Poetry: carefully crafted or vomited on the page?

[Never]

I write poetry like a monkey throws shit.

To expand the metaphor, as I recently told a real poet, I vomit on the page and arrange whatever sticks into a column. There's no actual craft involved in my wordworkings.

This bothers me as I'm also a writer of stories, which is craft heavy writing. Classical structure and cultural expectations demand a great deal in terms of movement, antagonism, and characterization. Every (again, classical) story has to have certain elements and in many ways, story writing is like building a house while poetry writing is like sculpting clay.

I'm interested in increasing the level of crafting in my poems and would like to know two things from my fellow posters.

The first is simply a description of how you go about creating a poem. Do you focus on a specific emotion or image that you want to convey? Do you start writing down words until you create a line that resonates with you and expand on it?

The second thing I'd like to know is what questions do you ask yourself before, during, and after you write the poem. For instance, when I write a story I ask myself, "Does the protagonist articulate a goal early on? Is the way in which they handle obstacles in-line with the characterization I've given them?"

Um, or you can just write me a love letter.

 

[My Erotic Trail]

I write poetry like a monkey throws shit.

To expand the metaphor, as I recently told a real poet, I vomit on the page and arrange whatever sticks into a column. There's no actual craft involved in my wordworkings.

This bothers me as I'm also a writer of stories, which is craft heavy writing. Classical structure and cultural expectations demand a great deal in terms of movement, antagonism, and characterization. Every (again, classical) story has to have certain elements and in many ways, story writing is like building a house while poetry writing is like sculpting clay.

I'm interested in increasing the level of crafting in my poems and would like to know two things from my fellow posters.

The first is simply a description of how you go about creating a poem. Do you focus on a specific emotion or image that you want to convey? Do you start writing down words until you create a line that resonates with you and expand on it?

The second thing I'd like to know is what questions do you ask yourself before, during, and after you write the poem. For instance, when I write a story I ask myself, "Does the protagonist articulate a goal early on? Is the way in which they handle obstacles in-line with the characterization I've given them?"

Um, or you can just write me a love letter.

I vomit on the page
then clean it up <grin

Simply, I have an idea
jot it down
and then play with what I have

in stories this works really well
but poetry...

well, for example...
zmp~ a tree limb lay

I wrote the entire poem while cutting the grass in the back 40,
came in and wrote it down. Now, not all poems come so easily but many do.
such as butterfly in a hurricane and others. The days are long at work and by the time I get home, I may have written a cute lil' poem in my head and have it memorized. And some poems take weeks to unfold. But stories, definetly get re-worked many times over. Just my way of writing, poems and stories.

 

[Liar]

How about carefully vomited?

That's kinda my apprach. I know when I start what I want the end result to be, but the process of writing it down is awlays a quick, uniterrupted and only partially controlled blurt. I have the idea, topoi and disposition ready in my head, but not the elocution. So sometimes, that part takes over, and steers the poem away from it's original intention. I rarely like those poems, because they often get kind of unfocused, the layer of it's style not maching the layer of it's message, if you know what I mean. In which case I chuck it and try again. Serial vomiting, until it sounds the way I want it to.

 

[champagne1982]

Writing poems for the 30/30 thread is kinda like being bulemic. You know you've swallowed the fat of a poem, at some time but now you have to purge. I think the question rests closer to the choice, emetic or laxative? One makes you throw up and the other is crap.

No worries though, there is help! You can get some on the construction zone thread or by pm'ing a couple of helpful poetry psychoanalysts.

Happy puking!

 

[Tzara]

I write poetry like a monkey throws shit.

Now, that is a particularly fine example of the kind of solid but puzzling metaphor that students used to find greeting them on the SAT and why, I think, such metaphor questions have been reduced, if not removed.

I mean, fer gawdssakes, I was a psychology major. Rats. Pigeons. Big "no" on monkeys. Exactly how does a monkey throw shit? Randomly? With profusion? Dexterously? Left-handed?

monkey throws shit
at wall

wall catches​

To expand the metaphor, as I recently told a real poet, I vomit on the page and arrange whatever sticks into a column. There's no actual craft involved in my wordworkings.

This bothers me as I'm also a writer of stories, which is craft heavy writing. Classical structure and cultural expectations demand a great deal in terms of movement, antagonism, and characterization. Every (again, classical) story has to have certain elements and in many ways, story writing is like building a house while poetry writing is like sculpting clay.

