Fugitivus Discussion Forum

This is a thread about poetry.

Currently we're discussing meter, but as far as I'm concerned, diversions are welcome. (Who here writes this stuff? *raises hand* I tend not to showcase my work because I am even more ridiculously harsh with myself over it than over any other kind of writing I do.)

So, like... holy crap, that's a lot to remember about poetry. It makes me miss my How To Write Poetry book even more. I'm starting to wonder if I can even call myself a poet because I just write stuff however it comes to me without keeping things like meter in mind. I think on some level I'm doing it without being aware of it, but my patterns probably change confusingly for a reader who's really paying attention to meter. What would be a good rule to remember for that?

My initial reaction is 'hell if I know'. I just write however it comes to me, too; I've only recently started figuring out all this formal meter business. Before the last year or two, I used to just read over poems in my head and figure out which lines had the same rhythm as each other within the poem.

But because I geek out over all varieties of analysis, I've given it some thought.

The reason meter is so important to me is because rhythm is pretty central to how I process speech in general. The same thing applies to music: I am tone-deaf as fuck, but if I know a song well, I can tell when the live version hits a note a few milliseconds too late and it's like nails on a chalkboard.

So when writing, I used to structure the rhythm of a poem by matching one line to another—three lines the same in every verse, say, and the fourth shorter to close it off. If you can just keep the syllable patterns lined up in your head, you can do it that way, and never have to care about all the fancy terminology.

In my opinion, you can call yourself a poet if you write things that you call poetry. Worrying about the academic analysis is not a requirement.

Hmmm, I see. I will have to try that myself sometime.

That's good! Because I like my poetry. I generally don't worry about it being good or written "right" because to be honest, I just use it to express myself. So the point is whether or not I'm saying something exactly the way I want to say it, more than anything. But then I go and get worried anyway when I hear about something I wasn't even aware of. I feel better about it now, though.

Heh. If only I could stop worrying about my stuff being good.

I used to write a tiny bit of poetry, but I stopped because at the time I didn't have anything more to write about and I never picked it back up again. Which was um, a mistake! I believe. Especially since just recently (few months ago), I read some poetry that was from three or four years ago, and I realized, it wasn't actually so bad I wanted to delete it and never look at it again (Which is an improvement when compared to everything else I've ever written!)

I keep thinking, oh I know, I'll write poetry about trans things, and then I realize I have not one tiny bit of anything resembling a clue on how to do that. Sometimes I hardly know how to talk about it. Guess I would have to work on that! Paper doesn't write on itself.

I find that I can most easily get a poem written if I come up with an object to write about and a style to write in, and then words happen! Through writing-jutsu, it usually ends up saying something about my feelings anyway. Quality may be dubious. Case in point:

In a dark cave, I am waiting
In a dark cave, I wait and wish for someone to
take me away
for someone to talk to
but
I lie in the dirt
Stench sticks to my skin, soaking
through me

I was sent
to spread the words of a great thinker
to spread a dire prophecy
and enlightenment
But no one will listen to the dirt.
No one will read a book in the trash.

Object: a book in the trash. Style: postmodern pretension.

I like it, Smoovie. I think it's the description afterward that makes it shine for me; I like poetry best when it doesn't take itself too seriously. (Which is a rule I ignore in my own work more often than not. Perhaps that explains why I don't like my stuff much.)

misskwiz: On the one hand, I can definitely sympathize with a poetic dry spell due to lack of subjects. (Sometimes I think the biggest blow to my productivity as a poet was going on antidepressants. All of a sudden I wasn't sitting down every other day to hack out a verse or two about my crushing despair.) On the other hand, sometimes it can be fun to just write a poem about whatever pops into your head. I've written about buildings I happened to pass in the street, weird dreams I had, and other quirky stuff in addition to serious subjects like depression and the death of my mother.

I also find that challenging myself to new poetic forms can get me going. Many is the day I've spent browsing Wikipedia for something that looked weird enough to be cool but not actually impossible. (How do you write a sestina? I've tried. I've tried a lot. The form just makes no sense to me.) Adapting existing poems is fun too.

Every single paragraph in this post has a parenthetical in it somewhere! (Except this one.) (...Wait.)

I've been having these wonderfully happy dreams lately, and I just got a whiff of a feeling from one of the dreams, which inspired this poem. I warn you, I have no gift for meter.


A breeze like gauze grazes my skin
The air is cool and open
The world like a cracked Easter egg
Spilling colorful dyes- the gold, the blue
Of sky and sun.

So this is how the truly free
Feel.

I really like those images, Eirwyn.

There's a little stream that runs through the middle of my campus, in a woody bit that muffles most of the city noise. The stream is shallow - maybe 2 feet deep there, with steep, (though low) banks overgrow with moss and forget-me-nots and long grasses. It always makes me think of that bit in Hamlet where Gertrude describes Ophelia's fate (Act 4, scene 7, lines 176-190, especially "Her clothes spread wide,/ And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, / Which time she chaunted snatches of old lauds,/ As one incapable of her own distress, / Or like a creature native and indued/ Unto that element"). The bit where she is free of all constraint, and not yet drowned - I love that image of the maiden floating and singing, surrounded by gown and wildflowers. So I started working on a poem/song/thing - "Sympathy for Ophelia" The only bit that I have hashed out far enough to show is the beginning and part of the refrain, and it's not terribly good, but I'm hoping that if I post it'll give me the motivation to keep fiddling about with the rest until it comes together.

The river holds a secret
That slips like light on water
Lovely and elusive,
Forever out of reach.

The river keeps her secret
Never from her daughter;
Her whispers are soft laughter
Wrapping stone and floating leaf.
* * * * *
Too late do you remember -
You're not the river's daughter;
Too late do you remember,
As you sink in her embrace.

Too late do you remember -
You're not the river's daughter;
Too late do you remember,
As you lie beneath her banks.