Arts & Entertainment, Writing
Working With Form
Lesson time 16:29 min
Billy teaches you how to use form to win the love of your readers, an audience of strangers.
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Topics include: The Love of Strangers · Connect with Strangers Through Form · The Shapeliness of Poetry · The Shapeliness of Poetry · The First Few Lines of the Poem · Line and Stanza · Lines and Stanzas in “Elk River Falls”
Teaches Reading and Writing Poetry
In his first-ever online class, former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins teaches you how to find joy, humor, and humanity in reading and writing poetry.
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[MUSIC PLAYING] - Let me start with a little anecdote. One day some years ago, my editor at Random House, Dan Menaker was walking down, let's say, Madison Avenue with the well-known "New Yorker" writer Roger Angell. And a pedestrian recognized Angell somehow and stopped him and went on to praise his writing, and gushing, and just the thing. And then they broke off. Angell caught up with my friend, Menaker And Angell said that's-- that's what it's all about. And Dan said, that's what what's all about? He said that's what writing is all about, the love of strangers. I think a lot of poetry begins as a secret and covert activity. I mean back in the day, as they say, there was the existence of the diary. And the diary was a little book of blank pages. And it was thought that at a certain age, young girls went up to their rooms and had feelings. Boys were too busy throwing stones at squirrels and doing what they do to have these feelings. And one feature of these diaries is that they had little golden-- they had locks on them and a little key. And the lock was usually in the shape of a heart, a little golden heart. Why? Because these were your feelings you were expressing. That's the heart shape. Why the lock? Well, they were private. You didn't want your-- god forbid-- your big brother should look into your diary. You might say, cutting ahead, that poems are the expressions of thoughts and feelings but they're no longer embarrassing. So poetry is sort of a diary without the lock, a diary that you want people to read. But when one is conjuring an audience, one has to admit that it's an audience of strangers. The strangers that, as Angell said, you want to fall in love with you. [MUSIC PLAYING] There's a way to get readers interested. And the way-- and we'll talk about this expansively, I think during this class-- the way is through form. And by form, I mean anything that keeps the poem together. A sonnet, the fact that it's a tight 14 lines, has a certain rhyme scheme, certain meter, also a certain subject. All of those are the glue that's keeping this object of-- language object together. Because the reader comes to your book of poems not because the reader is interested in you, the reader is indifferent to you. The reader comes to the book of poems because the reader loves poetry. Now, in order to make a connection with the reader, what you have to do in your poetry is tell a little white lie. Harmless, but it's a lie. And the lie is that you love poetry more than you love yourself. We know that's not true. But if you can give that impression to the reader as the reader picks up your book and sees that you're giving off evidence that you love poetry through form, then the reader's interest overlaps with yours. The reader's interest of poetry sees someone else interested in poetry and not just in self-expression. Yates said all that is personal will rot if it is not packed in ice and salt. Now ice and salt would be...
About the Instructor
Known for his wit and wisdom, former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins is one of America’s most beloved contemporary poets. In his MasterClass, Billy teaches you to appreciate the emotional pull of poetry. Learn his approach to exploring subjects, incorporating humor, and finding your voice. Discover the profound in the everyday, and let poetry lead you to the unexpected.
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Billy Collins
In his first-ever online class, former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins teaches you how to find joy, humor, and humanity in reading and writing poetry.
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