Young Writers Society

This just occurred to me while reading Suzanne's post about 'emo poetry.' I often feel disatisfied with the way emerging poets are writing, due to the lack of imagery, originality, substance, technique, I guess. I wonder if this is due to the fact that: 1. emerging writers, while having been inspired by poetry, may not read much poetry and 2. song lyrics (which say a lot through music and tone etc) seem to kind of take over the way of writing so that the poem lacks those things that make it, well, a poem.

What do you think?

Yes, music is one of the biggest influences in our lives! Nowadays, a good deal of the songs are pretty shallow and cliche lyric wise, and even if it does have meaningful lyrics, most people only listen to the beat and have no idea what the lyrics are saying.

I certainly believe there is an influence, yes. I think it's also in part because new writers often feel like they don't know how exactly to write poetry (because they haven't read much of it, and may not always be given the clearest instructions on how to go about it), and so fall back on what they know, i.e. music and song lyrics, and go with those images, styles they always hear - while not realizing that what works in a song doesn't always in a poem.
At the same time, and maybe that's just me, I find that the teaching of how to write poetry isn't always adequate, which leads to trouble down the line. I certainly remember finding myself in an English Language class for the first time and being told to write a poem, and panicking because there were no guidelines - I had no idea how to go at it, my classically-raised self wanted to know what sort of verse and rhyme pattern was required, and was only told to 'write something'. Gee. Thanks. YMMV, but if that's how some people are taught how to write, I'm not surprised they are somewhat lacking in the style/technique/etc.

So...that's what it boils down to right? Beginners essentially have no poetic background to draw from and associate it with the next closest thing they can find - song lyrics. And this is why so much of poetry starts out as a dull, monotonous, colourless angsty slog that means absolutely nothing.

I think poetry reading should be encouraged past the age of kindergarten so that would-be poets have more of an idea what they're doing when they start out, rather than suffering the eye-rolling that accompanies reviewers' crits.

First few poems I remember having written - in primary - were rhymes, like nursery rhymes, funny that. The first poem I thought was 'proper' was in this exact same dull and powerless lyricsy (but not angsty - it was about war) style. I learnt more from reading real poetry and imitating it than I did from just writing off the top of my head.

This brings us on a round-trip back to encouraging people to use the Poetry Database a lot more. Why write poetry if you do not read it? And perhaps we should have a place where we encourage people to share favourite poems and such and discuss them...for example, the 'Poetry Discussion and Tips' forum. Why is this used so rarely? This is the best way to improve!