/lit/ - Literature

How do I begin to cultivate writing poetry? My general style and prose of writing seem to be considered good, at an undergraduate level. I got in the top 99.7% with my writing samples in the MCAT, and had a paper on Wittgenstein win a president's writing competition this year as the best paper in the school etc. But I feel like they all are considered so good because I made a minimal effort to make them sound nice, not because they are masterpieces or anything. I don't have the first idea as to how I should go about improving my writing. Are there websites for submitting things for critique and refining?

I am at even more of a loss when it comes to poetry, I have dabbled in it, but almost always I did so in a sort of tongue-in-cheek manner. Never seriously trying to make something beautiful or "good." But I want to start making earnest efforts and actually getting good at poetry and writing in general. wat do?


An example of my "dabbling" below, I ended my Wittgenstein paper with a botched Shakespearean sonnet, which I know is probably garbage, but it was put in there more for comedic purposes than anything else. How is it by the standards of /lit/? THe first quatrain is a summary of the Tractatus, while the 2nd quatrain is of philosophical investigations, with the third quatrain being the thesis of my paper etc. Help me improve please and thank you.

Seeking to free us from dogmatics
Was the aim of dear Wittgenstein
Only logical thinking and mathematics
All else, to silence we must consign.
But our language is not nearly so plain
More than mere logic representation
It is used in way more like a game
Which gives language a sudden liberation.
Having read my paper, it’s conceivable
Throughout his writing, he wanted to preserve
That which he famously called unspeakable,
And for us not to think, but to observe.
Even though he was not a fan of her,
I chose to end in Iambic Pentameter.

bamp with pics