Creative writing is a craft which you have to work at. You don't become a football star by standing around at the touchline. You can't learn to ride a horse well by walking it all the time. A famous artist like Picasso learnt to draw accurately and well long before he ventured into abstract painting.
But to get somewhere, you have to start somewhere. English is a wonderful language for poetry because it has such a rich and varied vocabulary. If you have been playing with words at all - either by talking or writing - and have an ear for their sound and an appreciation of the quirky ways in which you can bend their meanings, then you may begin to want to write poetry as a form of self expression.
Sitting on a bus, gazing out of the window, lying by the sea in the sun, walking to the post office, as soon as a few words or lines pop up, you have to write them down. Otherwise they're lost forever. The idea, the image or emotion may remain, but the words will be different next time, when you try to translate it into a poem.
Some poems are born almost complete. Others have a long gestation period, waxing and waning as words and phrases are tried, discarded, adapted and rearranged. If you feel poem is worth it, come back from time to time to read it afresh. Perhaps one day the difficult bits will fall into place and the finished poem will be born.
Some poems seem to need a regular beat, with the scansion worked out so that it falls nicely with the shape of the words. These poems need to rhyme too, I find.
Other poems are less regular - the rhyme comes in places other than the last word of a line, the rhythm is more erratic.
Then there are the poems that neither rhyme nor scan, but have their own internal logic. Words still have to be juxtaposed carefully to create the right imagery and feel.
Literary people have all sorts of important-sounding words to describe different poetic forms and techniques. That's not the sort of dialogue I want to have with you. Let's just write.
Some time I'll write about the genesis and birth pangs of a poem on another page. Meanwhile, see also About Inspiration and Verse and Simile & Metaphor
Copyright © Virginia Purchon 1999
Page created on 3rd November 1999
This page was last updated on 13 November 2006.