I'm interested in increasing the level of crafting in my poems and would like to know two things from my fellow posters.

We interrupt this quote to make some comments.

All writing is craft writing. Just sayin'

And 'cuz of that, I am not the one to teach you. I suggest you read this book: The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner. This is my favorite (and most useful) poetry writing self-help book.

The first is simply a description of how you go about creating a poem. Do you focus on a specific emotion or image that you want to convey? Do you start writing down words until you create a line that resonates with you and expand on it?

The second thing I'd like to know is what questions do you ask yourself before, during, and after you write the poem. For instance, when I write a story I ask myself, "Does the protagonist articulate a goal early on? Is the way in which they handle obstacles in-line with the characterization I've given them?"

Well, for me, kinda all of the above, for different poems. Often, I start with a particular metaphor I like and work towards finding something to say that fits that metaphor. If that sounds bass ackwards, you're probably right. But I do write that way sometimes.

I may think of a theme first and then try and build a poem around that theme. For example, I was recently thinking about Sir Charles Lyell, who's kind of the Founder of Modern Geology, so I wrote a poem about his refutation of the geologic theory of catastrophism. Then, since Lyell's conception has been "revised" to accomodate our new understanding of random, occasional catastrophic events, I wrote this one.

Don't know if either are very good (I liked the first one), but they both originated with theme.

Um, or you can just write me a love letter.

Well, I suppose I could, but one gets tired of writing sweet and poetical missives to young women that end up in the lady's dustbin. Plus there's that wife thing goin' on. But, hey, I'm game. Got some suggestions? Maybe I could write one to spec.

 

[Never]

Tzara:
"Exactly how does a monkey throw shit?"

You haven't lived until you've seen a chimp go ape shit.

When a chimp is angry, it will pummel someone it dislikes with its feces. Likewise, when I'm emotionally volatile, I'll pummel the page with my words.

" All writing is craft writing."
No, I can write a random string of words on paper and it requires no craft. I can have twenty people write down the first word that come into their mind on a scrap of paper, put the paper into a hat, pull the pieces of paper out and write them down one by one; this requires no craft.

That is unless you mean the physical act of writing or typing is a craft.

Now, all good writing requires a certain level of crafting, at least in my mind.

" The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser,"

That is awesome good gentleman. I am forever in your debt.

As for my love letters, I don't throw them away. No, I sigh in a most melancholy manner, rip them up, and toss them into the roaring fire. Then I weep by the window while rainstorm rages outside.

 

[Tzara]

Tzara:
"Exactly how does a monkey throw shit?"

You haven't lived until you've seen a chimp go ape shit.

When a chimp is angry, it will pummel someone it dislikes with its feces. Likewise, when I'm emotionally volatile, I'll pummel the page with my words.

Remind me not to stand between you and the page, then.

" All writing is craft writing."
No, I can write a random string of words on paper and it requires no craft.

I meant writing, not "written random verbalization". There's a difference.

I can have twenty people write down the first word that come into their mind on a scrap of paper, put the paper into a hat, pull the pieces of paper out and write them down one by one; this requires no craft.

I see you know my history and will understand when I disagree with you without further comment.

That is unless you mean the physical act of writing or typing is a craft.

Well, there is that too. I never learned to tpye myself. It hasnever hapmered me as a pote.

Now, all good writing requires a certain level of crafting, at least in my mind.

" The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser,"

That is awesome good gentleman. I am forever in your debt.

That is a frightening phrase. Have you never seen Marlowe's Dr. Faustus? Do you not fear for your immortal soul?

As for my love letters, I don't throw them away. No, I sigh in a most melancholy manner, rip them up, and toss them into the roaring fire. Then I weep by the window while rainstorm rages outside.

Hmmm. I was going to suggest you read early Yeats, but you seem a particularly deeply felt case. Have you read the works of Rod McKuen?

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I write poetry like a monkey throws shit.

To expand the metaphor, as I recently told a real poet, I vomit on the page and arrange whatever sticks into a column. There's no actual craft involved in my wordworkings.

This bothers me as I'm also a writer of stories, which is craft heavy writing. Classical structure and cultural expectations demand a great deal in terms of movement, antagonism, and characterization. Every (again, classical) story has to have certain elements and in many ways, story writing is like building a house while poetry writing is like sculpting clay.

