Poetry From an Expert Poet

Attended NJ SCBWI conference this past weekend.

Conference opened with David L. Harrison, poet laureate of Drury University. He has something like 93 poem books published since the sixties. He was one of the first poets to be published by Wordsong and is on a personal friend basis with Kent Brown.

Currently, he is working on a Cowboy collection for Wordsong, funny thing is once you get to be in his shoes, the publishers call you up and ask if you would like to do a poetry collection for them. J Boy, do we have a long way to go. L.

Oh, and he has a BUG anthology that just came out last year "Bugs. Poems About Creeping Things"

In his seminar he covered basic poetry. Things we already know like free verse vs, verse. He talked abouit something Billy Collins does and he explained it as “found poetry” where you take something that someone else has written (an article or a story) and then by adding and subtracting words you turn it into a free verse “found’ poetry. I thouight that was interesting.

He discussed the three kinds of ballads, the rubiyat (4 lines, 5 beats), a cinquain (5 lines) Line 1 – one word title. Line 2 – two words that describe the title. Line 3 – three words that tell the action. Line 4 – four words that express the feeling. Line 5 – one word that recall the title.

He also went over the 4 basic kinds of meter and poetic feet.

“NEVER SURPRISE THE READER WITH METER CHANGE.”