How do you write poetry?

[Achebe]

"Emotion recollected in tranquillity' was how Wordsworth defined poetry.
But that's not how it works for everyone, is it?

When I sit down with a moleskine notebook on a nice patch of green grass, under a blue sky, I start thinking about the lives of ants. Or how I should go for a long hike the following weekend. Or what's for dinner. 
Or the risks of a polonium diet. 

Anything but poetry. Tranquillity puts me to sleep. I can write only when life's practically ending and the mortgage is due.

Was Wordsworth wrong? Of course he was, says Sylvia Plath. But who reads Plath?
What's wrong with a Polonium diet?

Discuss.

[rayheinrich]

    Through curse, planning, fait accompli, miracle, foregone conclusion, revenge, crime of passion,
    reparation, tranquility (when available), blind luck, divine intervention, desperation, laughter, tears,
    even mornings before breakfast.

[ellajam]

For me poetry is an art like any other, it just uses words as its palette. When the words are in the habit of shuffling themselves around in there they can focus on any subject and don't seem to have a preference for any particular state of mind. When an arrangement interests me I try to craft it into a poem.

[dukealien]

In pencil, in a stenographer's notebook.

At the breakfast table, over the second cup of coffee, or

Sitting on the porch, drinking water with a little lime while birdwatching, or

Sitting on a green metal chair in the middle of a pine forest, on a hill, wearing a straw hat.

(Followed by weeks or months of revisions on a word processor.)

As for rhyme, meter, and forms,they're like constantly painting yourself into a corner, or working a crossword puzzle where you're allowed to change the right answers retrospectively so the word you want to use, fits.

Is writing poetry a process of creating cliches that haven't caught on yet?

[Erthona]

I agree with Leanne (something that rarely happens), and will take it a step further. Poetry is simply a manifestation of art. Having been a professional musician and song writer (not professional), a visual artist of sorts (made some money at it), writer of a musical and various other forms of art, I will say poetry is by far the most difficult and the most challenging. The skill set is equal to any of the other forms, but putting that skill set to use seems to me far more difficult with poetry. This is not to denigrate any of the other forms and I am not claiming poetry is in any way superior. Each form is better at manifesting different aspects  of Being. However, the point, long winded as it is, is that poetry, like all the rest is simply a manifestation of art, and so the correct question should be, what is art, not what is poetry...unless one wishes to get into the nit-picky world of academia. From there we find that poetry is an art form using the various troupes of poetry, especially metaphor and rhythm, which to a greater or lesser degree distinguishes it from prose.
Academia aside, if one has read enough poetry and has any kind of intellect, one will begin to understand what poetry is at a visceral level and begin to distinguish between good and bad poetry. This happens only with experience not a definition. As with any of the arts, to one who has not immersed oneself to at least some degree a definition of poetry will make no sense and to one who has, one is not required.
Of course every poet wishes to have his own definition of poetry; here is mine.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Velvet Elvis

…and yes, there are many,
when it comes to poetry,
who can think only of that
abbreviated writing as such,  
which conforms to a certain metered line,
a certain form it must endure,
and, of course, it ab-so-lut-ly has to rhyme.
But then,
there are those,
also,
and this,
not to be unkind,
who think that velvet Elvis
is the highest form of art.
After all, is it not paint,
and is there not a canvas?
Granted, it is inky black,
not blandly white,
but who are you to say,
that they are wrong,
and you are right?
Isn’t this idea of yours just conceit?
Is beauty not,
in the apprehension of that form,
that pleases he who gazes?
Why should velvet Elvis not be the norm?
I bet more have been painted (and sold),
Than any by that guy, Go-gan, or was it,
Bland-go?
Well, who they are doesn’t matter,
if it were important,
to me,
I’m sure that I would know!  
So, with that said,
I have this poem I wrote,
it really is a hum-dinger,
it came to me the other day
while I was watching Oprah,
or was it Jerry Springer?
What?
Oh no,
I’ve never written one before,
but anyone one can do it,
it just has to rhyme.
I mean, its nothing that hard,
or that requires practice,
it’s nothing so difficult as say,
painting a velvet Elvis.

©1994

[shemthepenman]

i agree entirely with Dale. although, i think Dale is agreeing with El, not Leanne.

anyway, when i wrote poetry it was a quick 'get it down' then a day or two of editing and revision. it was like being on uppers. the mind becomes very focused. i think this is, in a broader sense, what one can interpret 'tranquillity' to mean. and i smoked a lot. i would change a word, have a cigarette. another word, then another cigarette. think about changing a word, have a cigarette. have a cigarette while thinking about changing a word. i could smoke like 20 cigarettes in an hour. and apart from the tranquillity of focus, it was a very internally frenetic process.

