For those of you interested in writing poetry, I can recommend Stephen Fry’s “The Ode Less Travelled (Unlocking the Poet Within).” Fry gives excellent explanations of metre, rhyme, form, and diction, provides examples from famous poets (and his own poetry), and poetry writing “exercises.” (I’ve never enjoyed writing exercises, but many of my clients and students have found them useful.) Fry writes with a finely tuned sense of humor as well. He starts with “I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry.”

Of course, he isn’t the only one. So do I. So do many of you. Fry writes, “This is an embarrassing confession for an adult to make.” (Makes me think that I should have put a “geek alert” on this article.) But he later suggests that “poetry is a primal impulse within us all.” Fry attempts, and generally succeeds, in convincing the reader that you should go ahead and write poetry, hell with the embarrassment, and that you should write the best poetry you are capable of. He is there to guide you.

While at times “The Ode Less Travelled” can seem a little too technical, keep at it, and write a poem or two. I specifically appreciate his use of successful poems to illustrate points. It’s a technique we all have used; that is, trying to emulate those whom we admire. With that in mind, I offer the poem below. (I wrote it while teaching seventeenth-century poets and long before reading Fry’s useful book, but illustrative I think of his suggestion.) See if you can guess the famous poet, and poem, that inspired the technical aspects of “If I Were A Younger Man Unmarried.” (The person to whom it was written will of course forever remain a secret.)

If I Were A Younger Man Unmarried

If I were a younger man unmarried
without beautiful son and loving wife
a future having already arrived
and youthful dreams turned to life

Then your disarrayed crooks of hair
and your brown eyes against the blonde
your shortness of step and cosmic flair,
all things of which I am fond

Would move me beyond admiration from afar.
I'd joke and I'd laugh and act like a fool.
I'd say, "Hey look! A falling star!"
On a misty night, you couldn't see me drool.

But I've seen meteors across the sky
and who's to say we'd want it done?
If we could fool time, you and I,
would it be fun to meet the morning sun?

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Answer: Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), To His Coy Mistress, Lines 41-46.

Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

--

The first two lines, however, may be more likely to jar a few memories:

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime