introverted_entropy
02-21-2004, 03:53 AM
Hello All,,
Well since I joined up here I haven’t done anything but post a few amateur poems and create a few feeble crits. The crits are growing legs and now only have a horrific limp.
One day when I know what I'm talking about they will learn to stand on there own two feet :p
What this post is actually about though is my humble experience as a new writer. Specifically with regard to what I have found on these forums.
It goes something like this, I have written constantly for a good few years poetry, fiction magazine articles. Many of which were well received in small local publications and $2 a pop fiction compilations that will with luck never see daylight etc.
What that boils down to is that I came to poetry with the knowledge I could write well enough. So how hard could a poem be and any way my friends loved my work.
[COLOR=purple]"I have since noticed browsing the forums this is not an isolated affliction" [/COLOR]
So I promptly set off to expose the world to my poetry via anthor forum. It wasn't pretty but it did lead me to one conclusion that I knew nothing about poetry. This led me to this forum it looked like a place I could learn and hone a craft. That is the first revelation I came to poetry is a craft.
So a idiots guide to poetry later and a read of the blurbs I knew enough to know i knew nothing. This is were I owe every single person mod and patient poet who makes this the best venue for learning poetry on the net, The fantastic place it is.
So thank you all deeply :).
Yet what I have gained here goes a little deeper still. My approach to poetry, Indeed my entire creative process has been changed.
I'm going to switch to a more point based format now as really this is just getting plain long winded :o.
I use to think poetry was self-expression.
I have come to realise that poetry is the art of crafting expression.
I use to believe I was the focus of my work.
I now see that as selfish attitude as well as self-defeating one, if I write about myself for myself. I have learnt to keep it to myself.
I use to write from the heart my poetry was a release.
Again I now realise an audience isn’t my therapist.
I believed the fact I had a good vocabulary and was areodite, despite my lack of understanding of the English language or poetic mechanics meant I could write.
I now understand poetry as a subtle science of stretching the language. In a poem one attempts in a single line to capture more than most authors put in a paragraph.
The list really does go on but I no doubt grow boring.
What I have come to realise is that writing from the heart is fine.
As long as one is willing to step out side of that box and craft the emotion of that "heart moment" until it is both touching and clever. Get over the issue before I expect people to climb in with me.
Writing about me can be done.
So long as isn’t self indulgent, I read the debate about first person writing and many I poems and believe they sink or swim on that single point. Was it written for the author or the audience? I cannot expect people to care if I don’t craft with them in mind.
Poems that once took me 15 minutes now take me days. Simply because a first draft doesn’t wash, I have to seek out the perfect phrase make it flow and tweak it from clipped prose and observation into a poem.
It all just goes on in a way perhaps this is a selfish post to. Me just formulating some of the things I have come to see. To all the aspiring poets like me.
From one ball of poetic aspiration to anthor absorb all the wisdom on these boards. The easy way to avoid the pit fall listed above.
To all the talented poets and helpful crits I have read here once again thank you
:eek: I'm done
Brian
Below is a poem I wrote for a laugh about my first ventures into online poetry I wouldn’t dream of submitting it for a crit or any such it is but a joke and a poke. How ever if you have read this far you deserve something. So I humbly invite you to laugh with me or at me, or just change thread fast lol
Drunk of self decorum
I bravely sauntered in
to impress and woo the forum
with my philosophical pen
and heaps of gothic zen
not that it's an issue
some one pass a tissue
for a time I lived on the street
really gives my poems grit and meat
I'm going to end up cult
cant be a different result
I draw my technique
from being so bleak
all about me
I set of on a spree
of undulating free verse
to my brilliance disperse
depression was my lust
self loathing my domain
if you heathens could just
understand the torture in my brain
poor me no one understood
silly me as if a cryptologist could
so deep u517 couldn’t plum the depth
took a shovel to get out for a breath
long as you got flow
no poem can blow
so Shakespeare retreat
I'm working this beat
this poetry stuff was easy
just keep it freaky
I guess I was rather humorous
that is to say laughs were numerous
these days my pen is more humble
I have taken to typing
those tissues find new use
for a umm different wiping
"wiping unsightly stains from my lips "
:p
Well since I joined up here I haven’t done anything but post a few amateur poems and create a few feeble crits. The crits are growing legs and now only have a horrific limp.
