Tolkien’s Poetry in the Hobbit

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Critical Insights, Guest Post, J.R.R. Tolkien, Josh Brown, Poems and Songs, The Hobbit

Today’s post is provided by Josh Brown, who has been featured on here a few times before. He has a piece on Tolkien’s poetry and songs that will be coming out next month in Critical Insights: The Hobbit, and this is something I’m very excited about and going to have to try to get my hands on. The table of contents for this piece can be found at the end of the post. Enjoy this guest post from Josh and be sure to check out his other work.

 

When someone says “J.R.R. Tolkien,” Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit almost always come to mind first. No doubt he is most well-known for these seminal works of fantasy fiction, works that very nearly defined the genre and have been praised and admired for multiple generations.

But J.R.R. Tolkien was also a very accomplished poet (and linguist), and he made good use of poetry within his works of fiction as a means to worldbuild, support the plot, and bring life to the characters. Not a single chapter goes by in The Hobbit without a song or poem. Have you ever wondered why?

Take the dwarves’ poems, for example. Most are written as quatrains with rigid form and meter. In “Far over the misty mountains cold” the reader gets information about dwarvish history, heritage, craftsmanship, and traditions. The poem actually outlines the entire basic plot of the book: they are about to set forth on a journey to reclaim their lost inheritance.

Elvish poetry arouses imagery of nature, while at the same time keeping a playful and light-hearted tone. Consider “Roll-roll-roll-roll,” where the elves can make even the most repetitive kind of work seem like a game of sorts. They are whimsical and cheerful, and express and expose these traits of theirs through their poetry.

Goblin poetry is dark, evil, even terrifying, just like the goblins themselves. Goblins are basically the opposite of elves, and this comes through in their verse. Their poetry has clipped lines that brings forth images of jagged teeth and snapping jaws. The mono-syllabic word choices in their poems portray them as simple and grotesque.

Tolkien was a master of his craft. There’s no doubt he crafted each line, each word, and each syllable of every poem within The Hobbit for a very specific purpose. Whether dwarvish, elvish, goblin, or hobbit, Tolkien’s poetry offers a contrast between the races of Middle-earth in verse, structure, and theme.

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Josh Brown is a writer living in Minneapolis, MN. He is the creator of “Shamrock,” a fantasy/adventure comic that appears regularly in Fantasy Scroll Magazine. His comic work has appeared numerous places, including the award-winning Negative Burn. His poetry and short fiction can be found in Mithila Review, Star*Line, Beechwood Review, Scifaikuest, SpeckLit, and a variety of anthologies such as Lovecraft After Dark (JWK Fiction), The Martian Wave 2015 (Nomadic Delirium Press), King of Ages: A King Arthur Anthology (Uffda Press), and many more.

Josh’s “Poems and Songs of The Hobbit” is an essay included in Critical Insights: The Hobbit, available from Salem Press in September 2016. Critical Insights: The Hobbit, features in-depth critical discussions from top literary scholars.

http://www.salempress.com/press_titles.html?book=480

Critical Insights: The Hobbit

Table of Contents

Introduction

Stephen W. Potts: The Portal to Middle-earth

Context

Kelly Orazi: J. R. R. Tolkien’s World: Cultural and Historical Influences on Middle-earth’s Subcreator

Alicia Fox-Lenz: An Unexpected Success: The Hobbit and the Critics

Jason Fisher: The Riddle and the Cup: Germanic Medieval Sources and Analogues in The Hobbit

John Rosegrant: Bilbo Baggins, Harry Potter, and the Fate of Enchantment

Critical Views

Hannah Parry: “Of Gold and an Alloy”: Tolkien, The Hobbit, and Northern Heroic Spirit

Jared Lobdell: “Witness Those Rings and Roundelays”: Catholicism and Faërie in The Hobbit

Kris Swank: Fairy-stories that Fueled The Hobbit

Josh Brown: Poems and Songs of The Hobbit

Sara Waldorf: A Turning Point: The Effect of The Hobbit on Middle-earth

Jelena Borojević: The Hobbit: A Mythopoeic Need for Adventure

Kayla Shaw: Growing Up Tolkien: Finding our way through Mirkwood

Aurélie Brémont: How to slay a dragon when you are only three feet tall

M. Lee Alexander: Tolkien and the Illustrators

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Guest Post: Are You a Writer?

