Poetry Jam 2020

[lunabee34]

tamsin made a post about wanting to read and write more poetry in the New Year, so we have decided to read the same book of poetry each month and comment on it. Everyone is welcome to join.

January is Wendy Cope's If I Don't Know.
February is Elizabeth Bishop's Geography III.
March-December forthcoming.

We are also thinking about coming up with poetry prompts and possibly posting some poetry we write.

At the end of each month, I'll put up a post for everyone who has read the book of poetry to comment on. If you want to link to or post poetry you've written, leave a poetry prompt, or just talk about reading/writing poetry in general, those posts will be the place to do it.

Poetry writing took up a great deal of the creative energy of the first two decades of my life, and took up almost none of the last two. I'd really like to get back to writing poetry. I made a halfhearted effort to reengage last year, but I think having the accountability of reading/writing poetry in a public way will be helpful to me to meet that goal.

I hope a lot of you get inspired to dive into poetry along with us.

Comments

[nyctanthes]

A question. How does one (how would I) go about trying to write poetry? The same way I started writing a short story and a novel? (i.e, have the vaguest of ideas and sit down and write?). Or is it helpful/necessary to have knowledge of form and structure, etc? It's been a long, long time since I studied, as opposed to read, poetry. What I mostly remember is being told that I misinterpreted a John Donne poem and therefore deserved a D on my paper. :P

[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. :)

[nyctanthes]

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).

Nod, nod.

And some of the poetry I enjoy the most has a prose-like quality, in that it tells a story (has a narrative).

Looking forward to this reading experience!

[lunabee34]

I have found that I pretty much have to have narrative to enjoy a creative work whether that's a painting (abstract mostly doesn't do it for me), poetry (just a sonic experience doesn't do it for me), and music. My husband listens to lots of what I call Music Without Words, and a lot of it just sounds like ever-so-slightly increasing anxiety for ten minutes until it finally reaches a crescendo. *shudders*

[nyctanthes]

and a lot of it just sounds like ever-so-slightly increasing anxiety for ten minutes until it finally reaches a crescendo. *shudders*

Ha!

But also, I think that's often what they're going for? I read so many reviews of albums that are: they've had a horrible year and are processing it through this album which takes you on a journey of sheer despair with the barest flicker of light far off in the distance. It's awesome! Listen to it with the lights off and cry and cry.

(Which is fine; but I like my despair with a story attached to it.)

While I *am* a fan of electronica and metal, something with a beat I can work to that doesn't have to have narrative, more experimental music generally leaves me cold.

[lunabee34]

Oh, my husband is Brian Eno, Hearts of Space, Phillip Glass, experimental music all the way. I just can't do it. He used to try to convince me sometimes with a song, but more than 20 years has left us comfortable with our irreconcilable differences in music.

I definitely think they have to be going for anxiety and terror in some of these songs. Some of them sound like bees swarming. LOL

I like Aphex Twin and Richard D. James stuff because they're melodic, so sometimes he has been able to convince me. But mostly not.