Elementary Writing

A way of publishing your poetry to large number of people, to the audience that cares, this is the fundamental promise of twiHaiku, new online Twitter publishing application that leverage the core virtues of Internet and social networking.

Just listen to a few tweets from the followers who are discovering that poetry is very much alive on the web and now it is living in ways that were never possible or existed before the creation of Twitter and twiHaiku:

“30 seconds in and I already have a huge crush on @twihaiku …. ”
@saponista

“All poets should follow @twihaiku !”
@poet_laureate

“@twihaiku – Oh that sounds fantastic !!!”
@NoBitterLemons

TwiHaiku official website presents an easy to use online application that aims to collect and publish quality original short poetry, which moderated selection of the best twiHaiku poems is available at TwiHaiku Twitter account page. It is a pure poetry channel, without an usual Twitter noise, for all poetry lovers to follow, read, discuss, rate, search and contribute to the best collection of the short verse poetry online.

@twihaiku page
Favorite new place to rage
Where I play a Sage.

Twihaiku by @rekouche

Social media marriage made in electronic heaven

Just in case you did not know, Twitter become one of the, if not the single most important Web 2.0 medium in the world. More people are joining this micro-blogging service everyday, discovering twitter poetry, and many different forms it is taking on.

Status message-inspired nature of Twitter (brief text messages uploaded to a web site that others subscribe to, follow and read) is perfect for scripting concise poetry such as haiku, short or light verses poetry,  because you are limited to 140 characters (to fit in a standard SMS message). This means you’re limited to around 5 letters per syllable, which should be plenty to create a masterpiece.

Beautiful and sad
Seemingly without purpose
Little flightless bird.

TwiHaiku about animals by @madmadamimm

TwiHaiku – Twitter hijacked all for poetry!

Poems that can fit inside 140 characters – Twitter Poetry – Very 21st century! We care about poetry precisely because it exists outside this frenetic word-space. In a world echoing with tweets and stats and sound bytes, our need for poetry has never been greater.

TwiHaiku is poetry for today and our fast-paced lifestyles. Starting from the simple Twitter question: “What are you doing?”, reader and the writer within are enticed to get involved, to share with the community their sincere attitude about world that surrounds us, with the perception of what is occurring at the moment, concisely and without embellishment.

I took to the jail
Flowers grew between the bars
Beauty set me free

TwiHaiku about life by @JimCrowePoet

Giving a new meaning to the poetry in cyberspace, TwiHaiku website offers friendly collaborative interface that significantly extends the obscure list of Twitter interacting options. In addition to the simple poetry submission, similar to the other social networking services like Digg, StumbleUpon or Facebook, twiHaiku users may easily vote, bookmark, search or discuss their favorite poems, directly influencing and refining the content of the Twitter page.

This way, only the top quality content is presented to the followers without an frequently emphasized  drawback of ordinary Twitter accounts that incorporate a lot of not relevant and usually meaningless content (like the owners daily routine preferences)

New poetry form for the 21th century

The destiny of TwiHaiku project is now entirely in hands of the online community and its vast creative potential demonstrated so many times in recent years. If successful, this project may mark a new chapter in the history of modern poetry, and be the roll-model for many similar ventures waiting to reshape the way we are consuming the poetry today.

You may follow twiHaiku and contribute to its daily poetry sessions on its official webpage at www.twiHaiku.com.

While some poets may argue passionately that poetry isn’t true poetry unless it adheres to the rules of classical form, there are times when a well-used poetry form can go stale for you. Knowing that there are many more different types of poems and poetry, may lights your fires as a reader or a poet, to get you going.

Purpose of this article is not to be the presentation of all different kinds of poetry formats (although we maintain to be a valuable resource by elaborating all Poetry Genres & Different Forms of Poems here »). Our intention is to disclose and depict those particular types of poems that, in our humble opinion, bring the most excitement and positive impulses, and at the certain point are exotic by their form or the origin.

TwiHaiku

TwiHaiku, Twitter Haiku or Twitter Poetry – is a novel form of short verse poetry that unifies genuine virtues of traditional Haiku (brevity, point to an actual, lived experience, evoking deep feelings in the reader..) with simple, straightforward purpose and interface of Twitter application.

