"Writing Poetry"

[Captain_Kuchiki]

Writing Poetry

Why does everyone like to write poetry so much?

Is it because their poems rhyme and that makes them sound good?

They all do it better than I could.

I can make lines rhyme like I just did there, but whether it’s prose

Or freestyle

With

Random line length that

Makes no sense

They find some way to envision worlds beyond their own or find deeper meaning to everything.

I want to do that, too

Or at least I think so

Poetry can open the gates to fantastic realms far beyond anything you’ve ever known

Or that gate can refuse to open if you don’t have the right key

And where does that leave you, when you think everyone else has poetic beauty that you want to have a share of, but aren’t sure you have?

Do you try hard and apply yourself to join their ranks?

Or do you back away and keep your head low when they say “no thanks”?

See, I made this poem rhyme again

Do I try poetry as a serious outlet for my imagination or do I stay away? I feel like that

Guy from T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. Do I try and take a risk, or just back out and not try at all?

Actually, I already tried by making this poem, a poem about my own uncertainty about poetry.

That’s almost… poetic.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Interesting questions, though I don't feel that your response qualifies as 'inspired' poetry. You need, perhaps, to let yourself go a bit crazy, explore the outer, less familiar edges of your feelings. Grace Paley amended the familiar advice to writers that they write about what they know; which she changed to: "Write about what you don't know about what you know."

Do you know how to fall in love? Maybe not, but you've managed to do it (I guess). Although from an observer's point of view it may look as if you're doing what everyone else has done, you do it (or should?) as if it's never been done before, as if your way of doing it is unique.

[Buh4Bee]

Another idea is to write free prose. It may be your poet style.

[Dinkleberry2010]

I think what you have written is a prose poem

[Captain_Kuchiki]

Indeed, this is prose.

[cogs]

i'm always asking, after i write something, 'how, what, when, where, why, or what'. then, i ask it again and again. like this: the time is short. 'for what?'. time is short for saying something. 'saying what?'. then, inspiration begins, cause i'm forced to rethink everything, and actually develop a subject and a storyline to go with it. perhaps someone is leaving, or dying, or circumstance is separating them from the poet.

[Buh4Bee]

that's why I suggested this idea.