Advanced Literature? Creative Writing? Any REAL Poets Here to Show Us How It's Done!?

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

No, this is not a PA bashing thread.
It's not a criticism of pre-existing poetry or intended to single anyone out.


It's a heartfelt request from a suffering person, lol -- HOW ON EARTH do some of you people just sit down and write poetry on demand?

And in terms of making it sound good, what's more important? Knowledge of existing forms, having a thesaurus handy, or just loving the world enough to be able to appreciate it in words?

Because I just suck. Sometimes a semi-decent poem happens, but it's nowhere near as good as stuff already posted on the Internet, especially like Neruda n stuff we were lolling about in other threads -- so -- can any of you who actually FINISHED or at least participated in college etc. tell me how it's done?


Can you give some useful links or whatnot to get me started on approaching the beast from the proper end? haha


Come to think of it, my art is suffering too, flagging hardcore and not in a good way.


Writer's block/artist's impotence !!!!! Help.

p.s. one of the reasons I am interested in this is because of self-publishing and Ebooks. Ebay isn't working very well right now. Too expensive for me at present. I am not able to get it going like I did in Seattle.


But no -- the commercial aspect is NOT my only interest in this -- I would truly like to learn how to write a good poem, not just for sale, lol

[Craig]

We all have something inside us, whether it is the next Harry Potter or something crude like that man who lives in Nantucket, tapping it is the hardest bit, then harnessing it, then directing it, then making sure it makes sense.

Struth it is harder than I expected, I would love to able to write stories, I have some fantastically weird ideas but fleshing out an exciting adventure for them is the difficult bit.

I wish you greatest of luck on your literary quest.

[Lifebringer]

You seem to work w/emotions. Be it of loss or courage, or discovery of evil intentions. Have you tried delving into the hero side of your "self." I've noticed these qualities in your posts and links. The courage of a soul in uniform, and reasons for loving your country. Then again you may have a craft side to you, try using natural implements to create beauty from colored leaves in fall, or drift wood and shells on a shore, a little spray paint and glue is pretty in, expensive, but you can also get a hold to a lump/chunk/hunk of clay, and create something on paper, and try to put it in clay. Art comes in may forms. Who knows, you could be a water color person.
My suggestion on it all, is try it all, a little at a time, if it's just little houses our of colored toothpicks representing an island retreat on a box cardboard. I used to do landscapes out of plaster paris on board and hand paint the valleys and hills in a 3D visual. You think you can go beyond this planet and create one of your own? Name it first, and then work from there.
Mad Magazine got started that way. Taking cartooning to the next level.

[Frederick Jackson]

Tess,

In my last year of college I became more interested in poetry than my physics studies. I wrote some decent poetry which I published in a vanity pub and in a poetry quarterly called Athanor where I shared space with some well known poets in the New York poetry scene in the sixties.

However, a long career in science, a loveless relationship (on my side), and finally full blown alcoholism put my writing on hold for 30 years. I began writing again a bit in 1996 and it was painful. It was like a cripple learning to walk again. I have again written (I think) a few decent poems, but I have never been able to get back to the same bold lyrical quality I had as a 22 year old. I tend to be less imaginative and more literal now I guess as a result of 30 years of science.

You can find my poetry (old and new) on the following web site: http://tisaraphoto.com/FrederickCJackson/

I cannot evaluate my own work. Most of what I see of others sucks. They may think my work sucks. Dunno. It is a delicate subject. I believe English language poetry reached a pinnacle in the sixties and has been on the downhill since. Perhaps the muse has moved to another language. Like Spanish maybe. Dunno. Here is a poem that expresses my frustration with my art and my self. (A pentameter freak (academically ruined) tried to scan it as a pentameter and found it "choppy". Of course he did, it has what I think may be called a "sprung" rhythm that consists mostly of four beats, having a meter" kind of like 4.5 feet. Anyway if you read it naturally You should have no problem with the rhythm and meter.)