You don’t have to be a writer to write TwiHaiku

Although twiHaiku does not restricts its form to any particular set of rules, and you do not have to be a poet to write it, it strives to convey the significance of the poetic experience in expressing your genuine thoughts and feelings, in accordance with the particular object, event or phenomenon.

Early wake up.
Strong about life,
strong about love,
strong about people.
Only too weak about my baby girl.

One may ask what separates a TwiHaiku from Haiku or other short, light verse. TwiHaiku is a poetry for today and our fast-paced lifestyles. Starting from the simple Twitter question: “What are you doing?”, the reader and the writer within are enticed to get involved, to share with the community their sincere attitude about world that surrounds us, with the perception of what is occurring at the moment, concisely and without embellishment.

TwiHaiku about twiHaiku

The butterfly in the concrete city of Eden.
So fragile and so beautiful.
Silent cry that you follow instinctively,
is the kiss of salvation.

TwiHaiku official website aims to collect and publish quality original short poetry, which moderated selection of best twiHaiku poems is available at TwiHaiku Twitter account page for immediate subscription.

Acrostic

Acrostic poems are fun to write. You can
Create your own poem by using the simple
Rules found below.
Others and many will enjoy reading your poem and
Seeing your illustration on the bulletin board.
These type of poems are different because rhyming
Is not important.
Choose your words wisely.

Did you know that The Dutch national anthem (The William) is an acrostic! The first letters of its fifteen stanzas spell WILLEM VAN NASSOV, (one of the hereditary titles of William of Orange), defining the main structural characteristic of the acrostic poetic form.

The term Acrostic is derived from the Greek words akros, “at the end,” and stichos, “line.” , and it was first applied to the prophecies of the Erythraean Sibyl, which were written on leaves and arranged so that the initial letters of the leaves always formed a word.

Probably the most famous acrostic was made on the Greek for Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior:

Iesous Christos, Theou Uios, Soter

ch and th being each one letter in Greek The initials spell ichthus, Greek for fish; hence the frequent use of the fish by early Christians as a symbol for Jesus.

This type of poems were common among the Greeks of the Alexandrine period as well as with the Latin playwrights Ennuis and Plautus, and we may find some reflections of this ancient heretage in work of famous modern authors like Vladimir Nabokov (in its story “The Vane Sisters“), Lewis Carrol (the final chapter if its “Through the Looking-Glass“) or Edgar Allan Poe in the poem entitled simply “An Acrostic”:

An ACROSTIC by Edgar Allan Poe

Elizabeth it is in vain you say
“Love not” — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L. E. L.
Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breathe it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His folly — pride — and passion — for he died.

In this poem (just one of several acrostics Poe wrote for the amusement of female admirers), Zantippe is actually Xanthippe, the wife of the famous Greek philosopher Socrates, that was known for her quick and violent temper.

Double Acrostic

There can be much more complex acrostics involving for example double and triple acrostics, that occupy an important niche in the history of word puzzles, for it is generally recognized that they were the predecessors to the crossword puzzle.

Probably invented in the 1850’s, the double acrostic was a fad in the latter part of the 19th century. Queen Victoria was believed to be very fond of the double acrostic which, by this time, had evolved from a verse-form into a type of puzzle. This acrostic was supposedly written by her royal hand:

A city in Italy A river in Germany A town in the United States A town in North America A town in Holland The Turkish name of Constantinople A town in Bothnia A city in Greece A circle on the globe

NapleS ElbE WashingtoN CincinnatI AmsterdaM StambouL TorneA LepantO EcliptiC

Triple Acrostic

Type of poems in which the first, middle, and last letters of each line spell out the same word or a phrase (in our next example, the name Chantell) in one or a both (vertical) directions. A bit of a challenge to write, but of course it is lots of fun and worth the effort.

CHANTELL by Dave D.

Chantell is full of graCe, a rainbow arC
Her heart radiates tHe essence of birtH
Always looking to cAre, gorgeous ariA
Never has one beeN so helpful and fuN
Tellingly soulful, witTy, and our delighT
Eternally eloquent, Evanescent dovE
Loving, lovely, intelLigent, and surreaL
Listen to her bell toLl, a distant peaL

How to recognize a good acrostic poem? Apart of an imperative of being the great reading experience, good acrostic poems succeed in telling a story that is intriguing and usually a bit humorous at the same time, within the confines of the form.

