Poetry’s Gift to Prose

Simon Kindt – Cool

Every now and then a book arrives full to bursting with an idea so thought provoking, or titillating, that nobody cares how well it’s written. Despite the novel’s faults, people who’ve hardly read books (let alone buy one) will see it for sale in a service station, or games emporium, or stacked in a toy store, and buy it just because they’ve heard the buzz this little slab of paper created.

Even while you shake your writerly head over them, you can’t deny the power of the ideas that gave us Fifty Shades, Ready Player One, Da Vinci Code or even those Potter books.

The rest of us can’t rely on coming up with a world defining idea.

We’re going to have to haul ourselves out of the ordinary with our word skills, and that’s where the gift that is poetry enters the mix. While prose is all about sentences and what comes next, it’s the poetic eye (or is that ear) that adds the colour and feeling to the prosaic. When your writing is too flat, too ordinary, too bolted down to reality, it’s poetry that helps writers add sensory detail, playfulness, and a rich imagery deftly drawn.

Poetry is about nuance, about showing and suggesting connections. Story should be about nuance too, but it’s so easy to forget all that when your main aim is to achieve a word count.

And, of course, poetry is about language and how it fits together to create an effect as well as create a story.

Simon Kindt – in action

On Saturday, May 19, Queensland Writers’ Centre is bringing Brisbane poet, arts worker and teacher Simon Kindt, to Bundaberg, to our rooms at 80A Woongarra Street.

The morning session, The Spaces Between: An Introduction to Poetic Writing   is an exploration of metaphor, imagery and writing for sound, designed for writers who want to test the notion that poetry can lift there words out of the doldrums.

The afternoon session focusses on bringing poetry off the page. Beyond the Page: Exploring Movement, Sound and Music  is for beginner and intermediate writers, and explores the power of sound and music intrinsic to poetry.

To book, click on the links above. Costs per session range from $30 QWC members’ concession to $55 non-member non-concession.

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Writing Competition – Lyrics

A reminder that, closing the Club’s musical participation in this CRUSH Festival, the lyrics writing competition closes October 17.

And a reminder that you do not have to have attended the workshop to enter the competition.

CARL’S SCrushFestivalLyricWritingInfoPECIAL  TIPS

The good thing about workshops are they cut straight to the chase – no time for casual trawling through the net for conflicting ideas on how to write lyrics.

 Our workshop presenter, Carl Wockner, has been nominated for an ARIA – which is impressive enough – and will know the result before the end of OCTOBER. Since Carl is also judging the comp, it’s worthwhile knowing his views when you’re tweaking your words. Also, since Carl wants you to identify in your entry the VERSE, CHORUS, BRIDGE, PRE-CHORUS AND CHANNEL – should your words have them, that it might be a good idea to share his views with you below.
  1. listen to the songs you love. Look up their lyrics on the web and notice how they’re built.
  2. The chorus is the most important part of the song. It’s the part people remember and hum along with. Chorus contains the narrative hook. It stays very much the same if not exactly the same throughout the song.
  3. Verses ‘tell’ the story, sometimes in very abstract ways. From a novelists POV, they are like scenes. Verses rely on the chorus to remind people what the story’s all about. Verses change, and are hard to remember.
  4. Bridges turn the story.  It seemed to me that a bridge was similar to a dramatic turning point in a novel, where you come into a scene believing one thing and exit believing another or heading in another direction. Bridges transition the narrative from scene to scene.
  5. Pre-chorus – leads into each chorus (as it sounds like it should). It’s a couple of lines of very chorus like words, ie they don’t change substantially, but they’re harder to remember because (from the lyricist’s POV) they’ve not got the narrative hook. And generally when the muso gets to them, the music it self might be transitional – a key change or something similar.
  6. Channel – a pre-chorus that is repeated but which evolves, grows and changes, each time it’s used.
  7. Not all songs have Bridges, Pre-choruses or Channels. 
  8. You might also find an introduction useful.
  9. Write for yourself but never forget the audience.
  10. Choose a style/genre of music you like and consider writing for that style. You’ll know what subjects are common, and can think of ways to make old subjects fresh.
We also learned on the weekend that three lines in a verse seems to trouble people with guitars and is generally thought to be not a good idea, and that few singers/songwriters get away with songs that go on for more that 90secs. People like Paul Simon are special in good ways. My own thought is they end up being both singer and songwriter (and producer!).
Special tip: look at your lyrics and try them out as first person, second person and third person Points of view.
All in all, many pointers echoed what we’ve already seen applied to novel/short story writing. It’s possible that writing lyrics might actively help develop a longer prose narrative.
Sweet Home Alabama  was mentioned. If you check out the lyrics you see it features an Intro, pre-chorus, 3 choruses, and 2 Verses.  That’s right, three separate sections before the verse kicks in – immediately after the first chorus.  So a useful piece to demonstrate song structure possibilities.
FYI Taylor Swift’s latest pop offering is filled with choruses, pre-choruses, refrains, and interludes. And verses, of course.
A glance at experimentalist group Radiohead shows the chorus is often a two liner that can pop up anywhere, and that they seldom do intros – though instrumentally they favour an introductory piece.
Nickleback’s (metal)  newest has two choruses of eight lines each, a pre-chorus of two lines and three verses of four lines each, I think. Possibly.

CRUSH Cycle – words and music

As the scent of cane sugar rises rich and redolent in the October air and the chuff of cane trains rattle their way through our psyche it’s that time of the year  when Bundaberg celebrates.

Yes, The CRUSH festival is here again.

And this year the club will be doing a little cross-pollination of  creatives when music and words come together.

AlowishusWednesday1To start it all off with a bang, on Wednesday October 1, there will be the GREAT GELATO GROOVE at Alowishus Delicious. Register to get a free Gelato on the night.

Undercover Experience will be sharing their music, but also offering a chance to chat about music: about what makes them do what they do; what  they love (and hate) about music and, specially for writers, a little bit of insight into the wizardry that happens when words meet music in a brightly lit arcade in Bundaberg.

Good food. Good company. Good music.

Great Gelato.

FREE.

PS. Our main show is a lyrics writing workshop followed by a Jam session with Musos to the max guided by Carl and the guys from Bundy Live.
Sunday October 5, hosted by Carl Wockner, local lad and Scope Magazine’s Male solo Artist of the Year Acoustic and Vocals. Cost is $12.50. Register and pay on CRUSH Festival site. You’ll find more info there too.