Young Writers Society

Poetry is a journey. The more you write it, the more it improves. The more you love it, the more trips you'll take. It's that simple, and it's that complicated. I love poetry because it's my life's passion, but I hate it because it drives me crazy.
Most people think that poetry is free-flowing words, pouring out like water from an urn. Really, nothing could be further from the truth. Poetry has rules and if you break these rules, all hell breaks loose. I'm often told that poetry is harder to write than prose, but I'll tell you this: difficult or not, it is rewarding.
I started writing poetry when I was nine. When I look back at those simple line-by-line rhyme schemes with no poetic devices, it makes me sick. This was how I used to write? Oh, gosh. I am so very disappointed my my past-self.
But I kept at it, and little by little, I improved. I think that I wrote my first decent poem the summer I turned twelve. It was August and I was home alone. I sat down at my computer and opened a blank word document, for reasons unknown to me even know. Suddenly, my fingers began to dance across the keyboard, and out came the first series of quatrains I'd ever written. Each stanza was ABCB rhyme scheme, and I'm sure that it remains my longest poem. I believe it was a lyric poem about the pain I felt after I was rejected by my first crush. I decided not to post it on YWS, because although it was my first good poem, it's still a really bad poem.
Anyway, moving on. That little flashback was supposed to make a point, being that it took me three years to write a semi-decent poem. How long is three years? 1,095 days. 26,280 hours. 1,576,800 minutes. 94,608,000 seconds. That's a lot of time.
So how is it possible that I improved at all? I learned what metaphor was. I learned simile. I discovered imagery and personification. These things are the universal language of poetry. Take this sentence, for example: "Her eyes were green." Boring. If that's how poet's wrote, we'd be shunned from the writing community. So we have to take ordinary phrases and make them interesting. Thus, "Her eyes were green" becomes "Her irises were the the emerald of a sea after a storm." That provides a much clearer image in the reader's mind (imagery) while comparing two unlike objects (metaphor).
There are three basic types if poetry: lyric, narrative, and dramatic. These have their own seperate forms (haiku, elegy, epic, et cetera), but I won't get into those. Lyric is emotional. It expresses doubts, worries, hopes, dreams. Anything that csn be felt, lyric will cover it. Narrative tells a story. Whether it's a long, perilous journey, or just your everday bar fight, trust narrative to be your gossip column. Dramatic (the type I'm least familiar with, so bear with me here) is a poem told from the point of view of a single narrator.

And now it's midnight and I'm falling asleep. I'm sure I'll have something to add tomorrow, but for now, I leave you with the basics.

Most people think that poetry is free-flowing words, pouring out like water from an urn. Really, nothing could be further from the truth. Poetry has rules and if you break these rules, all hell breaks loose. I'm often told that poetry is harder to write than prose, but I'll tell you this: difficult or not, it is rewarding.

please dont take offense, i believe that you cant be more wrong. Poetry is writing without structure.
Poetry has a structureless structure.

I started writing poetry when I was nine. When I look back at those simple line-by-line rhyme schemes with no poetic devices, it makes me sick. This was how I used to write? Oh, gosh. I am so very disappointed my my past-self.
But I kept at it, and little by little, I improved. I think that I wrote my first decent poem the summer I turned twelve. It was August and I was home alone. I sat down at my computer and opened a blank word document, for reasons unknown to me even know. Suddenly, my fingers began to dance across the keyboard, and out came the first series of quatrains I'd ever written. Each stanza was ABCB rhyme scheme, and I'm sure that it remains my longest poem. I believe it was a lyric poem about the pain I felt after I was rejected by my first crush. I decided not to post it on YWS, because although it was my first good poem, it's still a really bad poem.

despite your four years of experience, you're still quite clueless about what poetry is. Poetry does not have to be filled with poetic devices. The rhymes and lines of a child's poem are the most sincere and pristine in all of mankind, because as a child, you do not know of all the evils and struggles in the world.
Now as a teenager, we are too quick to write about supposed pain and stress, but seriously, what do we know of pain and stress? My father has told me that once you are much older, when you write poetry, we won't be able to write about pain and stress, they bring up too many bad memories.
Funny thing isnt it? When we are young, we want stress and pain, but after we've actually experienced it, it becomes a topic that we rarely touch.

