Writing Good Poetry Tossups

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kidgib
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Writing Good Poetry Tossups

Post by kidgib »

How do you write a good poetry tossup? This is coming from a lack of experience and a general dislike of poetry tossups that I have tried to write myself. How do you choose significant lines to clue so that you reward people who have read/studied those poems? For more experienced writers, what sort of philosophy do you use when writing poetry tossups?

Any advice or examples would be appreciated. Also, you can reach me on discord at kidgib#1293.
Alex Moon
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naan/steak-holding toll
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Re: Writing Good Poetry Tossups

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

I think the same process that goes into "understanding" a poem goes into writing it. It goes without saying that you should read the poem first, but the "reading" of the poem is of course greatly enhanced by getting context, since most readers won't be able to get every allusion or reference in the text and can't really be expected to unless they're a scholar of the topic. I generally find it useful to read some reviews/analyses of the poems by other folks in various popular or literary magazines; on occasion, a critical essay may be a good source as well.

Between doing these activities, I find I generally get a good "understanding" of a poem as a whole - the clue selection tends to flow naturally from there. Various lines will stick out to you and other readers as well. Most good poetry tossups will managed to get at more than just the text itself - structure, context, theme, setting, explanation, allusion, etc. - to explain what the lines convey. You can do this by line selection alone, or taking inspiration material you read to enhance the pure quotes.
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Re: Writing Good Poetry Tossups

Post by Red Panda Cub »

naan/steak-holding toll wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:04 pm I think the same process that goes into "understanding" a poem goes into writing it. It goes without saying that you should read the poem first, but the "reading" of the poem is of course greatly enhanced by getting context, since most readers won't be able to get every allusion or reference in the text and can't really be expected to unless they're a scholar of the topic. I generally find it useful to read some reviews/analyses of the poems by other folks in various popular or literary magazines; on occasion, a critical essay may be a good source as well.

Between doing these activities, I find I generally get a good "understanding" of a poem as a whole - the clue selection tends to flow naturally from there. Various lines will stick out to you and other readers as well. Most good poetry tossups will managed to get at more than just the text itself - structure, context, theme, setting, explanation, allusion, etc. - to explain what the lines convey. You can do this by line selection alone, or taking inspiration material you read to enhance the pure quotes.
This (imho classic) post by Jonathan Magin on the subject is a worthwhile read for people who want a more in depth discussion of this point: viewtopic.php?p=190447#p190447
Joey Goldman
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Re: Writing Good Poetry Tossups

Post by UlyssesInvictus »

I believe Jacob Reed has written on the subject as well before (no idea where those posts are off the top of my head), but personally, I hate "quote it" bowl where you just pyramidally paste in a bunch of lines from a poem. As previous posters mentioned, I think writing about a poem requires understanding various facets of the poem, and how they deliver a theme or set of symbols. So a good question would attempt to also deliver that theme e.g. if one insisted on just delivering quotes, then those quotes would at least align toward a theme.

Reading a lot of poetry tossups helps because you also notice some common things you can ask about that aren't just lines from the poem: structure (rhyme scheme, stanzas, eccentric word choice), translations, historical and social context to the poem, enlivening anecdotes about the poem and its author, dialogues with the poem by the author (e.g. in other poems or works) or other authors (e.g. commentaries or responses) or artists, and so on.
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