MY real first encounter with poetry occurred when I was 14 years old. My older sister had taken me to Upscale Poetry Night at the Upscale Restaurant. So enamoured I was by the performances that I begged her to take me back so that I could read a poem of my own. Years later, as a young adult, I became a frequent visitor of Upscale Poetry Night where I was privileged to witness some very talented Guyanese Spoken-Word poets.

That experience encouraged me to start writing more of my own poetry, to the point that I even performed one of those pieces at a special show they hosted. What I remember vividly is that on one hand I was impressed at varying levels by the talent of some of those poets, but on the other hand I found a significant chunk of the poetry performed during my attendance at those events to be far below my expectations.

I hate to admit that because every performer –- including me– who graced that stage did so with a passion and vulnerability aimed at shamelessly baring their souls, and that takes a lot of courage. I didn’t know at the time what it was that I didn’t like, but I later found out while reading for my Degree in English.

There was a course specifically dedicated to poetry and it really stripped the art down into the intricacies and dynamics that made up a poem. Prior to studying that course, I would just pour my emotions out on paper and structure them into something that resembled a poem. And I came to realise that this tendency is what many aspiring poets are guilty of– and I am not just talking about in Guyana.

In fact, my new-found knowledge and appreciation for what poetry truly entailed helped me to improve my own work and admit that not only was my work not fit for Spoken Word, but Spoken Word Poetry in itself is a specific form that had specific requirements. That takeaway is what I feel inclined to highlight in this piece about poetry as a whole: poetry is an art with myriad segments, each of which requires some manner of form and construction.

I am aware that I am speaking amidst the rise of a generation built on freedom, self-expression and self-entitlement. But I support a school of thought built on the belief that poetry as an art has specific requirements and in order to be a true poet, one must adhere to the rules of the form.

What is poetic form?
Poetic form is the root and birth of all poetry, but it simply means the shape and classification of a poem. Think of a poem as n complex sculpture: there are certain requirements to getting the type of texture and shape that the sculptor desires, so he must manipulate his hands and his materials in a certain way to achieve that. There are two main forms of poetry: closed(fixed) form- following specific rules, patterns and requirements; and open form (free verse) which adheres to very little or no traditional rules of structure, rhyme, stanza etc.

Closed form poetry like Sonnets, Villanelles, Sestinas, Ballads and Blank Verse are more traditional and technical and are becoming rarer in this modern age. In fact, the majority- if not all- of contemporary poetry I have come across, falls largely into the segment of open form.

Should Open Form poetry follow rules?
The parameters within open form poetry and whether any rules are required to be followed has for years attracted debate. And somehow, the misconception was developed that open form does not require adherence to any poetic rules. This misconception is the reason I find that many pieces of contemporary poetry I encounter tend not to be poetry at all, and are instead just glimpses into the emotions and thoughts of the writer broken into lines that resemble poems.

Because of its seeming lack of structure and traditional rules, free- verse poetry has also been deemed by critics as being nothing more than glorified prose. However, at its core, true open-form poetry– while free of the strictness of structure and other requirements that closed forms demand– still incorporate tools such as punctuation, line break, and figures of speech (metaphors, similes, irony, puns, paradoxes, etc).

Examples of excellent free-verse poetry can be found in the works of poets like Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, W.B Yeats, E.E Cummings and even our very own Martin Carter. Their free-verse poetry is riddled with riveting imagery, tone, rhythm, irony and countless other identifiable poetic features, while not adhering to the rules of tradition. So it is, indeed possible to achieve greatness even without stringent guidelines, but that does not mean no guidelines should be followed.

Advice to aspiring poets
In the years since I started writing poetry, I have had to take a step back many times after learning about what true poetry requires and I have had to humbly rework my own poetry several times. Many pieces did not even make the cut as satisfactory and had to be put aside to be worked on later. That is because poetry at its best is a fine art, and there are certain features about this art that must be respected and followed- regardless of the freedoms that you undertake in your choice of forms.

In giving feedback to some persons who have shared their poetry with me, I have had the tough job of telling them that their work had not yet achieved the status of poetry. Some have taken it in good stride, others have chosen not to come back to me for my opinion- which they have every right to do. But I truly believe that too many aspiring poets take poetry for granted and simply throw words on a page and quickly call it poetry.

Thanks to self-publishing, I have even seen those same poems amalgamated into published works.
My bit of humble advice to aspiring poets would be to incorporate some form of research into the art. Don’t just write words on a page. You don’t have to study it, but understand that there are rules and find out what they are.

Look at your poetry as a continued work of art; a piece that requires constant revision and reconstruction. Do not take poetry and what it truly is lightly, because if you do not understand the core of an art, then you will never truly be able to contribute to it.

Interested in contributing to this column on writing? Email me at thewritemind592@gmail.com