So how is it possible that I improved at all? I learned what metaphor was. I learned simile. I discovered imagery and personification. These things are the universal language of poetry. Take this sentence, for example: "Her eyes were green." Boring. If that's how poet's wrote, we'd be shunned from the writing community. So we have to take ordinary phrases and make them interesting. Thus, "Her eyes were green" becomes "Her irises were the the emerald of a sea after a storm." That provides a much clearer image in the reader's mind (imagery) while comparing two unlike objects (metaphor).

do metaphors, similes really matter when writing poetry? Do you use them just to make yourself appear more intelligent? A true poet does not need any figures of speech to construct a masterpiece.
Once you've written a decent amount of poetry, you will realize that every single word can be manipulated in to something abstract.

Lastly, i wish you well in your poetry career, and i hope you take this as constructive criticism.

TSun wrote:

Most people think that poetry is free-flowing words, pouring out like water from an urn. Really, nothing could be further from the truth. Poetry has rules and if you break these rules, all hell breaks loose. I'm often told that poetry is harder to write than prose, but I'll tell you this: difficult or not, it is rewarding.

please dont take offense, i believe that you cant be more wrong. Poetry is writing without structure.
Poetry has a structureless structure.

I started writing poetry when I was nine. When I look back at those simple line-by-line rhyme schemes with no poetic devices, it makes me sick. This was how I used to write? Oh, gosh. I am so very disappointed my my past-self.
But I kept at it, and little by little, I improved. I think that I wrote my first decent poem the summer I turned twelve. It was August and I was home alone. I sat down at my computer and opened a blank word document, for reasons unknown to me even know. Suddenly, my fingers began to dance across the keyboard, and out came the first series of quatrains I'd ever written. Each stanza was ABCB rhyme scheme, and I'm sure that it remains my longest poem. I believe it was a lyric poem about the pain I felt after I was rejected by my first crush. I decided not to post it on YWS, because although it was my first good poem, it's still a really bad poem.

despite your four years of experience, you're still quite clueless about what poetry is. Poetry does not have to be filled with poetic devices. The rhymes and lines of a child's poem are the most sincere and pristine in all of mankind, because as a child, you do not know of all the evils and struggles in the world.
Now as a teenager, we are too quick to write about supposed pain and stress, but seriously, what do we know of pain and stress? My father has told me that once you are much older, when you write poetry, we won't be able to write about pain and stress, they bring up too many bad memories.
Funny thing isnt it? When we are young, we want stress and pain, but after we've actually experienced it, it becomes a topic that we rarely touch.

So how is it possible that I improved at all? I learned what metaphor was. I learned simile. I discovered imagery and personification. These things are the universal language of poetry. Take this sentence, for example: "Her eyes were green." Boring. If that's how poet's wrote, we'd be shunned from the writing community. So we have to take ordinary phrases and make them interesting. Thus, "Her eyes were green" becomes "Her irises were the the emerald of a sea after a storm." That provides a much clearer image in the reader's mind (imagery) while comparing two unlike objects (metaphor).

do metaphors, similes really matter when writing poetry? Do you use them just to make yourself appear more intelligent? A true poet does not need any figures of speech to construct a masterpiece.
Once you've written a decent amount of poetry, you will realize that every single word can be manipulated in to something abstract.

Lastly, i wish you well in your poetry career, and i hope you take this as constructive criticism.

this is truth, though I'd argue one point: metaphor. I would challenge you to show me a single good poem that doesn't use metaphor in some form. Granted, traditionally structured metaphors "Her eyes were stars blah blah blah" are stale, but comparisons themselves--the true meat of a metaphor--are, arguably, essential to all Poetry. What is a rock if we don't have the rest of the world to show us what it's not?

I completely agree about the structure; though it depends on what kind of poem you are writing. And i agree with whence, who I could quote but I'm lazy.
TSUN: If you write a line thats abstract, darling, you are using either a metaphor or personification.
Probably. I actually found this beat-up book at a swap meat for a 1$ called "The science of poetry and philosophy of language" and it goes over tirelessly for four chapters on how to define a poem. I'd reccomend it but someting tells me its out of print; it was published in 1910; but it was written by Hudson Maxim, if you're interested.

He defines poetry as "the expression if insenuous [not pretaining to senses] thought in sensuous terms by artistic trope[metaphor]."

And explosive pen? how do you measure. measure three years? in SEASONS OF LOOOOOOOOOCVE
and thats my input.

THis helped a lot. Thank you very much.