My Journey with Poetry [as a fiction writer]
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- Опубліковано 1 сер 2024
- she wanted
to be
a poet
but she was
a fiction
writer
-s.b.
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Long-time amateur poet here.
My experience with poetry came from listening to tons of poetic music by singer/songwriters that were well-respected (and pretty much worshiped as geniuses).
I loved how they used the language. I started recognizing patters and formulas in the wording. I became acquainted with the figures of speech they used. Also, I checked out some famous poets that had similar styles.
So gradually, I started to write my own poems. I initially wrote most of these as part of a game on Hi5 (yeah, the old social network). In this game, you had to post a poem with the last word of the previous poem posted, so you had to do it quickly before some one else beats you to it. Those were the raw versions.
I would recommend the singers and poets, but they're all in Spanish (my mother tongue). I haven't really written poetry in English. I did write a song in English once. But most of my songwriting is in Spanish too.
I've been attempting to write novels since high school. Wrote short stories in college workshops and tried sending them to places but always got rejected. Wrote poems on the side in college and always read it occasionally since sophomore year. After reading "The Poet X" (two years after graduating) I got back into writing poetry. After a few months I sent some out to a few places, and now I'm debuting as a writer with my poetry.
Really off topic but can you drop your hair care routine?
Am I the only one who liked it better long...
I love her hair
It's awesome you're branching out. My poetry is terrible. Wah. Haiku is fun. It's good to find something simple, in my opinion. I love your other works. I hope you make it to the bestsellers some day.
Honestly mine is pretty bad too haha but it's fun to try anyway!
"A body is not a blade.Emotionally it makes sense." Would love to see you do more analysis.
Thanks for another great vid, Shae
When I first started writing as a child, I wrote poetry. From 11 until my late teens that's pretty much all I wrote. I attempted one novel and some short stories, but poetry was the only thing I ever finished. I haven't written it since, and I never got into reading it. I love that you're getting into it!
So fascinating watching this as someone with a huge passion for writing poetry who's getting more into fiction! The divide gets thinner and thinner the more you think about it. Speaking as someone who's super into experimental writing, you'd be WAY surprised how much confusion there is what with people saying things like "is this a prose poem or flash fiction?? ?? what's the REAL difference?" and I think that's really cool!
I can only agree, "Crush" was absolutely awesome! Always going back to that one :)
Bwt your whole style is just on point in this video. It is probably the whole combo of tan, lovely hair, appealing clothes plus a pretty damn good background :)
I love poetry and fiction, but poetry was my main emphasis back in school for a reason. I just enjoy sculpting an experience on the page that sits with readers (the ones that get published). Most of my ideas come from observations or structural/form concepts or figuring out how to respond to big, cultural issues that I feel impacted by. Sometimes, lines come to mind that I try to build off of. So, there's influence from spoken word and from lyrical contemporary poetry. And it can take a few years to get a small set of poems right/publishable. So, I'll tinker at them little by little and take months-long breaks in between pieces before going back to make edits. I was fortunate w/the poetry profs I had who challenged and encouraged me.
I try to write poetic prose, meaning that I attempt to make my prose sound poetic, but unlike most poetry, the plot is also taken into consideration.
I also tend to write a more poetic style of prose! It's why I thought I might enjoy poetry too.
This is exactly why I really do enjoy poetry. It never really has a story (besides a one sentence premise) and usually tries to hide that story behind so many "layers" you just miss the point entirely.
This was really great! I'm glad you described a bunch of books you recommend at the end. I've just started a poetry habit, and I'm aiming to make a chapbook, but as I approach the end of the project I feel myself petering out. I think I'd get stuck if I didn't read other poetry, so that's what I plan to do!
What an insightful video. I love writing poetry, and have been writing more lately. This is my first year of college, and I'm going for my Bachelor's in English and Literature. These videos are really insightful and helpful for my writing process, I have mostly been focusing on short fiction and poetry, and I have seen a few of your videos. :) I am focusing on horror, emotional themes, and the process of discovering ourselves. Your videos are so helpful for my own writing! Thank you for all of the advice!
I’m a self taught poet. I always hated it in school. But one day the words just began to flow from my fingertips. I have plans to put a book of my own poetry and I’ve begun to co-write another book of poetry with a friend. It has kinda taken over my life, including my novel. I even lead the poetry class in our creative writing program at our art program for special needs adults. Really anyone can write poetry once you find the words
Good luck with your book !!
Studying some Elizabethan poetry earlier in college really increased my appreciation for the form. Those authors knew the etymology of every word they put on paper. More than anything poetry is the art of capturing attention. Those authors were masters at keeping you glued to the page. Cool stuff! Thanks for making me want to sit and write some poems.
