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Poetic Examples

I was asked to present some of my poetry as examples of narrative, lyric, and dramatic—all dealing with a valentine theme and all about a similar subject. It was suggested that I do this in four lines apiece, but it is very difficult to write a narrative or a dramatic poem in only four lines. Lyric, however, no sweat—so here they are.

The narrative and the dramatic could have had a rhyme scheme if I’d had longer to work on them. The lyric is free verse. The dramatic is sort of an unrhymed cowboy style. Note that “blush” is the key to all three. I hope you enjoy them.

Narrative

Maggie sat straight yet nervous
at the interview,
left hand
smoothing out her skirt,
right
balancing her pen, point to tablet.

Her blue eyes smiled when
the chairman
welcomed her,
but I, from then on
noticed only the smile in her blue eyes.

And
when they rested on me, I blushed.


Dramatic

Well, the stuffy chairman welcomed
the bright new prospect gal
after we had gathered in the stuffy room.

“Well, y’all introduce yourselves
to Maggie,
one of our prospects for the music position
here at Rio Grande High School?”

Well, when my turn came I blushed
as her blue eyes smiled at me.

The stuffy chairman interjected
before I could speak.
“Well, I guess we know your vote!”
Her blue eyes smiled again
and the room was no longer stuffy.


Lyric

To Maggie

As dawn blushes
upon the valley mist,
your smile blushes
upon my misting heart.


The lyric is quite concise. No words are wasted, yet the image is clear. This poem appears in my new book, Each Month I Sing, for the month of June. Maggie is my wife.
~~~~~~~~~

L. Luis Lopez has written three books of poetry: Musings of a Barrio Sack Boy, winner of an Honorable Mention in the 2000 Writer’s Digest poetry competition; A Painting of Sand; and Each Month I Sing, which was granted the American Book Award 2008 and the CIPA Colorado Independent Publishers Association) EVVY first place in poetry award 2008. Luis teaches Latin, Ancient Greek, and Mythology at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colorado. He offers workshops in reading and writing poetry. In addition, he and his wife, Maggie, are owners of Farolito Press. Visit his Web site at http://www.lluislopez.com/.

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Comments

  1. Thanks for this excellent series. The comparison post makes the distinctions clear. As a reader, I prefer narrative poetry, probably because I understand it better.

    As a writer, I've abandoned poetry -- all of my feeble attempts are filed away in a box of unpublished works that should probably be shredded. :)

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  2. I'm not very good at writing poetry either. Limericks maybe, and the occasional haiku. But I do recognize forms and BAD poetry. LOL. This was an excellent series - thank you so much for visiting us. We didn't get many comments, but we have had our usual visitors (150-200 a day), so folks are reading and perhaps you've inspired a Valentine poem or two. I liked your lyric poem to Maggie best of the three.

    Dani

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  3. It's great to see the difference in styles, which also give a variation in interpretation.

    Thanks!
    Heidi

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  4. Luis, the poems say it all. Together, they make up that picture that's worth a thousand words. Thank you so much for sharing your experience, your expertise, and your talent with those of us who love poetry even though we may not write it well.

    Linda

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  5. I like each one in different ways. And as I read each, I thought, ooh, I like that.

    I wrote some poetry in college, but haven't since then. Not sure why.

    Helen
    Straight From Hel

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  6. Thanks so much for doing this poetry series this week. Much appreciated. As I said in a comment on one of your earlier posts this week, I am not a poet, although now and then a poem emerges, but I really enjoy reading poetry. I learned a lot about the different forms of poems from your series.
    In today's offerings, I really enjoyed the last one.

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  7. I've enjoyed this glimpse into one person's love for another; your poetry is so expressive. Thank you for joining us this week.

    Elsa Neal
    HearWriteNow.com

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  8. Great examples from differing points of views.

    Morgan Mandel

    http://morganmandel.blogspot.com
    http://ourlittlerascal.blogspot.com

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  9. Maggie is one lucky lady!

    I had fun reading your posts each day and found myself looking forward to the next day's post. I thought I'd have a favorite when we got the poems, but I loved them all for different reasons.

    Thanks so much for taking the time to visit and educated us.

    Charlotte Phillips

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