My interest and creative energy in writing prose has all been obliterated by English classes at school. However, I'm starting to gain an interest in poetry. I like the idea of expressing myself in few words, bending the meaning or offering an abnormal interpretation of words.. seems like poetry might be my thing.
So, poets and writers and other Hubsquids whose emotional levies are leaking, what advice would you give to start writing poetry? Aside from just reading it, any tips or ideas to keep in mind that will help me or anyone get into it? Greatly appreciated
(side note: I'm editing this like, all day long dudes, stay tuned) My advice in the form of "I" statements. I would read a lot of it. I would ignore a lot of what I read. I would make sure not to erroneously believe that all poetry is Wordsworth and Byron, aka I would read some Bukowski and Ferlinghetti for good measure. I would know that poetry does not have to rhyme. I would experiment. I would have fun. I would go out on a limb and write weird things that don't make sense. I would go for stream-of-consciousness. I wouldn't worry too much about reading too much poetry - but like I said, I'd try to read it if I was trying to get good at it. I don't know. Pen to paper. You don't need a plot for a poem. Poems with plots are special kinds of poems; "narratives." A poem can just describe something. I would read Frost and Dickinson. I would try to figure out what poets I hate, and then why. That is as much value as figuring out what you love in poetry and why and it has the benefit of being easier. I would not embrace making mistakes, I would simply try not to quantify what I was writing in terms of "mistake" or "not a mistake." I would try and simply write to write and approach what I produced and its potential quality after the fact, maybe way after the fact. Don't worry about "good." Worry about - is it fulfilling? Is it enjoyable? Do you, maybe, learn new things about language or yourself while doing it? Are you pushing boundaries? Are you breaking every "rule"? (Don't expect things where you break all rules to be good, by any means, but break them anyway - to see what happens when you do.) I would use the internet for prompts if I needed them. I would veer away from basing poems too much on one thing, like my internal emotions and whether or not I was feeling stable. I would not lie to myself about inspiration. I would write a lot of list poems because list poems are fun. I would read Lana Turner Has Collapsed!
This is exactly what I say to musicians, just replace names like "Byron" or "Frost" with "Haifitz", "Perlman" and others.
Or use an anagram solver https://www.crosswordsolver.com/anagram-solver to create pseudo names and alter egos
Scriabin baby, Scriabin is where it's at. e- you meant literal musicians, i thought composers. oops.. i just realized every non-popular classical musician I know is famous in a very small circle, there's seemingly no middle ground between Perlman, Lang Lang and Yo-Yo Ma and my uncle's old roommate.
Oh man, Scriabin was such a crazy dude. Classical music is a world of very small circles. Most string players have no idea who famous wind players are, and they only know famous string players (other than those of their own instrument) if they're paying attention. I can almost guarantee that you have no idea who Joel Quarrington is (which is a shame considering the beauty of his playing), let alone who Hal Robinson or Ed Barker are. You may never have even heard of Gary Karr, who is like, the grand-daddy of solo bass in the 20th century. Crazy stuff right?
Ref, I read the O'Hara, and then I read a lot more of the O'Hara. Love it, thank you so much . We just started reading Dickinson in class and I was surprised to find it intriguing, she's a ball of wonderful crazy; I'll check out Frost. Thanks for the advice, sincerely. I'll see if I can make something out of this. Wish me luck, Jedi master.
O'Hara is from what's known as the New York School of Poets and you might like their other stuff: Dean Young, Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, but don't jump in on it if you don't want. Also I may have thrown Dean Young in there without him really belonging but he fits in there in my head. I also think you might like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and I've been trying to find a good one to recommend to you. I quite liked his book "A Coney Island State of Mind" but my poet friends were more mixed on him. Retired Ballerinas, Central Park West I'm also insanely fond of Louise Gluck. However, I think she is most impressive when her poems are read in their book format, and less so singly. Here is my favorite Gluck - April "I wish what I wished you before, but harder" - Richard Wilbur, The Writer
I was talking to a poet once about how he writes. He told me that he focuses on giving enough attention to just the right details. If you give too much attention to too much, no good. Too little attention, no good.
