<![CDATA[A New Tale ~ Creative Writing is FUN! - Poet]]>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:37:26 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[What Does Poetry Mean to You?]]>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:51:51 GMThttp://anewtale.com/poet/what-does-poetry-mean-to-you
Poetry has been around for thousands of years. But why the fascination with poems?

Lyrical sounds in statements, make listeners and readers pay attention!

A sing songy tempo gets remembered...


  • What does poetry mean to you?
  • Which types of poems do you prefer?
  • Who is your favorite poet? 
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<![CDATA[Is Ghost Writing for You?]]>Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:48:01 GMThttp://anewtale.com/poet/is-ghost-writing-for-you]]><![CDATA[Poets on Poetry]]>Fri, 03 Jul 2015 13:36:55 GMThttp://anewtale.com/poet/poets-on-poetry
#poetquote #literaturequote #poemtip #poetryadvice

All Creative Writers Love...Poetry & Poets!

“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”
― Plato


“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.”
― Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82

“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”
― Leonard Cohen


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<![CDATA[POETS AND SONG LYRICIST BOOT CAMP ]]>Mon, 26 Jan 2015 09:53:51 GMThttp://anewtale.com/poet/poets-and-song-lyricist-boot-camp
Poets, Music Lyric Writers, Authors, News Reporters, Copy Writers, Fiction Writers, Creative Writing Students... are all finding help and assistance in a new writing technique book; A NEW TALE by Author, Writing Mentor Stu Leventhal!

If you haven't read any of Stu Leventhal's work you should! Stu Leventhal is a freelance news reporter, Chef, Food Critic, Science Fiction Author, Mystery Author, blogger, poet, song writer...

Author Stu Leventhal has written successfully in just about every literary genre nameable
! Stu Leventhal is a restaurant review writer, a business consultant, an entrepreneur who has owned and run many different types of business in multiple industries. Now Author, Business Coach, Writing Coach, Mentor Stu Leventhal has written a creative writing guide book that is redefining what is possible in the many fields of writing!

A NEW TALE by Stu Leventhal will free your inner muse! Your imagination will be unshackled to explore, roam, experiment and discover its true potential! You can't get this creative writing guidance in colleges or universities. A NEW TALE by Stu Leventhal is not your Grandma's Creative writing tutorial.

After you read A NEW TALE by Stu Leventhal you will realize the fields of literature are still in their infancy. Mankind is still in its infancy! 
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<![CDATA[Poetic Voice]]>Wed, 15 Oct 2014 10:31:04 GMThttp://anewtale.com/poet/poetic-voice Poets and Poetry

By Stu Leventhal

Poems are mysterious! Many people are not really sure what a poem is. We recognize a good limerick or a rhyme and if singing or music is involved then we know the words we are listening to are song lyrics; but the difficult, scholastic verses can be confusing to decipher and even more difficult to try to categorize. The truth is a lot of us are not really sure what we should make out of a lot of the stuff people are trying to pitch as poems these days! To make things even more difficult is the fact that most poets take offense if we ask them to explain what their work is supposed to mean!

“Poems are artistic bursts of expression!” Artists claim. “They mean one thing to you and something totally different to someone else!”

Poems can be about anything that moves their authors; nature, love, revenge, humor, satire, relationships… Poems are visions, pictures, thoughts portrayed on paper using text, words and language in an abbreviated artsy fashion. Poems are written out declarations of man’s deepest emotions. Man’s emotions are often complicated while he is caught up in living the heat of the moment, which is why we try to isolate them on paper to make some sense out of them. Through poetry and artsy verse authors seek to dominate their emotions and gain some of the control back. Yes, many poems are whimsical and silly but others tackle life’s most serious issues.

Because most poems are short their authors do not usually use full sentences; the sentences and phrases are stripped down leaving just the most powerful and significant words! Poets seek to say a lot, fast so a reader is often given only the most important words and phrases! Lines and stanzas are arranged for sound and to be pleasing rhythmically to the ear because it is important that poetic works are artistic and aesthetic as well as meaningful!

Everything and anything can be viewed as important depending on who is looking or studying it. Poets expand the traditional definitions of the words they use. One thing symbolizes another. The significance of any item can be transferred to represent an entirely different thing.

