Create Alternative Forms of Poetry

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Video: Create Alternative Forms of Poetry

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Hello and welcome to VisiHow. In this series of videos, we are exploring ways in which we can write poetry. In this video, we're going to discuss some alternative forms of poetry. We'll explore more avant-garde and experimental forms of poetry that can yield quite interesting and surprising results.

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   The first form we have comes from the language poets, who were a group of poets who decided to write poetry in a different form

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   It was a non-traditional form, using more experimental methods.

   

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   First, take a body of text â€- this can be any body of text â€- and examine it, then redact the words that you want, or don't want in this case

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   This will leave the remaining words to form a poem within the redacted text. This process is a great way of using our instincts to recycle and appropriate material and also allows us to use the existing form as inspiration, not only in what to create, but what to negate. So we can take a body of text that says one thing, and we can totally change that and contradict it by redacting and crossing out some of the lines. This gives us a really great opportunity to play with the text in front of us, and to be inspired by that text and to create something very unique. As you can see here, we have a piece of text and you can see that I've redacted some words. As you can see there, it's created quite a nice contrast and quite a unique situation. It has a very pleasing quality of finding something esoteric and hidden within the more obvious larger body of text.

   

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   The second alternative form of poetry comes from the Dadaist collective of avant-garde artists during the 1920s and '30s

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   This is something you can do, so give this a try also. Write a list of phrases or sentences.

   

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   Cut them up and place them in a bag

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   Then pull them out one by one and make a poem out of them

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   You can also do this with a newspaper or with any body of text â€- from a book, magazine, or anything you'd like. This process allows us the opportunity to create something unique based on our perspective and intuition. It has similarities also to the example above. It's about taking found items and rearranging them, and creating something new.

   

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   The third example of alternative poetry is to select words to build a poem around

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   First, choose a selection of words. It can be as many as you desire.

   

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   Then use one word as the inspiration for a sentence or set of sentences

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   This process allows us to plan themes and topics that we want to explore. It also gives us structure that guides and directs us through the poem. As you can see, there are four words here: Capricious, willow, swirl and pillow. With those words already selected, it's possible to make two lines. So by choosing words, it gives us a structure and it gives us bread crumbs with which we can follow our way through the poem.

   

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   Now it's your turn if you'd like to try some of these alternative forms of poetry

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   You can leave your work in the section below. We would love to see them! If you have any questions or comments on this video, you can also leave them in the section below. There, you will also find the links to the other videos in this poetry series. So, you've been watching VisiHow. Goodbye for now!

   

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If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.

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