HELLO POET, ARE YOU READY TO TRY OUT DIALOGUE POETRY?

Last week, I wrote about how poets bastardize duets and the unspoken competition that now laced writing a duet which is neither right nor healthy. 

I also explained how duets should be properly written and offered suggestions on what poets can try out in writing a proper duet. 

This week, I want us to explore dialogue poetry and try its practice.

In simple terms, I will say dialogue poem is a form of poetry that infuses predominantly the voices of two different poets, with varying opinions on a particular topic or theme in a single poem. 

That is, dialogue poetry is a form of writing poems that takes into recognition the voices of two different poets, have their thoughts penned down and combined into a single piece.

Dialogue poetry are poems written in a conversational style. They contain every other ingredients of a classic poem and most obvious is the fact that dialogue poems unlike duets do not hinge on uniformity. That is, you don't need to be concerned about trying to blend two voices together. In fact, dialogue poetry can be likened to the opposite of duet. 

The two poets writing a dialogue poem can be as distinctive as possible, provided it is still within the circumference of the theme or topic of choice. Because, dialogue poetry is conversational, it has the tendencies of being stretched, divergent , and spontaneous. 

Also, the two poets are expected to have varying degrees of opinions on the chosen topic. It is important they understand the fundamentals and basics of poetry writing, before deciding to do dialogue poetry. As what distinguishes dialogue poetry from normal conversations are the poetic and literary devices employed during the course of writing and editing dialogue poetry.

It should be duly noted that when writing dialogue poetry, there must be a flow and undisturbed connection between the poets and the lines of the poems written. 

Because it is dialogue poetry, both participating poets are expected to be available, either in person or virtually as each line of poem from one participant is expected to elicit another reply from the other poet. 

A common way of writing dialogue poetry virtually can be likened to WhatsApp messages between two poets. And this time, instead of a normal conversation, each poet replies the chat with a new line of poem from his own perspective on the topic. 

Because of its versatility, dialogue poetry can be written on almost all themes or chosen subjects, provided that it's a theme that is open to diversified opinions. 

Dialogue poetry is not a competition but it allows each poet to be unrestricted. Poets are advised to try dialogue poetry if they are not comfortable with writing duets due to lack of artistic harmony. 

On prints, the two voices in a dialogue poem are distinguished by any of the following;

1. Make sure that one voice write with embolden fonts while the other is unbolded

Or

2. The leading poet writes with normal font while the second poet uses italicized font.

Attached is a picture of how dialogue poetry looks like. It is an award-winning poem titled "THE BANE OF OUR Society" by Ololade Writes & Sébastien Faith Gowon and published by The Poets Of Every Make (P.O.E.M).

Cheers to Get Better at  Writing.