There are many established forms of poetry with rules of structure that an author must abide by if he wishes his poem included in a particular poem genre or category but labels are really only meant to help classify the poems for grouping them and further discussions and studying. Poets never have to adhere to any set patterns or follow the established poem blue prints if they do not wish to. Creative Poets create their own styles often because despite all the numerous poetry techniques and methods already in existence, established styles and forms will not always allow the poet to say what he wishes to communicate to his readers without losing significance.

Good poetry is not cute; it may appear cute but it probably took a lot of discipline and thought before it began to take on a cute tone. The economy of words means everything to a poem. Poets toil long and hard to position each word just right to get the desired readers' reactions. Many re-writes often go into a short three or four stanza poem before an author is satisfied enough to share it!

Poems often mirror their authors. A poet’s fears and dreams are reflected for his readers to see. A writer’s attitude and personality is left on the page using words and the magic of language. Certainly a writer’s reverence for his subjects and topics can be seen in the type of structure he chooses to craft and display his most important messages with.

*Need help with a poem? Need some song lyrics? Contact us with the project details: anewtale191@live.com

*Feel free to add or share some insight on your poetry techniques and add to our ongoing discussion of poetic theory. What modern poets do you read? Why do you like their poems? What are your favorite poems? Why? Send Us a Poem! 


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<![CDATA[What is Poetry?]]>Mon, 21 Jul 2014 03:34:07 GMThttp://anewtale.com/poet/what-is-poetry Becoming a Creative Poet!

Writing Poetically!

Defining Poetry 101!

          By Stu Leventhal

So you want to be a Poet? Why? You say you like reading poetry. Okay, that is a good start. You say reading poems is fun. Again, I have to ask; can you tell me why reading a poem is such fun? You might say because poems make you think. Or, they make you smile! Or maybe you get mesmerized slightly by poems because unlike other writings poems are often written using repeating, soothing, welcomed patterns and melodic tone. Yes, all the lines of one poem may all have the same amount of words in them or its stanzas can often be spoken in a repeating rhythm, beat or cantor. Their author, the poet may choose to have the last word of every other line rhyme. Or, the structure of a poem may be three lines of similar sized text then a pause followed by four lines of text then a pause then three lines again followed again by the four lines.

Yes, I get it; adding patterns and beats to reading makes the reading more interesting and enjoyable plus the poems become easier to remember. There certainly are many popular structures of poetry that are aesthetically pleasing to the eye when viewed on paper as well as very pleasing to the ear when recited in verse.

Poetry is considered conservative artsy text. All but the essential words are deleted from phrases and statements leaving only the very most important words. This economy of words in poetry leaves room for a more personal interpretation of the piece by each reader. The ability of the poet to get us to think is one of the many joys of poem reading. By cutting out all the unnecessary words, the poet is able to take us on a journey very quickly. The economy of words in poetry often adds to creating that mystery of whether the reader really gets what the author was trying to say which adds ambiance as well as more fun to the reading. After all, they say art is in the eye of the beholder. 

Poetry is art made of just words and combinations of words! If you want to be a Poet; think of yourself as a painter or sculpture who paints pictures or sculpts without paint, colors, clay or stone but instead using only words. Can you paint a picture in a reader’s mind with just a few lines of text?

The words a poet picks to build his artistic creation with are meant to cause an emotional reactions when read. They are chosen to conjure up visions in a reader’s head. The difference between just reading and writing and reading and writing poetry is the powerful impact caused by the use of just a few chosen phrases. Deep emotions are stirred despite the briefness of the poetic phrases. A lot get said! These small compilations of words and word groupings are the building blocks of a full art piece and we all know art is often tough to interpret and can be very deep to contemplate.

Poetry is art and thus not practiced the same as we speak, talk or would write a letter to a friend. When speaking and talking we want to be sure to make our point and may take long length measures to make sure our listener does not misunderstand what we are trying to tell them. A poem is not just speaking or language put to print. A poem is meant to be an emotional charged experience! Words and phrases are used wittingly, outside their intended, popular and even known dictionary meanings to portray things entirely different!

Poetry is a vital segment of creative writing. When one writes creatively the author still must use full sentences crafted with proper grammar and follows the acknowledged and accepted rules of composition, spelling and diction because that is the best way to assure your message is not misinterpreted. As art a poem’s goal is to bring awareness to something of significance. Once presented the art allows its audience’s individually raised emotions to decide what the significance is all about.