I think if all you want to do is express your thoughts in a few words, write a diary or journal. Poetry is an art form and as such demands artistry. Für Elise or Ophelia by Millais are two very recognisable and poignant pieces of art. They required moments of inspiration (a relationship with 'Elise' and the character Ophelia). They also required an intimate understanding of composition: structure, tempo, pitch, key; colour theory, brush strokes, materials. There are so many technicalities to poetry and these are the reason poetry has survived as a form of writing alongside prose and drama. Some forms, such as the alba, are very rare; others, like the limerick, can be taught to children. A clerihew is rare but is very similar to a limerick in it's composition. There is a huge range of tastes to acquire and experience and there's a lot of pride to be taken in proper expression. Other people have recommended reading poetry and developing tastes. This is essential. But it won't all come by osmosis: you have to understand what you're actually looking at and why it's enjoyable. Proper expression of yourself must go hand in hand with proper expression in language. You should read books about poetry. I wouldn't advise poetry about poetry, it tends to be fucking horrific. Stephen Fry wrote a book called The Ode Less Travelled. By his own admission he's not an aficionado but he offers a very compelling and accessible introduction to metre and form. He says: I'm saying this because I think there's something implied in "My interest and creative energy in writing prose has all been obliterated by English classes at school." I think it's important not to cower from dissection and analysis. You've been told to experiment. What's the point in experimenting when you have no basis for your hypothesis? What rules are you disproving if you don't even know them? Fry asks if you'd call a child smashing a piano — calling it 'self-expression', of course — art, because of that misnomer 'self-expression'. You may not like Arthur Schoenberg or Ferneyhough; or Malevich or The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, but these artists always knew the rules that they were breaking before they broke them. There are issues that remain unresolved in literature. One might be mimesis — how much a representation bears resemblance to a reality. This has attracted people from Plato to Coleridge to Frank Kermode. Then there are the codified basics: metre, form, rhyme, symbolism, phonetics. These must be known.The point remains: it isn't a burden to learn the difference between acid and alkaline soil or understand how f-stops and exposure times affect your photograph. There's no drudgery or humiliation in discovering how to knit, purl and cast off, snowplough your skis, deglaze a pan, carve a dovetail or tot up your bridge hand according to Acol. Only an embarrassed adolescent or deranged coward thinks jargon and reserved languages are pretentious and that detail and structure are boring. Sensible people are above simpering at references to colour in music, structure in wine or rhythm in architecture. When you learn to sail you are literally shown the ropes and taught that they are called sheets or painters and that knots are hitches and forward is aft and right is starboard. That is not pseudery or exclusivity, it is precision, it is part of initiating the newcomer into the guild. Learning the lingo is the beginning of the right of passage.
Fur Elise and Ophelia are finessed final products that were only created after and by mountains of experimentation and mistakes. I feel like saying that "poetry demands artistry" and pointing out these examples, you are elevating poetry to a very high standard that presents it as mostly inaccessible. "Poetry cannot exist without art." "Poetry must be deliberate." The truth is that you cannot learn artistry unless you begin with the starting steps. pabst isn't going to learn all of the elements of poetry before he starts writing it and in fact, writing poetry is going to help him learn to identify these elements. There are many rules we don't learn until we break them, or whose intricacies we aren't aware of until we push the boundaries. The basics must be learned - but it's not true that they must be known before embarking upon a career, whether for personal amusement or for profit, in writing of any sort, which includes poetry. It is impossible to expect anyone to have a grasp of the basics without first putting those basics into practice via writing. Until you actually try and sit down and write, all you have is theory.
