How do you come up with something "original"?

[RiverNotch]

The short answer is:  you don't.  Sorry.  There's nothing new under the sun, as some dead bloke once said.

What you can come up with is a new way to say something old, because although you're not especially unique either (bad luck, emos, people actually do understand you... although I'm not guaranteeing they care), you do have a set of experiences and abilities that is at least a little bit different to the next person's.  

Someone once told me (or I might have been talking to myself, I forget) that poets create windows where others see only walls.  Someone else once told me (again, can't guarantee it wasn't an internal voice) that poets twist the world sideways and use words to show others that view.  

And if all else fails, write rude limericks, because there just aren't enough of those in the world.  Too many bloody haiku.

SELF CONTRADICTION POLICE: But that's a new thing! Ways are things, are they not? Also, I thought 'twas a law of nature, that every day, the porn industry makes three entirely new ways to corrupt people's minds? Or was it the dirty limerick industry? I don't remember much of my physics.

Is it "too many bloody haiku" or "too much bloody haiku"? The first one is probably right, but the second sounds much much better.

SERIOUSLY NOW: this recalled to me this thing I read about the general modes of literature changing over time, but with everything corresponding as with the spokes of a wheel -- the romances of ancient Greece corresponding with those of the middle ages, the ironies of late Rome corresponding with the ironies of today, and so on. Now, at least looking at it all as a wheel, the space and the actors might never change, sure, but every moment in time is its own moment, swiftly to be only remembered: so, on one level, everything is as is, but accept it with all its dimensions, and everything is always new, always different -- the wheel always is, but the calm eye sees each round as its own. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: but every time and season is its own. 

AND OF COURSE (though the feet are a bit numb):
When Cold Mia aroused his suspicion,
he was filled with a fiery compulsion
to pull down Mia's pants
and fill her cunt with ants
for he'd named his hot member Suspicion!

[crow]

[S]o on one level, everything is as is, but accept it with all its dimensions, and everything is always new, always different -- the wheel always is, but the calm eye sees each round as its own. 

I take this to be your main point, yeah? So, this is a point about novelty. If nothing else, a work is novel to the extent that all of its contents are contained in a place and a point in time.

But there's another point in there about innovation: adapting a work to a new period is an innovative act.

And there's another about form, that form is a hub the wheel circles, it's "spokes" being something of a pun?

Just pointing out, there's a certain amount of hmm? in there . . . I'm not sure if this is about the validity of innovation or the inherency of newness.

[RiverNotch]

More the inherency of newness. The point about the wheel, though it does touch on innovation (I don't get how spokes is a pun, though -- I was describing my visualization of Frye's Theory of Modes), is really not there, as in, it's more a bit of background to how I essentially concluded that everything is always new. But, you know, interpret it as you will. And the hmms....well, I seem to be getting more trippy as I go. Maybe just a phase, maybe not -- definitely not drug-induced (and that's no joke).

Also: WHOA! This is my grossest post! WEEEE

[crow]

Spokes, spoken

[QDeathstar]

sometimes a few words that sound good together pop into my head, and then a build a poem around them. I think it depends on your definition of original.

maybe we should write poems about newer technology, like 3d printing. there are still some opportunities to say something original there!

[tomoffing]

I have nothing new to add on originality.

Filthy limericks on the other hand!!

His ego undergoing accretion,
the young poet pursued a threesome;
but double-penetration
and swift evacuation,
He'd lost all his verbal cohesion.