There are some rare long poems but for the most part, poetry is short and very concise. This means the poet has a limited amount of time or words to make a point. Thus, every word must be chosen carefully. There is little room for words that do not perform or babbling, rambling, meaningless phrases. But, just because most poems are short do not make the mistake of thinking they cannot express large ideas or spur huge debates or ask or raise very complicated questions!

When we meet a person for the very first time we start evaluating what we see and hear immediately and start forming our opinion of them instantly. This is the same kind of power of awareness great poetry awakens in us. Even though logic tells us before us stands a man in his early thirties who we cannot possibly hope to know the least bit about in the few minutes we’ve spent with him, we still judge him and come to many conclusions. A poet’s few words have that same effect on us, speaking volumes, causing us to think, wonder and conjure up a pile of questions. The poet wets our appetite so we now want, even need to learn and know more!

When we walk into a strange room or round the corner and step right into a situation our sense of awareness is elevated instantly. We start to evaluate what is going on then draw some conclusions right away. We can sense when excitement is in the air or danger is closing in on us despite there is no concrete evidence that anything out of the ordinary is about to happen! A good poet’s words also put us on heightened alert immediately though we can’t often put our finger on why!

Poems are not written to give explanations or preach. Poetry is meant to pose new ideas, question old ideas, to challenge what we think we are sure of, to open our eyes to new possibilities, to criticize, to warn, to help us see more clearly, to spotlight something of significance, to draw attention to something worthwhile that is being ignored or taken for granted.

Poems highlight the beautiful and illuminate the ugly and they often have us reevaluating our definitions of determining what beauty is and what ugliness is.

Poems are tightly constructed groups of fascinating individual bursts of magical words and phrases which are capable of creating immense emotion and sprouting big ideas. Poetic stanzas must be entertaining and meaningful on their own but when compiled one after another into a complete poem they lead a reader somewhere extra special!

Most of us are aware that there exist many types of very complicated highly structured poetry. There are rules and regulations that must be met for one’s poem to be qualified as a certain literary type. Remember that poetry is art and as art the visual look of the poem on the page is often important too. For example; The Oulipo snowballing poem method requires the poet to start every poem off with just a single word, the next line has two words, the next three words and so on with the poet adding one more word to each line added. The end result is that the poem visually looks like a triangle.

The Cinquain poem, aka the Quintain Poem or Quintet, is basically a quick five line stanza with a rhyming scheme that is usually crafted in one of these patterns; The last word of the 1st line rhymes with the last word of the 3rd line while the 2nd line rhymes with the 4th and 5th lines (xyxyy). Rhyming patterns of xyxxy and zxyyx are also popular for Cinquain Poetry.

The Japanese Haiku Poem’s beauty lies in how much it portrays to the reader with just a very few brief words! The Haiku Poet seeks to create a strong emotional image in the reader’s mind with just a three-line poem, which is why the subjects are often nature related. The original requirements for a Haiku Poem were that the 1st line had to have exactly five syllables. The 2nd line seven syllables and the 3rd line five syllables. Over time the 5/7/5 syllable count has become less important. But brief, intense and emotional are still requirements. Haiku Poems also have to be able to be read in one breath.

New students of poetry should never be intimidated by what at first appears to be complicated and scholarly poetry. Just read a few of the new style poem then try writing one. You may surprise yourself, discovering you have a natural knack for crafting more than just silly, lewd, bar limericks. Not that anything’s wrong with silly, lewd, often very humorous, bar limericks! Okay you Poet Laureates, let’s not judge! Remember, art is in the eye of the beholder!

Just keep in mind that the method of poetry or style the poem is written in is not nearly as important as the message being presented. The style should always be chosen because it enhances the message, reinforces it and makes the unveiling or discovery of the idea by its reader more dramatic, delightfully or potent!

The POET – A scribe who writes poetry, a crafter and compiler of verses, an artistic wordsmith of great imaginative wit and expressive skills of composing language into art!

