Help Piecing Poetry Together

[Albion.]

For some time now i have been writing down things i notice in every day life as little rhyming couplets and mini verses but i dont really have the knowledge of how to put this all into a poem. Do any of you know anywhere on the internet that would allow me to learn how to do so?

[PrinceMyshkin]

For some time now i have been writing down things i notice in every day life as little rhyming couplets and mini verses but i dont really have the knowledge of how to put this all into a poem. Do any of you know anywhere on the internet that would allow me to learn how to do so?

I don't know of any such site. Perhaps someone else does, but in the meantime I would suggest you consider

1) That they may not need to be strung together. Maybe one or more of them could serve as the opening lines or the seed of a poem.

2) If you still want to connect them all, look for any continuity of theme, rhythm or imagery. If you find that between any two of them, that might provide you a pattern for some or all of the rest.

[firefangled]

For some time now i have been writing down things i notice in every day life as little rhyming couplets and mini verses but i dont really have the knowledge of how to put this all into a poem. Do any of you know anywhere on the internet that would allow me to learn how to do so?


The best way to learn to write poetry is to read poetry. Pick a poet you like and one whose poetry seems understandable to you and read their poems you like best. Listen to the poems in your head as you read. Hear the rhythm by reading them out loud. Look at how they are put together, how are the lines broken.

You can't really learn poetry from a how to guide, but there are some excellent and inexpensive books that are instructive without sounding stuffy.
Ezra Pound's ABC of Reading can be purchased for $5 on Amazon, or you can use this link from the Poetry Foundation to get at one of his best essays for the beginning poet affectionately called The Don'ts Essay:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=335

I don't know which poets you like, but Robert Frost is a good place to start, not because he is simple, but he is for the most part accessible. Mary Oliver is a good poet to start with.

Annie Finch is another and her website is below:

http://www.usm.maine.edu/~afinch/

Eventually, you should broaden your scope into classics, just to see whose shoulders all these other people are standing on. But you can learn more from thoroughly studying one poet (to begin with) than trying to digest too many.

Just as there is John Mayer and then there is Miles Davis in music, the music of poetry can get very complex. So stick with what speaks to you to start.

There is another book that has been revised with some good stuff on basic things you should be aware of, but you don't have to learn it before you start. Imitate your favorite poets, song writers. Write new words to a song you like and make it fit the music exactly without straining. Then read Lewis Turco's book, The New Book of Forms, A Handbook of Poetics, to see what he has to say about rhyme, rhythm, assonace, alliteration...all the stuff that can be used to make poetry interesting and fun. If you try to imitate you can see better what Turco is talking about, sort of on the job training. Here is his website. There is a lot there, just look for what seems interesting to you:

http://www.lewisturco.typepad.com/

Go slow. Imitate, it's how we learned everything we know. Your own voice will come out when it is ready. Have fun!

[Bar22do]

I cannot add much (and I wouldn't dare) after the great and the (so) generous! - only my encouragement and my feeling that your being is pregnant with thoughts and that this is the reason why you confide to paper things you notice in every day life... learn and let your expression free - there is always the second reading or the third to make corrections! GOOD LUCK!

[nightshifft]

well theres some very good info here and great advice
for myself and i freely admit i have no writing back ground and claim no real ability my english teacher would fall over if she knew i was trying to write
but for my self i simply write what caught my inner ear a thought something that plagues me till i write it down something that feel like it needs saying then i look at it there alone on the page and simply add to or take away till it says to me enough its done
i guess what iam saying write for your self after all dont we all

[tailor STATELY]

In looking to answer your question I found http://www.volecentral.co.uk/vf/index.htm which might be of some help.

Good luck !

[MorpheusSandman]

I really can't think of much to add to what Prince and firefangled so expertly put. I think all poets frequently get snatches of poetry that comes to mind and they write it down and often aren't sure what to do with it. It's very rarely I get a piece that comes to me complete from beginning to end and how they start and develop always seems to surprise me. But like Prince said I look for similarities in themes, rhythm, imagery, etc. anything that might fit together. More than once I've written a line for one piece and used it for another or in writing a piece took a line that came to me ages ago and found a place for it in what I'm writing.

It's not necessary to write long poems to write good poems and sometimes a mere few lines can say more than 1000. Plus, it's very challenging to write good long poems. I attempted a short narrative poem in blank verse that took me several months to complete a mere 144 lines and even though I think it was a failure it was a real eye opener as to how much it can require.

[firefangled]

In looking to answer your question I found http://www.volecentral.co.uk/vf/index.htm which might be of some help.

Good luck !

Thanks for posting this Tailor S. This is an excellent website, combining just about everything stated elsewhere in this thread. I have bookmarked it for myself.

[cogs]

if you have something to say, write it down. then ask, why, how, in what way, etc...
use online dictionary and thesaurus to use different words, and get inspiration from what those words imply. you have a story to tell, and poetry is waiting to translate it.