I'm worried this is going to turn into a bit of a chicken or egg scenario, but I think we're in agreement on this point. Metre, form, rhyme, symbolism, and phonetics are all theoretical until put into practice. That's self-explanatory. The theory is, in my opinion, what practice should rest on. Perhaps "must" was hyperbolic clumsiness, but I want to stress the importance of these things since it's something I sincerely believe in and something that was neglected in the other posts. At the very least the two should be worked with simultaneously — such that "writing poetry is going to help him learn to identify these elements." I've distinguished between the more basic theoretical features of poetry and more complicated ones that engender serious thought and discussion. Are you arguing that there are basic concepts that have not been codified? Could you give specific examples? I agree that no one's first anything is going to compare with Keats, or Shakespeare, or Beethoven, or Matisse, or the huge range of artists that you can no doubt come up with yourself. The point that I'm trying to make is that these great artists are examples of technical mastery as well as expression and that in them we can see that one shouldn't "cower from dissection and analysis"; there's a real pride in confronting these theoretical elements, that shouldn't be seen as "pseudery or exclusivity", head on.Until you actually try and sit down and write, all you have is theory.
There are many rules we don't learn until we break them, or whose intricacies we aren't aware of until we push the boundaries.
Fur Elise and Ophelia are finessed final products that were only created after and by mountains of experimentation and mistakes. I feel like saying that "poetry demands artistry" and pointing out these examples, you are elevating poetry to a very high standard that presents it as mostly inaccessible.
I do think we agree on more than it appeared to me at first sight. I am not arguing that there are basic concepts that have not been codified, but I am arguing that some concepts are more easier encountered via experimental writing (anaphora, hell iambic meter, for instance) and "discovery" for oneself than via studying text and then careful application. Sometimes it's easier to take a ride in the cart before trying to learn how to hitch the horse to it. What I mean is that while it may appear to be approaching things from the back end, experimental writing allows a writer to explore what feels "good" or "natural" to them without the bother or fuss of terms, "proper vs improper usage," etc. Instead of approaching writing or poetry from a mechanical angle (i.e., "Here is my tool. I know what it is called, how it is made, and how it should be used. Now let me apply my tool") I advocate for experimentation ("I need to move a rock. How should I do that? I could push it" tries pushing "Rock doesn't move much. What else can I use?" spies a stick "What if I put one end of the stick under the rock and pushed?" attempts; success The man doesn't know he's just used a lever to reach his goal but he's reached his goal and discovered something in the process. He doesn't know what a lever is. But he will probably try to repeat this method to various successes and failures until he learns how the lever works even though he doesn't know the physics behind it). I agree we shouldn't cower from dissection and analysis, but I certainly believe the use of these tools had its pitfalls that one typically encounters and it helps to be aware of.
Okay I have been thinking about this all day and I am going to try to give the best possible answer I can. There are many different approaches to writing poetry. However I don't believe you should stick to one method. You should really experiment and experiment and experiment until you find a style that fits you. Read as much as you can but don't just stick to the classics. Read poets you aren't familiar with and see what you like. Perhaps you can get some inspiration from a poet you have never thought of before. What poets do you like by the way, pablo? Also you don't need a lot of fancy words in a poem. Simple words can just be as effective as complex words. Anywho, I think you should check out open mics and poetry slams to see other people write about. Perhaps something someone else said can inspire you. That is all I have to say for now. Feel free to ask questions.
Thanks for your response! I don't actually have that deep a knowledge in poets/poetry at least in the present, Byrons and Shakepseares aside. I've seen some performances of spoken word that I loved, and recently read some Frank O'Hara as _refugee_ recommended. O'Hara was on point with the style that I was looking for, similar to the way Kurt Vonnegut would write, a disregard to the excess and convolution that might come with the traditional standards of "quality" writing. I'll take any suggestions you can give me but I will absolutely keep digging in and reading as much as i can :) thanks again!
Write and write a lot. Show it to people, get beat up and get better. Then, grind your foes' bodies into a fine black powder, spare a bit of their blood from your gob and make ink. Dip your pen in and repeat the process. Reading helps too, but only to know where people have gone before you.
Hah, that's amazing! Andrew was very uncomfortable when he started talking, but I think the room got the message:D Spoken word makes me tingly.