RECOMMENDED READING:
Poetry Tips - http://www.anewtale.com/poetry-tips.html
Writing Song Lyrics - http://www.anewtale.com/writing-song-lyrics.html

ENJOY READING SOME FREE POETRY HERE:
Poems by Stu Leventhal - http://www.anewtale.com/poem.html
Romance Poetry by Stu Leventhal - http://www.anewtale.com/romance.html


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<![CDATA[Poetry is...]]>Mon, 21 Jul 2014 03:04:59 GMThttp://anewtale.com/poet/july-20th-2014"Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing." - Edmund Burke

"Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down." -Robert Frost

"Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history." - Plato
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<![CDATA[POETRY INSIGHT]]>Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:43:15 GMThttp://anewtale.com/poet/poetry-insight

Understanding Poetry
                     by Stu Leventhal

From limericks to ballads to song and music lyrics, poems come in a lot of varieties; cute rhymes, free verse, Haiku, Odes, Sonnets are just some of the more popular styles. People from all walks of life have been using poetry to express themselves for thousands of years. Poems and poetry are short pieces of literary art. Writing poetry appeals to many new, creative writing students because poems have a reputation of being fun, cute and much less scholarly and intimidating than other literary subjects. Students are already familiar with many forms of poetry, be it through childhood nursery rhymes, popular radio songs, national anthems, religious prayers, commercial advertisement jingles and humorous marketing promotional slogans. Yes, poetry is one form of literature marketers love to exploit in order to gain publicity for their products.

The seemingly simplicity of many of our beloved poems can be deceiving. Often many hours of thought go into perfecting a few lines or a single phrase or stanza which we, the audience, take for granted. As a form of art, artists, in this case, poets have been known to fret for days on end over their search for a single, perfect word; similar to the painter who agonizes over the perfect shade of green and blue with which to highlight a portrait’s eyes. Sometimes poets work on a poem for years before being satisfied enough to proclaim it is finally ready to share with the rest of us.

Poetry, as literature, like all types of literature, gets tougher for an author to express oneself the shorter the written piece is due to the less amount of words one can use and the less time available within which to deliver ones ideas fully and in a way they can be shared and totally understood by others. Generally, creative writing and especially poetry is a contradiction to the natural and easily understandable assumption that a shorter piece of text should be less difficult to complete than a longer piece of text. But, because they are a considerably artsy format of literature, poems are much more complicated and sophisticated than they at first appear. Poems bring true meaning to the quim; large things sometimes come in small packages. The message portrayed through a few lines of quality poetry can deliver a powerful wallop of meaning and insight.

"I am disgraced, impeach'd and baffled here,

Pierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,                          

The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood

Which breathed this poison." - Richard II, Shakespeare

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<![CDATA[Understanding the World of the Poet]]>Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:21:14 GMThttp://anewtale.com/poet/understanding-the-world-of-the-poet                   POET LAUREATES                     
                     by Stuart Leventhal
Poets are the artists of language. Poetry is the skill of creating, molding, modifying and elevating commonly spoken words and everyday phrases into artistic expressions. Many poems are written in the form of repetitive verse using musical like meters and rhyme with a focus on presenting words and communications in a more aesthetically ear-pleasing fashion. But, any composition written using an imaginative form of language can be considered a poem. Thus, we have the phrase ‘poetic license’ which stands for giving poets a free hand in breaking traditional rules of grammar, spelling, punctuation, formal diction and factual definition so they can ply their craft. The poet laureate is the title given to a renowned poet of distinction.

A poetic verse is a short burst of communication, similar to a paragraph, only in poetry there is a distinct importance to the length and phonic sound of the phrase or short bundle of phrases. Poems are arranged in compilations of lines usually, all similarly structure, called stanzas that are more orderly formed than common textual paragraphs. The stanzas of a poem usually all conform to the same beat or rhythm sometimes referred to as the poetic meter. When viewed on a page the verses or stanzas of a poem usually appear to all be similar in length and grouped in a distinct, repeating pattern. These written verses when strung together come to make up inspirational expressions, whimsical musings and innovative communications. Thus a poem generally has a much bigger meaning and many times, even multiple meanings besides its literal, on the surface interpretation.

Poems have been defined as sentimental writing but they are much more. Poetry is putting words to use for more than their literal intended meanings and expanding their purpose. To this end, Poets exploit every aspect of a word and groups of words; their sound, tone, rhythm, formal definition, sentiment and emotional responses.

Our Poet Laureates are considered some of the most intelligent, gifted, imaginative human beings of Man’s history. Hailed for their awe inspiring, phenomenal gifts of expression, their poems are coveted as genius examples of art as well as being studied as genius examples of human development in learning and knowledge. With vision and imagination man’s poets elevate common language and communication to a mystical level that goes beyond even truth, fact, historical records and even challenges our known laws of nature and physics themselves. In regards to poetry, there are no limitations and nothing is impossible.

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