[Todd]

I give myself permission to write crap. That removes any writer's block. I often impose a restriction upon myself which my mind works to overcome (upon revision I may remove the original restriction, but I usually don't as it helps set the form or structure of the piece. I write until I find my opening line then I start the free write again with that line.

I only need time to reflect and think--my mood is largely irrelevant these days (that hasn't always been the case, but writing and more writing has given me some freedom there).

Then I revise, and revise, and revise, let it sit for a few months revise, rinse repeat.

That's at least how I write poetry.

[rayheinrich]

I give myself permission to write crap. That removes any writer's block. I often impose a restriction upon myself which my mind works to overcome (upon revision I may remove the original restriction, but I usually don't as it helps set the form or structure of the piece. I write until I find my opening line then I start the free write again with that line.

I only need time to reflect and think--my mood is largely irrelevant these days (that hasn't always been the case, but writing and more writing has given me some freedom there).

Then I revise, and revise, and revise, let it sit for a few months revise, rinse repeat.

That's at least how I write poetry.

    Winner of the Verisimilitude Prize, ten years running.

[Leanne]

I write in pretty much the same fashion as Todd, only I pretty much never rinse

I've always found that a keen sense of the ridiculous serves the poet well.  I have some pretty odd phrases saved in my documents, things that come to me at odd times and I feel I should save them for later.  Later, I look back and wonder what the hell I was thinking.  A selection, which will henceforth be known as Exhibit A:

We are the genetic dispossessed

Haecceity: what is your prime indivisible

I wore cool before it was black

I sit in splendid sobriety

In the anal passages of a unicorn


Yeah, I don't think I can take responsibility for my scribbles.  Sometimes they turn into things I'm quite happy with though.  I had It nestles in the elbow of the breeze sitting around for a couple of years before I turned it into milo's Fey sonnet.  

One thing I've learned:  never throw anything away, no matter how bizarre you think it is.

[Erthona]

I do give myself permission to write crap, but that so ingrained I don't even realize it, I also give myself permission to not write. I don't know why I ever became so frantic about not being about to write. Anything decent will come of its own accord. I can go to all the inspiring stuff in the world and it doesn't mean something will demand to be written. I can be sleeping at night and wake up with a poem full formed that refuses to let me go back to sleep until I get up and write it down. Outside of improvement my skill-set and my craft (which I hardly do anymore), I have no control at all as to whether I will write a poem. For all I know I may have written my last. For me the muse of poetry is an imperious task master, it will decide when and where I will write: regardless of whatever it is that is made manifest and probably never read. I have come to peace with the fact that it will use me as it wishes and then go on vacation until it decides to return. Aloha Baby!

dale

Well..I always agree with ell, we have a secret pact, but I thought for the rare occasion Leanne and I agreed. Granted it would be a miracle, but it is the season...just read the "Book of Mary"

[Weeded]

Im not sure who Wordsworth is, but I agree with that dude.
My emotions can get pretty erm, intense(for lack of a better word), poetry for me is like an out-of-body high; it's also very much a therapy for me as well. Alot of times I just close my eyes think of words and put them down with no real understanding of what im trying to say. Usually after about a stanzas worth I sit on it and analyze what I'm saying, and either I figure it out and build on it or I dont figure it out at all. Other times I reflect on my past experiences, things that linger in my conscious mind and I try to make it linger no more haha. Few times I imagine a movie scene or something similar. Even fewer times(pretty much never) I actually have a concrete idea formed and my pen flows golden streaks of beauty. Is what it is.

[just mercedes]

I use words.

[Weeded]

I use words.

You do?!?!

[billy]

i find a good wank puts me in the zone. it's a bit like one hand slapping but with yer cock.
on a more silly note. i write when i get the urge. unlike most poets i carry no pencil and pad i often think of fantastic lines of poetry and forget the bastards before i want to write something. the tranquility of memory fails me though i do have a vivid imagination. [as long as it involves a wank]

i'd like to be like todd and leanne and give myself permission to write crap. sadly i have no choice,; i tell myself i have permission to write a great or good poem and my brain says [ "fuck off you wanker you can't even write good crap yet"] i have to be near the pc when i think of of something or else it's a bubble on life's river.