Weather you are writer or just a fan of poetry, you may find acrostic a great fun to write. It is simple and can be practiced on that train or bus ride to work when we don’t have anything better to do than look out the window. It also reeves up your mind for the day ahead.

You may find more interesting details about this form of poetry here: Acrostic Poems

Haiku

Japan’s most popular unrhymed poetic form, The Haiku is just a tiny poem, “the size of your breath”, that glorifies the importance of the poet’s first impression, just as it was, of subjects taken from daily life, and of local color to create freshness. It traditionally consists of three lines. The first line contains five syllables, the second line contains seven, and the last line five. The traditional subject-matter is a description of a location, natural phenomona, or wildlife.

The ocean waves crash,
As a storm brews in the sky,
Mad mother nature

The Haiku originated in Japan and its name is generally translated as “good words.” One of the first Japanese writers who practiced the Traditional Haiku specific form was Basho, Matsuo. (1644-1694). The name Basho (banana tree) is a sobriquet he adopted around 1681 after moving into a hut with a banana tree alongside. During the years, Basho made many travels through Japan, and one of the most famous went to the north, where he wrote Oku No Hosomichi (1694). On his last trip, he died in Osaka, and his last haiku indicates that he was still thinking of traveling and writing poetry as he lay dying:

Fallen sick on a journey,
In dreams I run wildly
Over a withered moor.

by Matsuo Basho

The Modern Haiku derives from the haikai (a linked-verse poem) which was created by a group of poets as a long series of small stanzas. The first stanza, which was called the hokku (”starting verse”), set the tone for the rest of the poetic chain, and thus it enjoyed a privileged position in haikai poetry. It was not uncommon for a poet to compose a hokku by itself without following up with the rest of the chain.

Largely through the efforts of Masaoka Shiki (the famous Japanese author, poet, literary critic, and journalist), this independence was formally established in the 1890s through the creation of the term haiku. This new form of poetry was to be written, read and understood as an independent poem, complete in itself, rather than part of a longer chain.

Few great examples of modern Haiku by outstanding Japanese haiku masters:

Sick and feverish
Glimpse of cherry blossoms
Still shivering.

by Akutagawa, Ryunosuke. (1892-1927)

From a bathing tub
I throw water into the lake -
slight muddiness appears.

by Kawahigashi, Hekigodo. (1873-1937)

First autumn morning:
the mirror I stare into
shows my father’s face.

by Murakami, Kijo. (1865-1938)

American Haiku is a short form that evolved from the Japanese Haiku form. There are many different types of poems in American Haiku sub-genre, ranging from the simple 5-7-5 style taught in most grade schools, to more complex styles that not only consider every single element to be important, but also demand a certain type of punctuation.

they’ve gone…
where the beach umbrella was
the sand not quite so hot

by Lindsay Dhugal

Faceless, just numbered.
Lone pixel in the bitmap-
I, anonymous.

by Alexey V. Andeyev

Many of the thousands of poets outside Japan studying and writing this brief form in English and other languages are becoming aware that it will be an accepted form of poetry for time to come.

You may find more interesting details about this form of poetry here: Haiku Poems

Limerick

“There are three distinct types of limericks: Limericks to be told when ladies are present; limericks to be told when ladies are absent but clergymen are present–and LIMERICKS”.

Definition of Limerick by Don Marquis

The limerick, has been and probably always will be “an indecent verse-form”. Any nonsense poem that lacks five lines, thirteen metric feet, or the aabba rhyme pattern is simply not a limerick. It might be a sing-song or a la-de-da, but it’s not a limerick.

There ONCE was an OLD man from WHEEL-ing
Who HAD a pe-CUL-i-ar FEEL-ing
Said the SIGN on the DOOR
Please don’t SPIT on the FLOOR —
He JUMPED up and SPAT on the CEIL-ing.

The first, second, and fifth lines are trimeter, while the third and fourth are dimeter. Often the third and fourth lines are printed as a single line with internal rhyme.

