Poetic devices - let's dance

As we've noted previously, poetry has a way of speaking to us; but what makes a poem? First of all it cries out to be read aloud, though I read that most poetry is read silently these days. What a shame. Maybe we should commit more poetry to memory and then dance or sing to its music!

A little research this evening has yielded a long list of poetical forms (too many to list here but including limerick, haiku, sonnet etc) and 6 poetic "sound" devices. The latter are lots of fun and are as follows:

1. alliteration
2. assonance
3. repetition
4. rhythm and meter
5. rhyme
6. onomatopoeia

I wonder how many of the poems in our current study ("Ideas on Wings") use all six of these devices? 

I've turned to "Forever Active" by Peter Henniker-Heaton and I can see he's used rhyme - noon/soon, declining/resigning. I also detect some alliteration - faculties/functions. And there seems to be a pleasing rhythm and meter. No onomatopoeia that I can hear, and I'm not sure about the assonance aspect. Does anyone else recognize assonance here? Or in another poem?

All I know is that the poem appeals to me beyond the actual words and their impact. It has a charming lilt and lift that pushes me on to the next line. Its pace matches the substance of the message of un-declining activity . It satisfies the soul.

Thank you Peter Henniker-Heaton.

Julie Swannell

A wider view

The section A Wider View, beginning with Doris Kerns Quinn's poem "The Right to Sight" resonates with this week's Bible Lesson on Soul and its Golden Text from Isaiah:
"Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live".

The poems in this portion of our book "Ideas on Wings" take flight, leaving the concepts of matter, limitation, race, time and age in the dust. Poem 57 "Design" by Frances Motley Pray wings thought with symmetry, beauty, rhythm, motion, melody, tone, resonance, music, harmony and grace. 

That's worth singing about!

Julie Swannell   

"Learning to be what you are"

The Australian carried an article a couple of weekends ago about how poetry is so needed when the heart needs more than words. Each word resonates deeply. Perhaps it's the measured pace that provides the impact. Surely it's the devoted listening of the poet that soaks into the message of Soul.  

Many will be familiar with the poems of Godfrey John. We've spoken about them on this blog before. They never fail to move me to somewhere better, no matter how many times I've read the poem before. 

So, what if we really decided to drop the idea of a past, a present, and a future. What if we decided to BE. That's what poem number 43 "This Moment of Your Living" demands. 

Shiny shiny you. Now.

Julie Swannell

Ascension potential

What if each moment has as its purpose the potential for ascension? 

What if each challenge faced - a difficult assignment, an inharmonious relationship, a physical limitation - is an opportunity to let go of earth weights (the pull of gravity) and to soar amidst the weightlessness of Love.  

Gerald Stanwell's poem "Walk with God" (poem 37, Ideas on Wings) hints at this purpose. Especially dear is the central assurance "Enoch must have worked with good."

So can we. 

Let's fly.

Julie Swannell

Hope after all

IDEAS ON WINGS: Poem 33 

Hope is perhaps the bedrock of all our healing work. Without hope, we are lost in the sea of uncertainty, hopelessness, dismay, discouragement, and despair. Poetry has a way of countering these apparently stubborn traits, as we find when we read the Psalms and sing hymns. 

So it was balm this morning to read the poem "After All ..." by Joanne Mazna Garinger. The poem seems to follow the pattern of many of the Psalms: it describes thought being transformed by new light and rising out of the mortal picture into joyous gratitude for a fresh encounter with God and Her satisfaction with me.

Julie Swannell

Ideas on Wings

august 2016

Book of the month: Ideas on Wings

This wonderful anthology was copyright in 1978 by The Christian Science Publishing Society.  It was edited by Carol Chapin Lindsey and photographs are by Gordon N. Converse. The Foreword is by Rushworth M. Kidder.

It is divided into the following sections:
DIRECTION
COMFORT
INDIVIDUALITY
ASPIRATION
A WIDER VIEW
HEALING

There are 72 poems.

I'm sure you will enjoy re-acquainting yourselves with this collection - or getting to know it if you've not previously had the pleasure of the company of these poems.

Happy versing!

Julie