Oh, you better stay away from the Author's Hangout (or not ). Last time I said that careful, deliberate thought and heavy craft should go into every word during the process of story-writing and suggested that, to me, going for the "channelling", purely intuitive approach of writing-what-comes-to-mind-and-seeing-where-it-leads is less writing than it is "a step up from randomly-typing monkeys", it started a whiny fest of considerable proportions.

Personally, I think that sort of deliberation and heavy craft is more important in poetry (where each single word counts) than in prose (where each single word should count, but hey), but somehow, it seems to be easier to get away with "automatic" writing in poetry, because we slowly start incorporating those deliberate choices into our intuition mechanisms.

I'm interested in increasing the level of crafting in my poems and would like to know two things from my fellow posters.

The first is simply a description of how you go about creating a poem. Do you focus on a specific emotion or image that you want to convey? Do you start writing down words until you create a line that resonates with you and expand on it?

It depends, but I put a lot of emphasis on structure - just like in a story. I hardly ever focus on emotions - directly, at least - because the suckage potential of the final result usually increases by a factor of 100. Instead I look for a strong image, only one, and then go from there.

The second thing I'd like to know is what questions do you ask yourself before, during, and after you write the poem.

I ask, "does this word add anything to the message, or is it just filler?" and "does this make the image/message stronger and clearer or is it diluting it?"

 

[Lauren Hynde]

I see you know my history and will understand when I disagree with you without further comment.

Pussy. In the good old days, you'd have started a riot and got yourself kicked out of the clique.

 

[Tzara]

Pussy. In the good old days, you'd have started a riot and got yourself kicked out of the clique.

Pussy, hmm?

OK, grrl, I changed my avatar just for you.

 

[Liar]

I ask, "does this word add anything to the message, or is it just filler?" and "does this make the image/message stronger and clearer or is it diluting it?"

So you might be a poet then.

I remember that it was already eastblished in a prior thread that I'm not. I'm only one part poet, and the other part a prosody artists. That part don't five fuck all if it makes the message clearer, but cares all about how good it swings. The "swing" for lack of a better word, is the carrier wave for the message. It might distort the message a bit, but that's a price I gladly pay.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

So you might be a poet then.

I remember that it was already eastblished in a prior thread that I'm not. I'm only one part poet, and the other part a prosody artists. That part don't five fuck all if it makes the message clearer, but cares all about how good it swings. The "swing" for lack of a better word, is the carrier wave for the message. It might distort the message a bit, but that's a price I gladly pay.

Those are two questions I ask myself, but I also ask myself if this has the right swing.

Two days ago I was watching an interview with a Brazilian author - doesn't matter who - with a musical background such as yourself, and he said something similar. He writes about Rio de Janeiro, and his words have a rhythm that mimics the Rio sound, and if he were to write a story set in São Paulo, the beat would necessarily be different. I have felt that myself, many times. The rhythm I sought in my illustrated pieces about the Algarve had nothing to do with that of Berlin-L.A. or Prodigal of Blue or Blue-Green Blues. He also said that as he was writing, he often caught himself doing stuff like using 3 or 4 adjectives in a row, or other things that he rationally knew was bad writing and would offend his own taste as a reader, but he couldn't help himself - rhythm required it. And then - and this is the cool part - he said that he had once read an interview where Gabriel Garcia Márquez admitted to the same. Rhythm is very important. Writing (prose or poetry) isn't just getting the message across, it requires lulling the readers, hypnotising them into reading the next paragraph, and the next. And if Gabriel Garcia Márquez says so, then it must be true.

 

[darkecstacy]

music

Poetry writing as catharthis can offend those who believe solely in the crafting aspect of writing. Poetry writing as a precise science can offend those who believe in poetry as an expression of the human experience. Sure, no one wants their poetry to be 'hallmark' but equally where is the merit of a poem so obscure, so dry, so full of allegory and allusion that only a very small minority can begin to access it? Unfortunately I think that purists sometimes feel the need to applaud that kind of poetry because even if they dont really get it they feel they 'should' as true literary types.

For me poetry has to have it's own music. That is what sets it apart from beautifully written prose. And it has to encapsulate something. It has to contain an essence. Doesnt really matter what its about. but, like a piece of amazing music, it should transport you momentarily at least.

I will say that when I write I spill, then rework, but not much. I probably should, I know that. But a part of me just wants it out there.

Im not sure that this has been remotely helpful to anyone but I found it interesting to write anyway!