#how to write poetry

[abrighterspark]

rule 1: begin with a thought (as if it’s some kind of law)

rule 2: merge all of the ‘you’-s (as if only one did the hurt)

rule 3: make sure it’s short (as if you’ve said all you came here to say)

rule 4: don’t say who it’s for (hope that will tempt them to stay)

[ishanispoems]

10 Poem Writing Prompts

Have you ever been in love?

Do you believe in love?

What's the meaning of love?

What's the definition of art?

Are you a good person?

What does it mean to be a good person?

Is that ("good guy" of a famous book/movie/etc..) really a good person?

If so, how are they a good person.

What's poetry?

Is poetry art?

[friendlyirony]

[sandramiksaauthor]

How to Start Writing Poetry (5 Helpful Tips🫀)

[peachynm]

I have exciting news! I’m now teaching on Skillshare and just uploaded my class How to Write Extraordinary Poetry. If you want to learn with me, this link will give you one month free to the entire site. I’ll talk to you on Skillshare!

[izzylovesyou2022]

How To Write Poetry~ Original Poem

[nicholasandriani]

How to Write Poetry for Beginners: A Masterclass on Craft, How to Read Poetry, and How to live Poetically

Welcome, aspiring poets! If you have a passion for words and a desire to express yourself through verse, then this e-learning unit on writing poetry is perfect for you. Who would benefit from this course? Beginner poets who want to learn the fundamentals of poetry, including form, meter, and rhyme. Experienced poets who want to hone their craft and experiment with new techniques and…

[batgovernor]

Ekphrastic poem: Jenna Le, 'Patti Smith, 1976'

Ekphrastic poem: Jenna Le, ‘Patti Smith, 1976’

This photo, black-and-white, where Mapplethorpe portrays his dark-mopped ex in profile, seated nude on wooden floorboards, knees drawn up to hide her breasts to hide her nipples, heated by the sideways radiator pipes on which she rests her palms, her bulging ribs a set of parallel oblique gray stripes rippling her bare white skin, unsmiling lips a short flat line– these were my first parameters,…

[words-and-coffee]

Alice Te Punga Somerville, Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised - Kupu rere kē

[ID: A poem titled: Kupu rere kē. [in italics] My friend was advised to italicise all the foreign words in her poems. This advice came from a well-meaning woman with NZ poetry on her business card and an English accent in her mouth. I have been thinking about this advice. The convention of italicising words from other languages clarifies that some words are imported: it ensures readers can tell the difference between a foreign language and the language of home. I have been thinking about this advice. Marking the foreign words is also a kindness: every potential reader is reassured that although you're expected to understand the rest of the text, it's fine to consult a dictionary or native speaker for help with the italics. I have been thinking about this advice. Because I am a contrary person, at first I was outraged — but after a while I could see she had a point: when the foreign words are camouflaged in plain type you can forget how they came to be there, out of place, in the first place. I have been thinking about this advice and I have decided to follow it. Now all of my readers will be able to remember which words truly belong in -[end italics]- Aotearoa -[italics]- and which do not.

Next image is the futurama meme: to shreds you say...]

(Image ID by @bisexualshakespeare)

[feral-ballad]

Marie Howe, from What the Living Do; “Watching Television”

[rozmorris]

The fierce imperative to create - poet and novelist Alan Humm

Alan Humm has been in the creative arts all his life. He’s the driving force behind the poetry magazine One Hand Clapping, which has featured well-known authors such as Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith and Colm Toibin next to those who are less well known. This year he has several projects of his own that are finally coming to blossom – a collection of poetry, and, most recently, his debut novel, The…

[cymonelachelle]

There is Magic in the Garden

Cymone Lachelle There is a spotted white and black beetleperched on the cucumber plantThe arms of the tomato plant leanwith the weight of its juicy fruitA black and white bumble beedarts between leavesA bird sings in the distanceas the wind blows the grassThere is peaceThere is magic in the garden

[mongreldyke]

nothin' quite like how a dog loves

let dead dogs lie - silas denver melvin // red dog - elizabeth frink // how to be a dog - andrew kane // domestication syndrome - dhole b // no origin found // for your own good - leah horlick // it will come back - hozier // pleasure - beth cavener // i am a dog. i have blood all over my teeth. - sciencedfiction // same poem as directly previous

[friendlyirony]

Rhetorical devices

[sunshinesere]

Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone / This is How You Lose the Time War

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.