A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver (foundation chapters)

Quite often we write and write, without realising that we are just rough-writing and not taking any measures towards improving our work. Ernst Hemingway sad, "All writing is rewriting." 

And who knows better than poets that writing in form or a meter takes time. It isn't easy to write deeply especially in a time when you live in constant fear (of the pandemic or the unknown). But forget everything around and pick your pen to rewrite. 

Mary Oliver, the famed poet, talks about poetry and its various avatars in these fourteen small chapters. Each divided into 3-15 pages and easy on the eye and the mind. Her simplicity has always been her strength and this book follows the same pattern. 

The foundation of a poem is a syllable. The syllable is a word or a part of a word that can be said in a single breath. For example: to-ma-to - three syllables 

Go ahead and count syllables in these: 

1. potato 

2. birds 

3. Mesopotamia

(answers are snucked in between)  

Further Mary elucidates on jargons such as iamb, foot with examples. An iamb is five feet and each foot is two syllables. For example, 

Shall I | compare | thee to | a sum | mer's day (by William Shakespeare) 

But why are these important? Why can't you write a poem as is? Say, a contemporary poem with no rules. Forms and Design in poetry moulds your poem and makes it worth recollecting it years later. Also, the famous argument that if you know the rules - you'd know which ones to break. 

[potato has 3 syllables; birds has 1 and Me-so-po-ta-mi-a; 6] 

Poetry with a form helps one realise the beauty in words: you delve deeper into what constructs a word - which word to be used, which can be reused.