Writing poetry

[busker]

These days, I type out ma pomes lying in bed, shortly before falling asleep. The length of lines and choice of words is often dictated by how much battery life remains.
It's not the way good poetry gets written, which is always in a notebook.

In my younger days, I'd sometimes carry a Moleskine or Rhodia notebook (always blank sheets, cream / off white colour) and a fat gel pen in my pocket or shoulder bag, and write while enjoying a coffee in the park. This would be on holidays. Although I once wrote something while sheltering from the rain in a bog standard Pizza express. The circumstances made for a depressing poem.

But the thing is, the best poems are written in small font, with a not too big, not too fine gel pen tip. Always in black or green ink, never blue. And always in a hard bound notebook with blank, acid free paper.

If you disagree, you're a lost cause.

[Tiger the Lion]

These days, I type out ma pomes lying in bed, shortly before falling asleep. The length of lines and choice of words is often dictated by how much battery life remains.
It's not the way good poetry gets written, which is always in a notebook.

In my younger days, I'd sometimes carry a Moleskine or Rhodia notebook (always blank sheets, cream / off white colour) and a fat gel pen in my pocket or shoulder bag, and write while enjoying a coffee in the park. This would be on holidays. Although I once wrote something while sheltering from the rain in a bog standard Pizza express. The circumstances made for a depressing poem.

But the thing is, the best poems are written in small font, with a not too big, not too fine gel pen tip. Always in black or green ink, never blue. And always in a hard bound notebook with blank, acid free paper.

If you disagree, you're a lost cause.

I can't remember the last time I used anything but a keyboard. Sometimes I'll have an idea and type it into my phone's notepad. But most of those go nowhere. Agree about gel pens.

[brynmawr1]

I do a lot of my writing in my head.  On the way to work, the way home, cutting the grass; all the time really.  But, not the best.  The lines I've lost...."The Poems I have not written" by John Brehm.  I used to carry around a notebook to jot stuff down but let that fall away.  Time to bring it back, i think.  Green, blue, black...maybe even red ink.

[busker]

On the way to work, the way home, cutting the grass; all the time really..

Tsk tsk. How terribly suburban.
Which raises the interesting question of: would you rather die of TB and write Ode to a Nightingale, or stay alive, be an accountant, and have a house with a pool and a dog?

It’s a trick question, because Ode to a Nightingale has already been written

[rowens]

I, myself, write straight onto the screen without thinking.

[Tiger the Lion]

it was a semi-sharp-three-inch-long-golf-course-pencil
and the flap of a matchbook 
that came together
to capture us 
in a seemingly unremarkable moment

[rowens]

Speak for yourself.
And more often.

[TranquillityBase]

These days, days of "retirement", I try to write every day, fulfilling the dreams of my youth.  Back then I started out using paper, moved to a typewriter, and now it's mostly straight to the computer, although there's nothing as terrifying as the blank page of a word processor.

When I started again, after a 30 year lapse, I did use a notebook for a while, simply because I couldn't take my computer out on the patiio, which is where they usually began (and still begin).  I've used my phone in times when I was travelling, but that's rare, because I hate travel.

---

it was a semi-sharp-three-inch-long-golf-course-pencil
and the flap of a matchbook 
that came together
to capture us 
in a seemingly unremarkable moment

This is grand.

[brynmawr1]

On the way to work, the way home, cutting the grass; all the time really..

Tsk tsk. How terribly suburban.
Which raises the interesting question of: would you rather die of TB and write Ode to a Nightingale, or stay alive, be an accountant, and have a house with a pool and a dog?

It’s a trick question, because Ode to a Nightingale has already been written

Guilty.  Since I have misplaced my poetic genius and I already have a house and a dog my path is set.  Although, dying of TB today would be less cliche than in Keats' time and people would feel bad about criticizing my heavy handed writing.  I do cough occasionally so there's still hope.

[Kynaston Levitt]

I don't think I have ever written a poem on a screen before. I mean, after it's finished, of course I'll type it out like a dick head, but I can't even imagine how you would start to write a poem on a laptop or a phone. Do people really write poems on their laptops? That's insane!

[rowens]

I write in notebooks. I type straight onto the screen too. I get into a rhythm as though I'm playing a typewriter shaped piano and type type type

[Wjames]

I like to go to the library with coffee, a pencil, a notebook, and a pair of headphones.

I will pick up random books and flip though them while listening to music, and if something in a book excites me (usually just one or two words), I use it as a jumping off point to start writing.

That is when I make a conscious effort and block a chunk of time out to write, which I don't do enough.

[TranquillityBase]

I don't think I have ever written a poem on a screen before. I mean, after it's finished, of course I'll type it out like a dick head, but I can't even imagine how you would start to write a poem on a laptop or a phone. Do people really write poems on their laptops? That's insane!

I do but there is a huge drawback; you lose track of your changes.  I think there's probably a way to record them in most word processors, but I don't do it. Now that you mention it, I'm going to see if there's a way.

[alonso ramoran]

I don't think I have ever written a poem on a screen before. I mean, after it's finished, of course I'll type it out like a dick head, but I can't even imagine how you would start to write a poem on a laptop or a phone. Do people really write poems on their laptops? That's insane!

i've written plenty but i'm starting to get into keeping track of my changes in a notebook where i'll start drafting a poem, then I'll type out whatever version i like at the moment on apple pages. rinse and repeat

[Quixilated]

I used to to write in notebooks.

It started in my grandmother’s office when they were going through her things after she died.  I saw two unused blank-page journals with Japanese paper art on the covers.  One of the journals had an abstract image of a person with a mountain in the background.  

So I opened the first page and drew a mountain with a little hut on one side and on the other side I added sheep made out of scribbled wool and little stick legs.  Then I added a stick figure man walking toward the mountain. I wanted to pull the image from the front of the journal into the pages of the book, so I wrote a story for him on that first page.  I gave him a house and a sunrise and a grandmother waiting at home to tell him a secret that will send him on an adventure. I hope he was pleased with his world.  I hope he forgives me that we never solved the mystery. 

That was the beginning.

I filled several journals during that time with chicken-scratch stories (none of which had endings) and doodles and outlines and horribly executed maps. It felt like magic to open the pages and watch the words drop onto them. I told my friend the Muses brought the words.

These days there are no notebooks, no doodles, no Muses with baskets filled with words. I type unmagically on my phone in the dark while waiting for the night to finally bring out its sleep. Perhaps that is why there are also no poems or stories, but instead my Pinterest boards are filled with quotes from Doctor Who and weird history facts.

Maybe I should buy a gel pen.

[busker]

I like to go to the library with coffee, a pencil, a notebook, and a pair of headphones.

I will pick up random books and flip though them while listening to music, and if something in a book excites me (usually just one or two words), I use it as a jumping off point to start writing.

That is when I make a conscious effort and block a chunk of time out to write, which I don't do enough.

Ah. The library. That’s another good place to write.
Unfortunately, it’s also the perfect place to sleep. It’s sufficiently warm to lull the reader into a stupor.
I think the English language is also to blame. The eye needs to scan too many words to take in very little
information. All of phonetic writing is a sham. Hieroglyphics and pictographs are so much more useful. Or cprsd wrtng lke ths, wch cnvys ll u nd 2 knw.

But that’s a subject for another thread

---

@Quix - that story must be completed. In verse, if not in prose.
Weird history fact: Tasmania was discovered before mainland Australia