those visuals in verse
strip-lit ideas along ley lines
rhymes seasoned to taste 

melodious metres that pulse 
quickening a tick-tock lexicon
diction wormed away with sound 

skaters on figures of speech
or drydocked in dictionaries 
when poems fail to sail
 us 
          listeners 
                         ashore

ii
but first...
squeezed between push and pull
come the first drops that inspire
inking the blank sheet
tracing prosody from the predeceased

Lest we become poetasters
we trail in sonnets, follow
along rhymester routes
learn customs cut in sandstone steps
all by heart. Then up there
yodelling over the valleys
over and over
till the voice comes echoing back
as our own 

33 thoughts on “Ars Poetica*”

1. I love it, and to me, it explains the force of poetry as our voice… let us all be poetasters

   1. a lovely word that seems to suggest dining out on poems but it is actually derogatory -applied to bad or inferior poets. Hence we needs must follow in the steps of the masters and learn the rules first!

2. This is absolutely exquisite! I love the idea of trailing in sonnets.. and learning customs cut in sandstone steps… this is exactly the kind of poem I needed to read tonight, Laura. ❤️❤️❤️

   1. thank you Sanaa – was not sure it came right for me but it grew!

3. I love the process from the push and pull, rhymes seasoned to taste, to the yodelling over the valleys. Hopefully its our own unique voice that we hear.

   1. thank you Grace – it is the ultimate struggle for poets to find their own but dVerse is a good place to yodel!

4. A wonderful “ars poetica” Laura. I love the trailing in sonnets, learning to rhyme. . .till finally “the voice comes echoing back as our own.” 💙

   1. its quite a process we follow Merril until we hear ourselves in poetry

      1. It is indeed, Laura. Well done!

5. Laura this is a keeper, so fluid and deft. About the poem writing, I was lucky to stumble in to dVerse and taken under their kindly wing. Really like your “pointing at the moon” in the first stanza of part ii.

   1. many thanks Lisa – and I totally agree about dVerse – safe and supportive like the wing of a chicken or an angel!!

      1. ❤

6. You have so many great metaphors in your poem. I love the idea of poets yodeling from the mountain tops, hoping to hear their echo!

   1. yes I went a bit overboard on the metaphors – sometimes they just come tumbling out – thanks Dwight

      1. I love it! That is the way it should be!

7. Skaters on figures of speech…(figure 8s of infinity immediately come to mind) (K)

   1. definitely K – after a few tumbles!

8. gorgeous! I was swept away in this, and still smiling at those echoes! 👏👏

   1. thanks Tricia for being swept 😉

      1. A pleasure! ♥️🌹♥️

9. A master poet once told me that it takes decades to learn how to write one’s poetry, and I hope I’ll live long enough to find out. This poem reckons the work and its difficulties and follows the heart up the steps to where we hear something finally familiar. Well said. – Brendan

   1. that’s encouraging Brendan – thank you – I guess its not so much finding as revealing what is already there but overlaid under baggage etc

10. The art that is poetry … a million times over!! Well done.

    1. thank you for that lovely comment Helen x

11. *The truth has been spoken* Thanks for sharing this brilliant poem, Laura!

    1. thank you for your appreciation

12. You have such a way with words. I especially love this description…”quickening a tick-tock lexicon/diction wormed away with sound”. How true that our voice can be hidden under the process.

    1. thank you Mish – I always enjoy word play but revealing the voice is another matter

       1. I agree.

13. We have to admit, we love the classic forms of poems like sonnets, triolets, canzone etc. For us poems need a special rhythm. We see a lot of ‘poems’ in the net just like words written in lines.
    All the best
    The Fab Four of Cley
    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

    1. so many styles for different tastes I find meter and imagery are what captures me

14. Wonderful, Laura. So many nice phrases – rhymes seasoned to taste, skaters on figures of speech. You squeezed between push and pull and came up with something delightful. The last line (from “Then up”) is true of most any art, isn’t it? Or even life itself.

    1. thank you for all your appreciation – and yes surely it is true of life hence our adolescent rebellious phase yet still we can struggle to speak with our authentic voice

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