lunabee34

This is a really good/interesting question.

I do feel like immersing yourself in poetry is a good way to start. Poetry has such different conventions than prose that I think that spending some time familiarizing yourself with that is helpful. Poetry is much more about word play and double meanings of words and the sonic quality of words together than prose (although the best prose to me has many qualities of poetry).

I never really wrote in forms when I wrote poetry; it was all freeverse. I think I might change that, though. Writing in forms can be really helpful in terms of creativity and just getting yourself outside the box and thinking/writing in new ways.

Back when I wrote poetry, a line or an image would just come to me, and the poem would take shape around that. That's very similar to the way I write fic; a plot point or a line will come to me, and the fic takes shape around that. I think part of the reason that I'm having a hard time writing poetry now is that I'm not reading and writing it regularly so I'm not in that headspace and lines just don't come to me much anymore. It's a struggle.

So I'm hoping that regularly reading and talking about poetry as well as getting myself back into the habit of writing it will get that way of looking at the world and thinking about language to work for me again.

All this to say is that I think you can totally use the same tactics that you use to write prose. I think the hardest part is just doing the thing, and you certainly don't have to wait to met any criteria to do that. :)