Don't Be Afraid to Seuss it Up!

Photo by Casey Florig / CC BY

I'm a humorist who lives a good chunk of her life finding the humor in almost any situation, often to the exaggerated eye rolls of my ever patient family. Oh, I have a serious side for sure. But I love to pepper my days and interactions with a play on words here, a double-entendré there, a snappy jingle, or a pun. And now that I have children, I have been known to have entire conversations spoken in Seuss. Why not have fun and rhyme a little in life; see how long you can keep it going?

So...my suggestion is to push your poetry boundaries out into the comical word playground. Have a serious issue you'd like to explore? So did the good Dr. He tackled subjects moral and political, wistful and wonderful, and all with his special brand of whimsy.

Why not give it a try? You might find you like it, just as much as I.
You never know where it'll take you - the limits's the sky.
You can make your readers laugh, you can still make 'em cry.
You can teach 'em a thing or two if you're especially sly.
Because the poetry bug has definitely bitten,
So put your words out there.
The world won't know what hit 'em!

See? Wasn't that fun? Now you try it!

Linda Roy is a writer, singer/songwriter/musician whose humor blog elleroy was here mixes funny with a soundtrack. She is the founder and lead singer of the Indie/Americana band Jehova Waitresses and her writing has been featured at The Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop, Humor Outcasts and In the Powder Room, among others. She is a 2014 BlogHer Voice of the Year recipient and has contributed to several anthologies, including the third book of the New York Times best selling "Pee Alone" series, I Still Just Want To Pee Alone. Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

Simple Or Intricate?

One of the things I love most about poetry is its versatility. There are guidelines...sure, you could even consider them to be rules. But since poetry writing is an expressive art, it is open to interpretation and personal expression. Therefore, there will be times where anything goes. 

When writing a poem, will you choose something simple? A haiku? A sparse stanza? Or something more intricate and rich with iambic pentameter? There is a simple rule to haiku writing and a more complex set of guidelines to iambic pentameter. 

Your words can take on a playful rhyme ala Dr. Seuss or an emotive and descriptive tone, lush with introspection and imagery. From the silly to the soulful, it's all poetry and yes, you can have it both ways. 

Recently, I was thumbing through my copy of Suzanne Vega's book of poetry and lyrics. It is a collection of her work from the time of her childhood up until the 1990s and it demonstrates a wonderful example of the evolutionary path one can take with poetry as well as the beauty of both simplicity and intricacy. Vega has a way of weaving words together seemingly effortlessly in such a way that the reader is taken on a whimsical, yet thought provoking journey, and that is something I think many, if not all of us strive to accomplish in our writing; to take the reader to another place, yet provoke thought and depth of feeling, whether it be of the joyful sort or to the point of tears. 

To my mind, that is truly successful poetry. Is it simple and silly enough that you've made up a word or phrase and conjured a side splitting laugh? Or is it beautiful, even tragic - leaving the reader deep in contemplation and inspiration? 

It's all powerful. And exploring the possibilities of each mode of expression is a compelling exercise. 

The title of Suzanne Vega's book is "The Passionate Eye..." and I think that encapsulates the idea of poetry. Whether you write from a simple or a more dramatic and involved perspective - your passion for the subject of your writing as well as the medium itself is what will inspire you to get your point across in whichever way the mood strikes you.