The Poetry Portal Net

As one of the great satirical poems of English literature is titled: poeta fit non nascitur (“a poet is made, not born”). But isn’t poetry an art? Of course it is – but it’s also eminently a craft with its own didactics, its peculiar rules and esthetics norms, its jargon and its particular social scene of arrivers and AWOLs, of winners and losers, of wannabes and socialites and of lonesome wolves.

Rather than try to coerce, push and drive people towards poetry, as most Western educational systems are wont to do, we chose to adopt an entirely different, contrarian approach: that of bringing poetry to people by proactively soliciting them as contributors to our regular poetry contests, no matter their age, their gender, their educational background or their writing experience.

Moreover, we make a point of selecting contest topics targeting “mundane” fields not commonly associated with poetry and the classical poet’s stance. A perfect example being our very first contest focused on “hard cash”. This is done to liberate the creative poetry writing process from time worn associations and topical clichés as transported by – and in themselves constituting – mainstream literary conventions, mores and tastes. If anything, this levels inhibitions and makes for a free creative flow as our regular postings will easily prove.

So how do we do it? Simple: We contact people offline via direct mailings, asking them to contribute a topically defined (well, fairly loosely) poem to one of our contest. As this is a non-commercial effort not driven by profitability issues, there’s no cash prizes to win. In fact, all the kudos our contributors can expect is being published on our portal website and possibly elsewhere across the Web once we’ve signed up some syndication partners.

One small concession to Web usage and linking culture was made, however: Following up on a suggestion by one of our initial contributors, we did allow every participant to point readers to their favorite web site, provided it was topically related to the contest theme itself. Surprisingly, about 75% of all contributors have actually taken us up on this offer.

Soon, we’ll also be featuring free downloadable anthologies of our contributors’ poems in pdf format.

So maybe all this effort (which, make no mistake here, is a whopping bit of fun as well) will aid in finally coming to yet another entirely new definition further down the road, namely: poeta sit non nascitur (“being a poet instead of (merely) being born one”). By any standards, a worthy goal, we believe.

Finally, as a tribute to the author of the poem quoted above, he who has been rightly proclaimed to be one of the “church fathers of modern literatur”, find Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur by Lewis Carroll in its entirely below.

Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur

by

Lewis Carroll

“How shall I be a poet?
How shall I write in rhyme?
You told me once ‘the very wish
Partook of the sublime.’
The tell me how! Don’t put me off
With your ‘another time’!”

The old man smiled to see him,
To hear his sudden sally;
He liked the lad to speak his mind
Enthusiastically;
And thought “There’s no hum-drum in him,
Nor any shilly-shally.”

“And would you be a poet
Before you’ve been to school?
Ah, well! I hardly thought you
So absolute a fool.
First learn to be spasmodic –
A very simple rule.

“For first you write a sentence,
And then you chop it small;
Then mix the bits, and sort them out
Just as they chance to fall:
The order of the phrases makes
No difference at all.

“Then, if you’d be impressive,
Remember what I say,
That abstract qualities begin
With capitals alway:
The True, the Good, the Beautiful –
Those are the things that pay!

“Next, when we are describing
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don’t state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things
With a sort of mental squint.”

“For instance, if I wished, Sir,
Of mutton-pies to tell,
Should I say ‘dreams of fleecy flocks
Pent in a wheaten cell’?”
“Why, yes,” the old man said: “that phrase
Would answer very well.

“Then fourthly, there are epithets
That suit with any word –
As well as Harvey’s Reading Sauce
With fish, or flesh, or bird –
Of these, ‘wild,’ ‘lonely,’ ‘weary,’ ’strange,’
Are much to be preferred.”

“And will it do, O will it do
To take them in a lump –
As ‘the wild man went his weary way
To a strange and lonely pump’?”
“Nay, nay! You must not hastily
To such conclusions jump.

“Such epithets, like pepper,
Give zest to what you write;
And, if you strew them sparely,
They whet the appetite:
But if you lay them on too thick,
You spoil the matter quite!

“Last, as to the arrangement:
Your reader, you should show him,
Must take what information he
Can get, and look for no im-
mature disclosure of the drift
And purpose of your poem.

“Therefore to test his patience –
How much he can endure –
Mention no places, names, or dates,
And evermore be sure
Throughout the poem to be found
Consistently obscure.

“First fix upon the limit
To which it shall extend:
Then fill it up with ‘Padding’
(Beg some of any friend)
Your great SENSATION-STANZA
You place towards the end.”

“And what is a Sensation,
Grandfather, tell me, pray?
I think I never heard the word
So used before to-day:
Be kind enough to mention one
‘Exempli gratiâ’.”

And the old man, looking sadly
Across the garden-lawn,
Where here and there a dew-drop
Yet glittered in the dawn,
Said “Go to the Adelphi,
And see the ‘Colleen Bawn.’

“The word is due to Boucicault –
The theory is his,
Where Life becomes a Spasm,
And History a Whiz:
If that is not Sensation,
I don’t know what it is.

“Now try your hand, ere Fancy
Have lost its present glow –”
“And then,” his grandson added,
“We’ll publish it, you know:
Green cloth — gold-lettered at the back –
In duodecimo!”

Then proudly smiled that old man
To see the eager lad
Rush madly for his pen and ink
And for his blotting-pad –
But, when he thought of publishing,
His face grew stern and sad.

You can find this and more great poems by Lewis Carroll here.