What I learned from Dr. A.V.Koshy's 'A Treatise on Poetry for Beginners'

I bought on Kindle 'A Treatise on Poetry for Beginners' by Dr. A.V.Koshy. I've written poems without having done literature or studying poetry.

I just love words and how they flow. So I have no idea how to write poems, but that doesn't stop me from reading, writing, and appreciating poems.

The title of the book indicates it is for beginners, and I consider myself one, so here I'm the right target audience.

This slim volume reproduced a series of Facebook posts by the author on poetry, complete with timestamps.

I learned that those who have a sound grasp of punctuation, spelling, and grammar, also known as the nuts and bolts, or the mechanics of writing in any language, are better equipped to write poetry. There's hope for me, yet!

Rhyme is an ornament of poetry. Types of rhyme include internal rhyme, slant rhyme, eye rhyme, and ear rhyme. Rhyme Schemes cover ab ab, etc.

Parallelism is a technique used in poetry. Incidentally( this is my 2 cents), the term parallelism is used in English grammar to cover how bulleted and itemized lists are written.

Sound and imagery are very important to poems. Musical, rhythmic, auditory, and onomatopoeic images, for example, "Faster than fairies, faster than witches, hedges and houses, bridges and ditches, and charging along like troops in a battle, all through the meadows the horses and cattle". (R.L. Stevenson/ From a Railway Carriage) are lines the author quotes. I was fascinated by these lines.

He also quotes and briefly discusses a poem or stanza from the work of T.S. Eliot, R.L.Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, Browning, Rimbaud, and others.

On the whole, the little book taught me something, the beginner that I am. It could have definitely used a round of copy editing, though.

I was also surprised to find that the same book goes by the name 'The Art of Poetry' - A self-styled verbal weaving, which has been released by AuthorsPress and is priced at Rs. 125 for a physical copy.

Comments

Review of 'Magical Women'

I bought Magical Women by Hachette India on Kindle a few days back. It had been on my TBR for a long time. However, I hadn’t read up on what kind of a collection of stories the book would contain. People who like weird stories, horror, dystopia and sci-fi might enjoy this collection, which has been edited by Sukanya Venkatraghavan. It was published in 2019. The editor’s note states, “Each story in this collection is unique in its representation of what it means to be magical.” It may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The book is well written, but some of the themes are a bit disturbing. The first story “ Gul” by Shreya Ila Anasuya has themes of lesbianism. The second story “ Gandaberunda” by S.V. Sujatha is violent and macabre. When I read the third story, ‘Rulebook for Creating a Universe’ by Tashan Mehta, I felt that although I was reading English, I was seeing Greek and Latin. It went totally above my head. I really enjoyed the fourth story ‘The Demon Hunter’s Dilemm...

All the light we cannot see

This was the book of the month in one of the book clubs I belong to. Although slow in the beginning, it picked up pace after about 25% of the book was over. There was tension in the story, so as a reader I wanted to know what happened next although I could not connect to the characters very well. I found the minor character Frederick interesting and somewhat of a true leader. The part about the cursed gem 'The Sea of Flames' was interesting. The 'love story' between Verner and Marie Laure seemed very one-sided ( from his side only). The book highlights how war changes the lives of everyone caught in its grip and how powerless they are over their own fate

Normal People

I must say I loved this book from the very beginning. I liked the sparse writing style and how the author minimizes the use of quoted speech. I cared about the characters and wanted to know what would happen to them. Marianne shows us how an intelligent girl can go down a strange path due to family problems, which by the way, remains a shadowy backstory. Only her troubled relationship with her brother and mom is outlined. The relationship she had with her dad is up for conjecture, but the reader understands it was rather abnormal. Some readers might be put off by the kinky sex scenes in the book, but I looked upon it as a part of the story of a troubled character with self-esteem issues. It also highlights the lengths to which a person would go for love. Even as Marianne degrades herself in her own eyes, the reader doesn't judge her but only wants her to redeem herself and do better. Connor comes across as a decent human being after he finds himself. On the whole,...

Ash Talks Books

Search This Blog