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Are you a writer?, Being an Author, Guest Post, Josh Brown, Writing

Today we have a special guest post from Josh Brown. If you missed his guest post last month, be sure to check that one out as well! Read on to get challenged to answer the question: are you a writer or an author?

Are You A Writer?

Writers. I know you’ve seen them. You totally know the type. They like to write stories and are constantly trolling freelance writing ads or Facebook “calls for submission” groups, desperately trying to find the next themed anthology or literary zine that will accept their short fiction. These writers, they write—no doubt about that—and occasionally they even get published. But it’s what happens after they get published that matters.

What do writers do after getting published? Nothing. They’re too busy, well, writing. They’re banging out the next short story that will at best earn them $0.03/word or a split of profits that are non-existent and will never exist. They might have a blog, but it’s filled with pictures of cat memes, and their Twitter feed is a ghost town. Writers write, but they don’t do much else, and that’s what holds them back from evolving into authors.

Authors, on the other hand, are forward-thinking. They don’t just care about writing the best story possible, they care about what happens after the story is written. Once it is accepted. Once it is published out into the world. What then? Then, the real work begins.

In this day and age, being an author also means being an entrepreneur and a self-promoter. You need to write a great story, sell it, and then market/promote it. Those writers who are not putting forth every single effort to promote their published work are missing a step in this whole process. The easiest way to promote your published story is to announce it to all your friends and family on Facebook. Hopefully I don’t have to tell you that that is not enough. You need to get the word out on all social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. You need to engage with your fans, with the community at large. You need to have a blog where you can not only talk about your own work, but also the work of your peers, as well as other relevant topics that may interest your audience. You need to establish a brand, build a following. You need to write great stories.

I’m here to tell you that being a writer is different than being an author, and if you aspire to be successful in today’s publishing landscape, you need to be an author.

Don’t get sucked in to the writer trap. You deserve better; you owe it to yourself to follow through and to be an author.

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Josh Brown is the writer and creator of “Shamrock,” a fantasy/adventure comic that appears regularly in Fantasy Scroll Mag. His comic work has appeared numerous places, including Alterna Tales from Alterna Comics and the award-winning Negative Burn. His poetry and short fiction can be found in Star*Line, Beechwood Review, Scifaikuest, SpeckLit, and a variety of anthologies such as Lovecraft After Dark (JWK Fiction), Dystopian Express (Hydra Publications), King of Ages: A King Arthur Anthology (Uffda Press), and many more. Recently, he served as guest editor for issue 20 of Eye to the Telescope, the official online journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA).

https://ninjamindcontrol.wordpress.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Josh-Brown/e/B004S6S6HG/

http://eyetothetelescope.com/

Bonus Post: Eye to the Telescope

Tags

Eye to the Telescope, Josh Brown, Poetry Month, Speculative Poetry

Because it is National Poetry Month, which means we should all try to read at least a little poetry, I thought it would be appropriate to share this. A few weeks ago Josh Brown wrote a guest post where he mentioned he was editing the next issue of Eye to the Telescope. For those who don’t know, it is an online publication for Speculative poetry.

So this is your one-stop-stop for some Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror poetry. The new issue, edited by Josh, just went live yesterday. Go check it out and enjoy some good poetry!

http://eyetothetelescope.org/archives/020issue.html

Indie Authors: Choose What’s Right For You

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Indie Author, Josh Brown, King of Ages, Self-Publishing

Today’s guest post comes from Josh Brown, one of the authors in the King of Ages: A King Arthur Anthology and the man responsible for putting the whole collection together. Come back on the 1st and 3rd Mondays in April and May for more guest posts from King of Ages writers.

Early in my writing career I decided to branch out and try my hand at writing comics. I’ve had some minor successes here and there, including “Shamrock,” a fantasy-adventure comic that is currently serialized bi-monthly in Fantasy Scroll Magazine.

But as soon as I dipped my toes in the comics industry water, I quickly found out that publishing in the world of comics is far different than in the world of fiction, especially when it comes to the topic of self-publishing.

