the idea that the experience of poetry has to be effortless. I can read the newspaper comics effortlessly, if, for example, I want to engage with Wilfred Owen's poetic masterpiece Dulce et Decorum est, then I have to make an effort.

[keats]

Wilfred Owens? Was he centre half back for Collingwood many years back?

[Neville Briggs]

Wilfred Owen was a soldier in WW1, he wrote very moving poems about the suffering of soldiers in battle and he was tragically killed just 7 days before the 11th of November 1918.

[keats]

You sure he never played footy?

[Maureen K Clifford]

Of course he played footy - he was an Aussie - he probably played bloody cricket as well Keats - but nobody talks about that, we just know him for his poetry. He had a nice turn of phrase