One day when I know what I'm talking about they will learn to stand on there own two feet :p
What this post is actually about though is my humble experience as a new writer. Specifically with regard to what I have found on these forums.
It goes something like this, I have written constantly for a good few years poetry, fiction magazine articles. Many of which were well received in small local publications and $2 a pop fiction compilations that will with luck never see daylight etc.
What that boils down to is that I came to poetry with the knowledge I could write well enough. So how hard could a poem be and any way my friends loved my work.
[COLOR=purple]"I have since noticed browsing the forums this is not an isolated affliction" [/COLOR]
So I promptly set off to expose the world to my poetry via anthor forum. It wasn't pretty but it did lead me to one conclusion that I knew nothing about poetry. This led me to this forum it looked like a place I could learn and hone a craft. That is the first revelation I came to poetry is a craft.
So a idiots guide to poetry later and a read of the blurbs I knew enough to know i knew nothing. This is were I owe every single person mod and patient poet who makes this the best venue for learning poetry on the net, The fantastic place it is.
So thank you all deeply :).
Yet what I have gained here goes a little deeper still. My approach to poetry, Indeed my entire creative process has been changed.
I'm going to switch to a more point based format now as really this is just getting plain long winded :o.
I use to think poetry was self-expression.
I have come to realise that poetry is the art of crafting expression.
I use to believe I was the focus of my work.
I now see that as selfish attitude as well as self-defeating one, if I write about myself for myself. I have learnt to keep it to myself.
I use to write from the heart my poetry was a release.
Again I now realise an audience isn’t my therapist.
I believed the fact I had a good vocabulary and was areodite, despite my lack of understanding of the English language or poetic mechanics meant I could write.
I now understand poetry as a subtle science of stretching the language. In a poem one attempts in a single line to capture more than most authors put in a paragraph.
The list really does go on but I no doubt grow boring.
What I have come to realise is that writing from the heart is fine.
As long as one is willing to step out side of that box and craft the emotion of that "heart moment" until it is both touching and clever. Get over the issue before I expect people to climb in with me.
Writing about me can be done.
So long as isn’t self indulgent, I read the debate about first person writing and many I poems and believe they sink or swim on that single point. Was it written for the author or the audience? I cannot expect people to care if I don’t craft with them in mind.
Poems that once took me 15 minutes now take me days. Simply because a first draft doesn’t wash, I have to seek out the perfect phrase make it flow and tweak it from clipped prose and observation into a poem.
It all just goes on in a way perhaps this is a selfish post to. Me just formulating some of the things I have come to see. To all the aspiring poets like me.
From one ball of poetic aspiration to anthor absorb all the wisdom on these boards. The easy way to avoid the pit fall listed above.
To all the talented poets and helpful crits I have read here once again thank you
:eek: I'm done
Brian
Below is a poem I wrote for a laugh about my first ventures into online poetry I wouldn’t dream of submitting it for a crit or any such it is but a joke and a poke. How ever if you have read this far you deserve something. So I humbly invite you to laugh with me or at me, or just change thread fast lol
Drunk of self decorum
I bravely sauntered in
to impress and woo the forum
with my philosophical pen
and heaps of gothic zen
not that it's an issue
some one pass a tissue
for a time I lived on the street
really gives my poems grit and meat
I'm going to end up cult
cant be a different result
I draw my technique
from being so bleak
all about me
I set of on a spree
of undulating free verse
to my brilliance disperse
depression was my lust
self loathing my domain
if you heathens could just
understand the torture in my brain
poor me no one understood
silly me as if a cryptologist could
so deep u517 couldn’t plum the depth
took a shovel to get out for a breath
long as you got flow
no poem can blow
so Shakespeare retreat
I'm working this beat
this poetry stuff was easy
just keep it freaky
I guess I was rather humorous
that is to say laughs were numerous
these days my pen is more humble
I have taken to typing
those tissues find new use
for a umm different wiping
"wiping unsightly stains from my lips "
:p