In comics, self-publishing is almost a rite of passage. For most creators (writers, artists, writer-artists, what have you), it’s typically the first step in putting yourself out there. Many comic creators actually win awards for self-published work. Becky Cloonan won an Eisner Award for Best Single Issue for her self-published comic, The Mire. Her success with self-publishing led to scores of work from the big comic publishers, including work on Batman, Avengers, and most recently, a gig on The Punisher. Of course, none of that would have been possible if she wasn’t an incredibly skilled artist and storyteller, which she is.

Over 15 years ago, Robert Kirkman kicked off his writing career with a self-published comic called Battle Pope. This led to a couple other creations of his getting picked up by Image Comics, and eventually The Walking Dead. Fast forward to today, The Walking Dead is one of the highest-rated shows on cable television, to which Robert Kirkman serves as executive producer.

Self-publishing is looked at much differently in the world of fiction (short fiction, novels, etc.), where it is almost taboo. It’s becoming a little more accepted these days, but many see it as circumventing the quality-control checks and balances set in place by the industry. What you might not know if that there are several successful traditionally-published books that started out as self-published.

You’re probably familiar with The Martian, a highly successful film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. It’s not a big secret, but it’s also not highly publicized, that The Martian by Andy Weir,  started out as a self-published work in 2011. Crown Publishing purchased the rights and re-released it in 2014.  The book started as an online in serial format one chapter at a time for free at his website. At the request of fans who were following his regular updates, he made an Amazon Kindle version and sold it for only 99 cents. The rest is history.

There are other examples, and not all are limited to fiction. Irma Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking. Rombauer used half of her life savings to pay a local printing company to print three thousand copies. Five years later, Bobbs-Merrill Company acquired the rights. To date, the book has sold over 18 million copies.

I could go on, but I guess what I am saying is you shouldn’t be afraid to self-publish your fiction; however, you need pay close attention on how to do it correctly and professionally. These days, anyone can vomit 60,000+ words into a word processing program and then upload it to Amazon KDP and call themselves and “author.” The key is in what you do prior to releasing your self-published book, and what you do after.

A self-published author has to be more than just a writer. You have be everything a traditional publisher is: content editor, copy editor, proofreader, designer, production, operations, marketing, publicity, and sales. And if you think you can get away with skipping those last three, you’re gravely mistaken. Of course, it all hinges on having a good, well-written book, but marketing, publicity, and sales is where the real magic of publishing happens.

 I think fiction writers can take note of the comics industry’s approach and attitude toward self-publishing, and use it as a means to springboard on to bigger and better things, whether that be to pursue a contract with a traditional publisher or to put out more self-published works.

Aspiring indie authors should also take note that self-published comic writers and creators take great pride in the quality of the finished product. This point goes back to what I said about a self-published author having to be more than just a writer.

Either way, self-publishing should be used as a proving ground and also to build a following. Make yourself a brand. Establish brand loyalty. This goes for fiction and comics writers alike.

Evaluate your motivations and fully understand the implications of your choice. Because if you do decide to self-publish that story, be prepared to spend a lot of time doing stuff like marketing and outreach. You sure you want to be doing that instead of just getting to work writing your next story?

All said and done, just remember it’s okay to experiment. Try different things. It’s one of the best ways to discover what works. And above all, keep writing.

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Josh Brown is the writer and creator of “Shamrock,” a fantasy/adventure comic that appears regularly in Fantasy Scroll Magazine. His comic work has appeared numerous places, including Alterna Tales from Alterna Comics and the award-winning Negative Burn. His poetry and short fiction can be found in Star*Line, Poetry Quarterly, Scifaikuest, SpeckLit, and a variety of anthologies such as Lovecraft After Dark (JWK Fiction), Dystopian Express (Hydra Publications), King of Ages: A King Arthur Anthology (Uffda Press), and many more.

 Most recently, he served as guest editor for issue 20 of Eye to the Telescope, the official online journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA).

https://ninjamindcontrol.wordpress.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Josh-Brown/e/B004S6S6HG/

http://fantasyscrollmag.com/

http://eyetothetelescope.com/

https://tapastic.com/episode/291087