Distillations: Repeating Forms
The act of repetition is one of the paradoxes of poetry. In the confined world of a poem, what is the use of redundancy? However wasteful it may seem, there are many poetry forms built around obligatory patterns of repetition. In this column, we will explore two rather different forms, the villanelle and the triolet, […]
Continue ReadingDistillations: Tell Me a Story
A poem with a plot seems like a violation of some kind of natural law. The condensed design of poetry conveys the entirety of a moment at once. How can a poem build a narrative arc like that of fiction? The answer lies in the history of poetry itself. At one time, poetry’s mission was […]
Continue ReadingDistillations: Breaking the Line
Once upon a time, it was easy for both poets and readers to know where to expect a line break. The rhythm of the meter shows it and by the rhyme you would know it. However, the previous example is an example of why this approach is less common today. It takes a great amount […]
Continue ReadingDistillations: Explorations of Hunger
In this month’s Distillations column, we explore three poems involving different twists on the mundane experience of eating and the experience of hunger. The narrators in each poem are human, and the food being discussed is not particularly exotic: risotto, soufflés, and mother’s milk. However, each poem shows hunger from an unexpected direction.
Continue ReadingDistillations: Visions of Time
Around here, March is when spring starts making its tentative appearance. If fall and winter are about remembering the past, spring is all about the future. In many ways, this idea of change is where science fiction began. What will happen next? What will the world be like if X happens? What will […]
Continue ReadingDistillations: Scifaiku
Even during a leap year, February is the shortest month. For this month’s column, we will explore the haiku form, which is short by design. Unlike the miserable cold of February (at least for those in the northern hemisphere), haiku is delightful. Everything unnecessary has been pared away. All that remains are the seventeen syllables, […]
Continue ReadingDistillations: Assonance
This month we continue our exploration of poetry techniques with assonance, defined as the repetition of vowel sounds. Last month, I referred to assonance as “alliteration’s crafty cousin.” The reason for this is that assonance is much less visually obvious. Although the English language is quite free with the correspondence of spelling to sound, this […]
Continue ReadingBreaking Hearts and Traffic Lights by Patrick Chapman
Patrick Chapman’s Breaking Hearts and Traffic Lights is a collection of poetry which functions as a continuous unit. If this were a piece of music, it would be a concept album. As the differences between songs and poems vary from vague to nonexistent, it should come as no surprise that this is a highly effective […]
Continue ReadingDistillations: Alliteration
As I mentioned last month, this column will be exploring various poetry techniques each month and how they are used in current speculative poetry. This month’s featured technique is alliteration, which is defined as the repetition of initial consonants or consonant sounds. It is a simple technique which can be powerful if not overdone. It […]
Continue ReadingDistillations: Imagery
For many people, poetry is a strange new land, as bizarre as any landscape imagined by Tolkien, Heinlein, or in extreme cases, Lovecraft. As the number of poetry reviewers at The Fix grows, I will be taking some time each month to discuss the mechanics of poetry. This guide will not make the landscape any […]
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