POETS SELDOM …

Poets seldom in their subtle art
Grow old gracefully; rather, start
-- Sometime past their 22nd year --
To write so artlessly it could tear
Your heart. It seems as if a vital gear

Once whirring with all its sprockets sharp
Had been stripped; as if Homer’s harp
Had lost its strings, and all worthy things
And sentiments, all truth the poet sings
Have no accompaniment, so hollow rings

His call. If at all he has an eye
Or heart, great truth or beauty to descry,
He fails in mind to identify, and his ear,
Enfeebled, hardly hears the spinning gear
His nature winds, or the falling of a Muse’s tear.

Pray God that I upon my 61st year
Find my harp strung, that the work begun
When I was twenty-one will have lost none
Or little of its vigor in the interim
Of drunkenness, and a long career.


Sorry Tess, I really cannot offer you any advice except to do it for yourself and stay away from online venues. Try not to be too artsy. (This is generally when someone tries to make the poem a "serious" work of art by using line breaks and big words.) I see so much of this and it is so pathetic. Write from the heart and your imagination. For yourself. (But use your third ear to hear what you are writing as a stranger might. Your writing is personal, but is still has to be, or should be comprehensible at least on some level to the stranger.) I remember a few years ago a girl writing a weak amateurish love poem and she got savaged by others reviewing it. I regret I never registered for the site so that might have been able to tell her just how powerful were her last several lines in their utter simplicity and heart breaking honesty. The critic who savaged here apparently did not see or feel the power in the last verse.

I doubt the poem above would ever be accepted anywhere because it is in rhyme! My, my how juvenile,amateurish. Some online sites actually insist: no rhyming. Why rhyme went out in 1915, don´t you know? (Little do these cultural gurus know; there well may be a return of rhythm and rhyme in the next few years, time is ripe for it and we need something better than that execrable hip hop.)

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

That's beautiful and haunting -- I wrote about Urania and Calliope and Homer two nights ago on Disgracebook of all place....
And your poem touches on every bit of the content, actually -- so creepy!

Thank you for sharing that one.

Also thank you for the link. I will be checking that one out.

edit: the FB post was about the picture of Elizabeth Alworth (The Lady Freemason) and "The Muses Urania and Calliope" by Simon Vouet.
Was wondering if her portrait was an inspiration for Simon Vouet's work.



p.s. ty to the others who posted as well.

[Ellisa]

Nice!!---------- (Too short, it's not possible to post one word!!)


For FJ-
One word is not enough it seems,
So I must dream loquacious dreams
And extend my sentence L-O-N-G
When I'd prefer a shorter song!

[Tesla_WTC_Solution]

Haha this is already awesome

We need to combine Voltaire and Shakespeare into one blasphemous entity.

p.s. someone has to write "my bullion lies over the ocean, my assets lie over the sea" in German from the perspective of Angela Merkel

[spiritguide]

Tesla,

Poetry is from within and you can bring it out if you choose. My living partner is a poet and writer/columnist and I've included a couple of her works for you. one is humor and the other is a world class winner. If you google her name Terry L. Fitterer you will find a lot of her work on the net.

Please enjoy! Her works are copywrited and published with permission.

Here is the humorist side example...

“THE THANKSGIVING DENTURE ADVENTURE"

The day was a nightmare; I'll try to explain
the nieces and nephews and grandchildren came,
and grandpa and grandma had just spent the week,
this holiday dinner was more than unique.

The turkey was nestled all snug in the stove
as the moochers arrived at my door by the drove,
already regretting inviting this breed,
as their jackets came off and the children were freed.

They stood there and glared like a posse possessed,
just plotting and scheming some torture, I guessed,
then lo and behold, like a bat out of hell,
they turned on us grown-ups like some evil spell.

While setting the table I let out a shriek,
when a tiny white mouse from my gravy boat peeked!
Then pickles went flying and pies hit the floor;
I found a dead worm in the silverware drawer.

As soda was spilling and olives were tossed,
I thought about having my own holocaust,
poor grandpa and grandma were fit to be tied,
and hubby kept mumbling the word 'homicide'!

The dog ran and hid after grabbing his bone,
and I fled to the kitchen to be left alone,
the house was in chaos--beyond my belief,
when grandma cried, "Help me--I can't find my teeth!!"

