Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Create your own war poem. Consider what opinion or thoughts you have about the concept of war. The format and structure is up to you.

Poetry is a very personal way of creatively expressing your thoughts. You may prefer to use rhyme, or not, to use punctuation, or not, to make use of figurative language such as metaphor, personification and alliteration to name but a few, or to use different line lengths depending on your purpose and the message you would like to convey. You may want to think of a title at the beginning or the end. The decision is up to you.


Some ideas for titles, especially when talking about war, may be intended to shock the reader or warn the reader. For example, you may want to include words like death, destruction, doubt, dread, (note the use of alliteration here where every first letter of each word is the same) in your title. 


War is a very controversial subject and you may think it's necessary or you may think that war only intensifies hatred. Therefore, in preparing to write your poem, think of all the strong words that come to mind when you consider what war means to you. The potential words from the title above may also help you and others such as fight, carnage, bombs, kill, and victim of violence, (note alliteration). You can make comparisons in your poem between, perhaps, life before war and life afterwards- peace and tranquility versus disorder, unrest and even anarchy. 


You may want rhyming words at the end of each line so think of words that rhyme and fit them into your poem. You could try words like calm (before the war) and alarm (as the fear sets in) or harm as people begin to die unnecessarily; how life was great but now nothing is left except the hate and could this really be your fate. 


You may want to add personal elements such as family and how families are affected. Husbands and wives have to leave children behind. There are tears and fears (more rhyme), orphans and widows, affliction and affectation, loss of limbs and loss of life. Note the use of more alliteration.


Hopefully , this will set you on your way to creating a poem unique to you and which reflects your feelings about war and the message you would like to send to your readers. 

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