The metric feet MUST be anapests ( da da DUM ) although the leading foot of each line may be an iamb ( da DUM) and the last foot of each line may have a trailing unaccented syllable ( da da DUM da). If you can’t sound out the da-da-DUMs, no Limerick involved – Sorry.

A mosquito was heard to complain,
‘A chemist has poisoned my brain!’
The cause of his sorrow
was paradichloro-
triphenyldichloroethane.

The simplicity of the limerick quite possibly accounts for its extreme longevity. Variants of this form dating as far back as the fourteenth century are found in English nursery rhymes and animal-warning poems such as “The lion is wondirliche strong”. Since then, the form has appeared sporadically throughout the history of the English language, from the bellowing songs of half-naked street beggars during the sixteenth century to the drinking songs of inebriated pub-crawlers in the seventeenth century.

The term limerick itself has its apocryphal origins in the refrain “Will you come up to Limerick,” a now-forgotten tavern chorus from the Irish town of the same name.

Despite its popularity in pubs and taverns, formal poets were familiar with the limerick; Shakespeare employed the form in several of his plays, King Lear and Othello. However, one does not need the talent of Shakespeare to compose a limerick, but merely a sense of humor.

The reprinting of Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense in 1863 inadvertently created the English limerick fad. The English humor magazine Punch, inspired by Lear’s book, began to publicize the “new” form within its pages, and thus began the limerick craze. In about 1870, some forty years after the original publication, A Book of Nonsense was re-published in an edition with color illustrations. In all likelihood Edward Lear colored them himself.

The limerick has refused, and still refuses to die, despite its curious role as the vehicle of cultivated, if unrepressed, sexual humor in the English language.

Different Types of Poems – Instead of the conclusions

“Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution” | Dobzhansky.

Surprisingly, both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on February 12, 1809. In 2009 we mark the bicentennial, the 200th anniversary of both their births. There are many other things connecting these two influential men, most of all the sense of truth and of championing new possibilities in how we see our world, as well as the fact that deeds of both have changed our world forever.

November 2009 also marks the 150th birthday of Charles Darwin’s epochal evolution text On the The Origin of Species. To commemorate the occasion Danish theater prepare Darwin-Inspired Opera called Tomorrow, in a Year. The piece is set to debut in Copenhagen in November 2009, and takes as its inspiration Darwin’s thoughts on evolution, change, transformation, and mutation.

It brings us to new understanding of intellectual and social roots of Darwin’s main theories, that many scholars now refer to Darwin’s interest in art an literature. As a milestone not only in the history of science but also in cultural history, Darwin certainly developed his theory of evolution by means of natural selection in the context of 19th-century society as well as the science of the time.

Charles Darwin – Reading List

In his childhood Darwin was an avid reader, and this continued throughout his entire life.

His interest in literature may be ascribed to Charles Darwin’s elder brother, Erasmus Alvey (1804—1881). He was interested in literature and art rather than science. Charles wrote that he was “inclined to agree with Francis Galton (a half-cousin of Charles Darwin) in believing that education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone, and that most of our qualities are innate” (The Life and Letters, London, 1887).

Maybe under his brother influence, Charles attended Revd. Case’s grammar school in Shrewsbury. Ironic as it may seem, Charles Darwin was a lazy young man, and a slow learner in school. His increased interest in natural science was spurred on by hobbies outside his formal education, end his real passions was Hiking, Chammistry and Book Reading.

One book that influenced Darwin a great deal in his youth was titled “Wonders of the World.” It may have been this book that first put the idea into Darwin’s head to explore exotic foreign lands. His reading list in this periods, non surprisingly, also included:

• Shakespeare’s historical plays
• The poems of Byron,
• Scott,
• Thomson, and
• The Odes of Horace.

After his first year at medical school at the University of Edinburgh, during the summer 1825., Darwin spent much of his time hiking around northern Wales and reading Revd. Gilbert White’s book: “The Natural History of Selborne” (published in 1789). This book taught Darwin to appreciate the richness and beauty of birds, insects, and other creatures, so much in fact, that he started his own field notebook on his observations of birds. Most important of all, this book helped young Darwin develop the habit of making very close observations in nature, a habit that would serve him well all his life.

