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/lit/ - Literature

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1524942 No.1524942 [Reply] [Original]

Are there any good books about how to write poetry? And if so, what are some good ones?

>> No.1524953

Just do it by feeling. That's best. Read some, too.

Also, do you keep journals of philosophizing all around you? Start writing those sorts of thoughts in verse.

>> No.1524951

that's cake.

>> No.1524956

Reading poetry in general will help you with your own practice.

>> No.1524958

>>1524953
I tend to write stories, mostly, but I've wanted to write some poetry for a while now. I just never knew how. I'll take that advice, though.

>> No.1524959

I don't know about writing poetry, but to learn more about style, composition and history you should read:

How Poetry Works by Phil Roberts; and,
52 Ways of Looking at a Poem by Ruth Padel

I know people say never read a book that starts with a number, but this one is an exception.

>> No.1524964
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1524964

<-- matt groening

>> No.1524970

hey op. everyone mentions fry's ode less travelled, but I've never liked him. you might find books that analyse the effexts of poestic techniques from a writer's point of view. the following were v good indeed:

James Fenton - An Introduction to English Poetry
Tom Paulin - The Secret Life of Poems

Both, especially the first, are a nust&bolts introduction to actually looking at the forms and uses of poetry; not just a 'write whatever you like' arseblast.

>> No.1524974

>>1524970
typos because pissed

>> No.1524973 [DELETED] 

I have yet to read it, but The Ode Less Traveled by Stephen Fry seems like what you're looking for, OP.

>> No.1524977

>>1524958
The structure of poetry, while unbound from the usual conventions of form does follow rules. Think of how we speak.

Read a poem out loud to find the natural rhythm of line breaks and spacings, where to place silences, the syllables themselves (iambic? trochaic?)...

Look at the visual page. The whole of the format could serve to some greater instruction or form.

I can't really offer you much advice in regards to structure, form, or matter; but I can offer you a short list of poets I've found especially essential.

Read Williams Carlos Williams. Read Denise Levertov. Read John Donne. Then read a few contemporaries: Jorie Graham, Frank Stanford, Billy Weigel. Read Anne Sexton and pair it with a few selections from Emily Dickenson, wash it back with some Tennyson.

See what comes out.

These poets helped me find a voice.

>> No.1525005

Find a favorite.
Mimic the style.
Wean yourself off of mimicry.
Find another favorite.
Mimic his/her/its style by adding to what you/us/I've produced so far.
Wean yourself off of that.
Find another favorite.
Don't use their/mine/being style at all.
Tear off the spine of their/our/becoming book,
rip the pages out in jagged
(not with neat creases!)
handful frenzied caresses
and spread them on your bedsheets,
stuffing a favorite into your pillowcase.
Fall asleep with dreams of this treasured piece-poesy
turning into shiny new quarter-currencies.

Now:
Find one you don't get,
that you can't understand,
learn to mimic them/in/out too,
and hopefully realize you now understand it/us,
which you/outside/ours won't,
but that's OK/fine/copacetic/contiguous/tangential
and related to abstract mean-derings of this/that.

Write all of those poems out by hand,
whisper magic words and incantations,
(if you don't have some make them up)
set them on fire and eat the ashes from a porcelain bowl mixed with soothsayer blood
and piss
(bile will do as a substitute)
of oxen.
Then ask yourself.
Are
you
(am I? can I? will I?)
a
poet
(soon?)
yet?

>> No.1525011

>>1524958
I am in the exact same boat. Or rather, was.

Ted Kooser's "The Poetry Home Repair Manual" is what you want. It's mainly aimed at helping beginning poets revise their first shitty poems, but it really helped me understand the differences in the initial creative functions (inspirations?) of stories and poems. It isn't even vaguely a 'how-to' so much as a compendium of a very experienced poets very practical advice. Shit that's normally left unsaid or glossed over.

>'I just never knew how'

You should really read this book, trust me. A classmate asked my Creative Writing prof. for a recommendation on what to read if he had never written a poem before (but had always wanted to). This is what he recommended.

