How do I start writing poetry as someone who has never written it before, or has any idea on how to write it?
look into the ideas of figurative language, meter, and rhyme you have to be subtle or indirect in poetry, you do that by using many different poetic devices like metaphor, hyperbole, similes, also the senses, what do you taste, smell, see, etcfinally, poetry must be from direct experience, it should be a commentary on the human condition
>>24678560Start reading, and then write parodies of whatever you think that it is cool. I don't bother writing poetry, but if I wanted to learn, that is how I would do it.
>>24678560You start by reading it. Preferably contemporary poetry, it's not the 1850s anymore. >inb4 it's all BAD because... because... IT JUST IS OKAYStop typing. You don't know what you're talking about
>>24678661What is some good contemporary stuff?
>>24678560You could start with limericks They’re fun
>>24678560Go back in time and be born with talent
>>24678661do the opposite of this. read old poetry. i.e. eat red meat and lift heavy weights. contemporary poetry is formless substanceless pap and will make you feeble.
>>24678560Start reading!
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>>24678560The sticky has some suggestions. I read the Ode Less Traveled and am now the best poet on this site
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>>24678657>Start reading, and then write parodies of whatever you think that it is coolI think this is the best all-round writing advice there is, for poetry or fiction or even essays.
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>>24678560Just write it. Here's a poem for you. Do bettet than this:Booty on the leftBooty on the rightDuty to the cheeksCocane every night
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I love Donne too I think we get the point mate
>>24678560The best advice I heard about this is to first memorize appox. 20 poems. Memorize them until you can recite them without effort. It gives your brain some material and tools to work with.
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>>24680201Sorry, i just wanted show how he did it.
>>24679408I have read some of William Blake and I'm now working my way through a collection of Alexander Pope's poems>>24680123Thanks for the rec, I'll go through these later when I get home>>24680142>>24678657>>24680203Huh yeah I never thought of that, I'll try these, thanks
>>24680248>ignored my booty cheeks challengeThe point was that I was going to engage in gradually escalating poems with you to calibrate your skill level in a fun way. Oh well.
>>24680256Sorry I must have missed that oneYeah makes sense. I think it would be best to start with something fun, so I'll give that a go too. Thank you
>>24680285No worries anon. Fun is the key. /lit/ can be... ostentatious but from my perspective just write. 99% of everything ever written is horrific, might as well enjoy yourself. No one wants to read entry level wanking about nature, but quite a few people will read about a cleavage with the gravity, regardless of quality. Write about something you know. Start short and when you get better you can start editing without going into an infinite regress. Also, read it aloud; helpful with prose, essential for poetry.
>>24680342This is the biggest thing. Just having fun writing and experimenting. Write a sentence, and then rewrite it in several ways just to see how it changes. Young artists should not be afraid of making mistakes while learning. Its like the famous shooting coach said "In practices, its okay to miss"
>>24680342>>24680787Okay yeah that makes sense. Thanks everyone for the help
>>24678560>How do I start writing poetryBy writing poetry you fucking retard. It's a genre of self expression with no rules. What are you doing, preparing for a performance at slam poetry night at the local unofficially whites only coffee shop?
>>24678560Read a lot of poetry, read books about the techniques of poetry, write a lot of poetry.
>>24679408weightlifting is gay though
>>24678661Much of what's published as "poetry" today amounts to artfully line-broken prose, and much of what actual poetry is published today is published in the form of audio recordings set to music rather than printed text.
>>24678560>learn your favorite author inside out>have 100 poems, stuff you're envious of, the best to your mind there is: scansion them, explicate the images, every conceivable angle>Go through the forms and see what clicks>ZZZZ, FFFFF, THHH, sSSSs -- these slow or slip and must be reduced as much as possible; sharper consonants are percussive, LLL & PPuh ect. rev-the engines/are springboards off of the buzzing flapping SCHWA sounds >Vowel procession goes from less open to more open (mouth/throat)-- pay attention for patterning and counterpoint>never let an idea off the hook-- you must note them down, and categorize (Title? Image? Subject?)Parsimony is the name of the game. Less is absolutely more. Also: find an author that you find mid-to-abhorrent, and find useable material; treat it like an Editor on a rough manuscript and make it your own/redeem it. And translate-- this more than anything forces you to think through poetic ideas, how the sausage has to be made.
>>24678661post a single good 21st century poem.Protip: you can't
>>24682139See the latter part of >>24682108
>>24680123OP stay away from the pretentious John Donne who never wrote a line of lyrical poetry in his life
>>24682142>MusicNot poetry
>>24682166The Iliad was originally sung, to accompaniment on a lyre. Does that make it not poetry?
>>24682174>originally sungThen it was originally not poetry. But it's poetry now because now it's not sung.
>>24682177So the recording of Like A Rolling Stone isn't poetry, but the written text of its lyrics is? But this is a completely ahistorical notion of what poetry is, most cultures historically haven't even made a clear conceptual distinction between poetry and song.
>>24682139DartWhy do you make these posts? You know very well you have no frame of reference because you haven’t done any reading. I don’t watch baseball but I don’t go around saying all modern baseball players are bad, because I don’t know anything about baseball. You’re like an Indian man approaching women online
>>24682180>So the recording of Like A Rolling Stone isn't poetry, but the written text of its lyrics is? Yes>But this is a completely ahistorical notion of what poetry is,History can suck my ass>most cultures historically haven't even made a clear conceptual distinction between poetry and song.most cultures are shit
>>24682258>DartI didn't ask for a title, I asked you to post the poem itself>You know very well you have no frame of reference because you haven’t done any reading.Which is why I asked you to post a poem for me to read.
>>24682270NTA but you sound gay af mang
>>24682310i don't give a shit
Not OP but as >>24678657 suggested, writing a lot of song parodies (stupid middle school humor stuff) has been surprisingly great for my more serious songwriting abilities.How do I make the leap from this more intuition-based approach to a more technical (and perhaps non-musical) one?Is studying from something like a textbook and practicing/grinding exercises the only way?
>>24682258>still hasn't posted a good 21st century poem
>>24678560You start by having something you want to express. Write it down in sentences, as brief and elegant as you can make it. Then you edit and rewrite that, applying more and more poetry techniques, until it's a poem. If you don't understand poetry techniques, look them up, but the basics are assonance, alliteration, imagery, metaphor, and rhyme. The basis of poetry is speech, not song, so don't try to write it like song lyrics. It's elevated speech. Take those starting lines and think about ways you can say the same thing using different words.This >>24678657 is also true. When you find poems you like, imitate them. That happens automatically anyways.
