“In art the best is good enough”, Italienische Reise, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. At any awards season, I am impressed by those persons who garner their gongs or statuettes, particularly thinking of the process they would have gone through, with long periods of unrecognised effort, and their creative resources developed in very competitive environments. Especially … Continue reading The Spark and Kindling of Creativity – Part One of Two
Sonnets
Poetry Inc. – Part Two
Being a poet sometimes feels like running a manufacturing business. In last month’s Part One, I highlighted the necessity of building contacts and promoting yourself. In this section, I’ll look at some practicalities. To help raise your profile, establish your reputation, and sell copies of your poems, you may need materials or marketing collateral to … Continue reading Poetry Inc. – Part Two
Poetry Inc. – Part One
Being a poet sometimes feels like running a manufacturing business – but without the use of Swarfega to wash your hands at the end. From the normally cleaner raw material of thoughts and ideas a production line extends through drafting, editing, reviewing, and workshopping to the delivery of poems to magazines, literary journals, and competitions. … Continue reading Poetry Inc. – Part One
Metre in Sonnets – Part Two
In his book on the neuroscience of music, Daniel Levitin states: “As the music unfolds the brain constantly updates its estimates of when new beats will occur and takes satisfaction in matching a mental beat with a real-in-the-world one and takes delight when a skillful musician violates that expectation in an interesting way.” As with … Continue reading Metre in Sonnets – Part Two
Metre in Sonnets – Part One
This is only a very brief introduction to the basics of metre and rhythm; enough to help you start thinking about sonnets and how to write their lines whilst paying attention to these aspects. First, we’ll look at regularity of rhythm and then, in part two, the effect of variation. People feel rhythm quite instinctively … Continue reading Metre in Sonnets – Part One
Clifford Liles 