It's available from ebookee as a pdf, I think, so you can give it a read without losing anything (it's only very short, but don't be put off by the genericness of the introduction and, I think, the first chapter or two).

Trust me.

>> No.1525017

write whatever you want. don't imitate. feel out the flow, anyone subject. forget these stiffs and their suggestions. their prof gave them that list. don't be conditioned.

>> No.1525029

Despite what the hater ( >>1524970 ) says, Stephen Fry's "The Ode Less Travelled" is a pretty fun introduction to prosody. It at least bears checking out. Really all you need to do to get started with poetry is learn the basics of rhyme and meter somewhere and then read tons and tons of poetry.

>> No.1525032

>>1525017
tha's right OP.
And remember, when making a table, don't follow any of the rules of carpentry. Oh, and when cooking avoid ALL recipes and any advice on which food goes together - just put it all in a pot and stir.

>> No.1525047
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1525047

>>1525017
>don't be conditioned
>stiffs

yeah man right on fuck my dad

>> No.1525073

>>1525032
i realize that's sarcasm, but honestly there are no rules to either woodworking or cooking. do you understand the concept of creativity at all? Or do you just do what your told when making the fucking table?

>> No.1525088

>>1525032
Yeah, this guy's totally right OP, no carpenter learns making tables by making tables, they read books about making tables. When they want to add style and texture to their carpentry, they don't look at other carpenters they know of and find things they love, they read books about style and texture.
When you want to cook something, you read a recipe about it and follow it exactly, even if you know you don't like this or that spice it calls for.
And pay attention to false analogies that force tenuous connections between subjects that have no such connections. They're always great advice.

>> No.1525093

>>1525073
lol. i don't know what would be worse at your house: the cooking or the pile of random wood it's served on

>> No.1525104

>>1525073
>do you understand the concept of creativity at all? Or do you just do what your told
>your told

We can all see you're a badass motherfucker (with no respect for grammar, and I bet none for your elders), and that your poetic genius is enough to get you by. But OP asked for a book. He didn't ask for definitions of creativity based on the angsty pseudo-philosophy of a preteen.

>> No.1525108

>>1525088
yeah, because i specifically said DON'T WRITE POEMS.

How can you hope to understand a poem, when you can't even comprehend some simple posts here?

>> No.1525115

>>1525073

Throwing everything to the wind, in any craft, comes after you learn the basics, which a book (talking to you >>1525088) can very well teach you. After you learn the rules you can begin to experiment.

If you think otherwise, I guarantee you you're writing some shitty fucking poems that no one but you will want to read.

>> No.1525131

>>1525115
nobody wants to read poems anymore anyway, just learn to write better tweets. someone might give a damn then.

>> No.1525137

>>1525108
It's still a false analogy. I'm not dead-set completely disagreeing with you, I'm just saying the other guy has his own point, the two of you don't negate each other. There's a point to learning the stuff in these books, sure, but it can be picked up by reading poetry, investigating the poems, and writing it.
Some of it is an enlightening glimpse at the second step there, investigating the poems, their composition and elements.
The rest is mumbo-jumbo instruction manuals written by people who sell mumbo-jumbo because it sells.

>> No.1525160

>>1525137
I agree with you, but really, not all 'beginning ____' books are "mumbo-jumbo instruction manuals written by people who sell mumbo-jumbo because it sells". That's really just like, your opinion, man.

This has degraded into an argument about the legitimacy of reading books about poetry instead of reading poetry. OP mentioned he is a writer, and so I'm inclined to think he needs a little more of a nudge that just reading poems, as I imagine it's difficult to surrender to a new form and study it from the ground-up, much in the way it's more difficult for an adult than a child to learn a new language. A book could provide that nudge, even a 'mumbo-jumbo' one. Arguing about the legitimacy of different methods isn't going to. There's nothing stopping him from reading and writing lots of poetry AND reading books about it. Even shitty ones. He'll take what he wants out of them.

>> No.1525165

>>1525131
As much as I'm sure this is especially true in the case of your poetry, you do have a point there.

>> No.1525195

>>1525160
You wrote one of the books mentioned in this thread. Admit it.