[Achebe]

i agree entirely with Dale. although, i think Dale is agreeing with El, not Leanne.

anyway, when i wrote poetry it was a quick 'get it down' then a day or two of editing and revision. it was like being on uppers. the mind becomes very focused. i think this is, in a broader sense, what one can interpret 'tranquillity' to mean. and i smoked a lot. i would change a word, have a cigarette. another word, then another cigarette. think about changing a word, have a cigarette. have a cigarette while thinking about changing a word. i could smoke like 20 cigarettes in an hour. and apart from the tranquillity of focus, it was a very internally frantic process.

the only poetry i've written that hasn't stank has been on the strength of cigarettes and foul weather, so I completely identify with this.

What a delightful set of responses!

[shemthepenman]

i agree entirely with Dale. although, i think Dale is agreeing with El, not Leanne.

anyway, when i wrote poetry it was a quick 'get it down' then a day or two of editing and revision. it was like being on uppers. the mind becomes very focused. i think this is, in a broader sense, what one can interpret 'tranquillity' to mean. and i smoked a lot. i would change a word, have a cigarette. another word, then another cigarette. think about changing a word, have a cigarette. have a cigarette while thinking about changing a word. i could smoke like 20 cigarettes in an hour. and apart from the tranquillity of focus, it was a very internally frantic process.

the only poetry i've written that hasn't stank has been on the strength of cigarettes and foul weather, so I completely identify with this.

What a delightful set of responses!

i am glad i am not the only smoker left on the planet. also, this is the kind of thing that will keep me awake at night, i meant 'frenetic' and not 'frantic'.

[Erthona]

"i am glad i am not the only smoker left on the planet. also, this is the kind of thing that will keep me awake at night, i meant 'frenetic' and not 'frantic'."

I would still be smoking if I wouldn't be dead after the first day. It's great for focusing the mind. Most of the worlds great literature was enabled by some form of chemical and little written au' naturel, even if it was only strongly brewed brewed coffee.

Billy, I think what you say goes without saying. Of what we might call the "Great Poets", how many great poems have they written. Coleridge, who I consider in the top few wrote three great poems, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", "Kubla Khan" and "Christabel". Writing a great, or a decent poem in our case is more a fluke than anything else. To take the satire of the Bard as reality, "greatness is thrust upon us." So just don't be showing your cross garters to the wrong gurl and I think things will be fine (I hear Ella is fond of yellow and green).

Hi Shem, good to see you again.

dale

[rayheinrich]

As for rhyme, meter, and forms,they're like constantly painting yourself into a corner, or working a crossword puzzle where you're allowed to change the right answers retrospectively so the word you want to use, fits.

"allowed to change the right answers" YES!

Is writing poetry a process of creating cliches that haven't caught on yet?

I'd simplify that to "creating cliches" and add "rehabilitating older cliches
that have begun to slip towards sounding "freshly original".

I write in pretty much the same fashion as Todd, only I pretty much never rinse

In the winter (summer to you), I sometimes add conditioner to keep the edges moist.

Exhibit A:
I wore cool before it was black  <- This is right in SO many ways.

In the anal passages of a unicorn <- You OWN this phrase.

It nestles in the elbow of the breeze  <- Oh! I remember this one. Nothing weird at all,
seems like it's always been there in my head... and yet, you made the fucker up. Cool.

... I also give myself permission to not write.

Shear wisdom.

... I have no control at all as to whether I will write a poem.

Nor do I.  Anyone who fantasizes they do is fantasizing.

... Alot of times I just close my eyes think of words and put them down with no real understanding of what im trying to say. Usually after about a stanzas worth I sit on it and analyze what I'm saying, and either I figure it out and build on it or I dont figure it out at all. ...

You've nailed it. Todd does it this way as well, only he uses a few more
words to describe it. I use fewer words because all I have to do is say: "I do it like Todd and Weeded."

I use words.

And for some of them, it's their first time.

...it's a bit like one hand slapping but with yer cock....

While you're confusing the two, either way, admittedly, gives good koan.

i'd like to be like todd and leanne and give myself permission to write crap. sadly i have no choice

                       

i have to be near the pc when i think of of something or else it's a bubble on life's river.

Aren't we all.


Related anecdote:   < Calming Down >

[Pyrra]

Usually its something I experience or hear striking me as odd, and when I am thinking of it it becomes more odd, and then it becomes a poem.

[Achebe]

I see music in poetry and that is why I like to feel the flow of metre, like rhyming, do not shun clichés and try to make the construction convey emotion.
I know that is an old fashioned attitude that doesn't suit everyone, but it is my pleasure and at 78 I feel it's OK to be old fashioned and selfish enough to please myself. I'm just pleased and grateful that I don't seem to be on my own!

off-topic: your point about being 78 made me think of Ruth Stone, who was named poet laureate of Vermont at 92 (so you have 14 years to practice for that!)
she wrote so well: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177510