I said they were soaking right next to her bed,
then gramps said, "Forget it...the woman's brain-dead!"
This started her bawling as bad went to worse,
I reached for the aspirin while chanting a curse.

While searching the house grandma sputtered and choked,
and I wondered which brat took her teeth as a joke,
but my thought was short-lived as a crisis arose,
someone's kid had a carrot stick lodged up their nose!

The turkey was done, so we sat down to eat
with poor grandma still sporting a look of defeat,
this Thanksgiving madness had altered her mood
for she hadn't her dentures to savor the food.

I dished out the dressing and to my surprise
a pair of false-teeth lay in front of my eyes!
I'd have left out the spices if only I'd known...
that the stuffing I cooked had a 'bite' of it's own!

Terry Lerdall-Fitterer

Here is an example of some serious....

"THE VISITOR" (With apologies to Edgar Allan Poe)

Once upon a blizzard's fury, as the snow blew hurry-scurry,
I sat frozen, deep in worry, on my cabin's
cold, wood floor.
As I shivered--nearly freezing; coughing,
shaking, weak from sneezing,
came a pounding, hardy sounding,
steady hounding at my door;
Merely this, and nothing more.

I recall it was December, evermore I will
remember,
as the last and dying ember,
cast a shadow 'cross the floor.
Hastily stepped in a stranger, hoping I
was not in danger,
maybe 'twas a helpful Ranger, shivering
inside my door;
Tattered, were the clothes he wore.

"Give me rest and warmth," he pleaded;
'gainst my judgement I conceded,
"Enter now and please be seated,"
cautiously, I told the lad.
As he staggered to the table, nipped
with frost and quite unstable,
I was more or less unable to disclose
if he were mad;
Eerie was the nameless cad.

"I've some thread to sew your button, and
to show I'm not a glutton,
I will share my piece of mutton...if you
perish, I'm to blame."
"Sir", said he, "my lips I'm savin', for so
long I've had this cravin', for a moist and
tender raven...from your offer I'll
refrain;
Still to yet reveal his name.

His few words I misconstrued here, as I
grew a wee bit ruder,
after all, this strange intruder turned his
nose against my dish.
"What's your title?" I requested, as the
stranger then suggested, that his patience
had been tested and my silence he
did wish;
Nothing more, just simply this.

With my anger now official, he did offer
three initials, sounding somewhat
superficial,
as he mumbled, E.A.P.
Startled by the letters spoken, hidden
answers now were pokin', through a
scary surface broken,
by a doubt that frightened me;
Haunted by his secrecy.

With a fear that left me prickly, and the
woolen blanket tickly, I would not
find slumber quickly, as I watched
his shadow dance.
Rising up in rapid motion, arms extended
with devotion, to the devil was
my notion,
chanting words while in some trance;
Could he be possessed?...Perchance.

From my bed I flew like lightning, actions
such as his were frightening, as my
pallor kept on whitening, something
evil towards me came.
As I watched he changed completely, to a
blackbird, quite discretely, cawing through
the cabin sweetly,
as my lips did then exclaim;
"Edgar Allan Poe's your name!"

Cackled he, "It was before; I'm now the
raven, Nevermore--
the bird that perched above his door
with stature so sublime,
And since thou were so kind to me, with
gracious hospitality, a token I bestow
on thee,
an ebon feather--mine;
A gift that's most divine.''

Spreading wings he left my haven,
leaving me a lot less craven, as I
locked the crested raven, from my
cabin in the wood.
Filled was I with much confusion, from
this most bizarre intrusion, left with
mystical conclusion
that this happenstance was good;
Or had I misunderstood?

While I found it quite absurd, and most
peculiar had I heard, that man could
change into a bird,
entitled, Nevermore--
I wakened from a restless sleep, with
feeling down within me deep,
advising me--the feather keep
that lay upon the floor;
'Twas just a dream........or was it more?

Terry Lerdall Fitterer

She has published articles on poetry and will share with you if wanted. PM me if interested.

Peace!