During his last year at Cambridge University, after completing his final exam (he scored 10th place!) Darwin read Sir John Herschel’s “A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy“. The primary influence of this book was that it convinced Darwin that there were no limits to the wonders that scientific investigation could uncover, and this instilled in Darwin a burning zeal for science.

Another book he read (in the Spring 1831) was Alexander von Humboldt’s 7-volume “Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America During the Year 1799-1804“. It was this book that really got Darwin’s imagination spinning, and he was now dreaming about exploring the glorious tropical rain forests of South America (he was unaware of the H.M.S. Beagle voyage at this time).

The Origin of Species|	The Young Charles Darwin|	The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist|	Darwin’s Sacred Cause

Charles Darwin’s Favorite Authors

During the Beagle voyage he always read Milton’s “Paradise Lost” when he had a spare moment. While living in London after the voyage, he became fond of the poetry of William Wordsworth, and Samuel Coleridge.

In his later years Darwin was very fond of novels by Jane Austen, and Elizabeth Gaskell, the poems of Lord Byron, and the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott. Darwin was always quick to point out that he did not enjoy novels with a depressing ending. His wife, Emma, would read novels to him twice a day while he reclined on a sofa, and he took great pleasure in this daily routine.

Charles Darwin – Literary Opus

Charles Darwin is known to the world for one book. “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”, to give it its full, long-winded Victorian title, was published a century-and-a-half ago this year. In truth Darwin was a prolific author. He churned out volume after bestselling volume on earthworms, coral reefs, emotion, orchids, barnacles, insectivorous plants and, of course, human origins.

Darwin’s literary talent was probably best reflected in his voluminous letters which makes him perhaps the most prolific correspondent in the history of science. This body of work has been edited and presented selectively in a variety of sources, most notably the projected-32-volume “The Correspondence of Charles Darwin” (Cambridge Univ., 1985-), and can be viewed at Darwin Online (darwin-online.org.uk). It begins with a 12 year old’s diary entries about his brother’s rude behavior and proceeds chronologically, one chapter per one year’s smattering of abridged correspondence. Included are letters on Darwin’s studies, his family and personal life, and various reflections on subjects as varied as barnacles and poultry.

These letters also tell a gripping tale of high seas adventure and exploration, but its real value is in unveiling and testifying Darwin’s genius methods. Darwin also heavily marked books, and added plenty of personal remarks in the margins. His method of reading was very methodical – he used to take notes on the scientific books he read, and then made abstracts from his notes.

Charles Darwin’s Beagle Diary	Animals Charles Darwin Saw (Explorers Adventures)	Charles and Emma	Selected Letters of Charles Darwin

Art and Literature Inspired by Charles Darwin

Perhaps because he left behind such an extensive chronicle of his own writings, Darwin, the man, has inspired abundant literature aiming to understand the workings of his mind, his personal passions, and his inner demons.

Darwinian theory inspired directly or indirectly literature and theater. for example, “naturalism,” Emile Zola’s novels, and even played out by the novel and utopian writings prior to 1858. creating a public forum in which the new revolutionary theory would be debated.

Darwin’s writing had a significant influence on Victorian intellectuals and 19th and Early 20th Century English Literature as well. The changes can be traced through consideration of the poetry of Tennyson, the autobiography of Edmund Gossee, and the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell and Thomas Hardy.

While there are numerous books about Darwin for children, many revolving around the voyage of the Beagle, The Voyage of the Beetle is one of the most attractive and effective in teaching about natural selection. Concise and wonderfully illustrated and formatted, The Voyage of the Beetle is a wonderful tale about Darwin’s thought process concerning “that mystery of mysteries” – the mutability of species.

Darwin – The Legacy

By the time Darwin was twenty-two years old he was by no means a “finished naturalist” and most of this talent should be related to the selection of a literature peaces he absorbed by that time. It provided him with a general knowledge of a wide variety of scientific fields. Perhaps what was more important, however, is that through its intensive reading, Darwin had developed a burning passion for natural science and an unbounded enthusiasm for exploration.

The foundation was now set for Darwin to become one of the greatest naturalists of the 19th century, as well as the timeless inspiration for many artisans in the following times.

” There is grandeur in this view of life,
with its several powers,
having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one;
and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity,
from so simple a beginning
endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful
have been, and are being, evolved.”

Charles Darwin

…

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