Your experience with poetry sounds very similar to mine. I only recently (this year) began tryingbto learn poetry and started attending workshops. I had written plenty of poetry before, but it was mainly for myself and an emotional release. I want to learn formal poetic styles instead of just writing ME. I was lucky enough to have a friend tell me about a bunch of free poetry workshops at one of our local arts centers, so I signed up for as many as I could and am now anxiously awaiting the new workshop schedule. I hope you enjoy your poetry journey and happy writing!
I just started writing some poetry in the past two months or so. I think my block when I learned about writing poems back in school was that none of my teachers made it clear that the examples they gave us were edited. I had always thought that it had to be perfect as you penned it. >.>
This idea stuck with me for years.
Good luck on your poetry journey! Don't be afraid to edit!
LEGIT took a writing break to watch this!!!!! xD
I love Ocean Vuong! I read OEWBG, and I really liked it! Sometimes the prose seemed a bit purple, but as he's a poet, you can see where he was coming from. (Thanks for reading the book lol; I discovered it on your Goodreads.) I really want to read his poetry collection though! Great video as always
I had a couple different friends try to get me into rap, took ten or twelve years but eventually it stuck when I found literary rap.
I like poetry! But I like telling stories in it, so my favorite grooves to get in when I'm freestyle rhyming are the ones where I can spitball a story, and I like to write really involved stories when I write them down.
The start is tough, though; I came up with the personalities or the personas by freestyling in my car, but distilling down the epic tale I have to invent in my head to claim the character sometimes takes a lot of patience.
Thanks for the advice on book stuff btw! Started a novel, pantsing it completely because a friend and I started a different novel and we have world-builder's disease; if I ever get published I'll send you a thank-you :)
this is so interesting as a creative writing major who has always loved poetry but struggled with writing fiction!
fashion ICON !!
I took your recommendation of reading Past Lives, Future Bodies and wanted to thank you. It's filled with beautiful poems. Would recommend as well.
Hey Shaelin, glad to hear that you're expanding your interests.
I'm a poet and I'd highly recommend Billy Collins' "Aimless Love" to just about anybody. Collins' persona is thoughtful, aloof, snarky, and he breaks the 4th wall every chance he gets, and his style is about as far from Rupi Kaur as you can get. "Aimless Love" is a smattering of poems from his other books.
I'd also recommend checking out your state's poet laureate's work (if your state has one).
I, as the leader of poets, do
(don't ask them, tho)
thank youuuu I am honoured (I won't ask)
I love hearing hearing about different processes. Thank you for sharing yours!
For me, I sit down completely blank. I grab a piece of paper and start writing. I don't think about the words until I'm done. Many times, the entire first part is just hacked off. When the words begin to connect to the feeling, that's where the poem begins.
That's such an interesting process, love it!
@@ShaelinWrites thank you! Love your channel and advice. Excited to get to read one of your books! Good luck!
Wow, so many new books of poetry for me to read.
Poetry💜😌
I’m so glad more people are finding interest in it. And you’d be surprised by what kind of tutorials/videos are out there✨ but more could be made and will be :)
This year, I participated in escapril, a challenge in which you write a poem every day in April, each day having a different word prompt. Having never read much poetry, I was fumbling in the dark and writing poems about beyblades (yes, I wrote a poem about beyblades. it was bad.) While I know that my poems aren't very good, I'm still quite proud of them!
I tended to write about myself, or DEFINITELY NOT about myself, with very little in-between. Here are some of the funky narrators I had:
- a corpse
- someone finding the corpse of a dead creature
- someone who transferred their consciousness into a robot
- an angel (the ones that look like flaming winged wheels with a trillion eyes)
- someone who broke into an abandoned building of some kind
(you can read them in instagram @denimdrabbles? I guess?)
a poem about beyblades?! You win poet of the year! I haven't thought about beyblades in like a decade!
This inspired me to get back into poetry
I never in my life imagined, that I would ever write poetry, until a couple of months ago when two very simple words suddenly crossed my mind: 'paint me'. I immediately grabbed my phone and started typing, and before I knew it I had written nine paragraphs of, what I would call quite an impressive poem, considering I'm only 14. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to write any more poems since then... (at least not ones that doesn't completely suck! XD)
Haha I love this and I relate! For a long time I thought I'd never write poetry again but sometimes they just appear in your head.
5:32 OMG loved this moment!
I love poetry, so enjoyed this video. I totally relate about characters in poetry. People do work on the assumption that every poem is autobiographical, and I've struggled with that. I wrote poems based upon Daphne du Maurier novels, myths and legends, and so on, and that felt more comfortable. It wasn't about me, and there was no ambiguity. Good luck with your poetry journey. 😃💝
Your topics of poetry sound super interesting!!
@@ShaelinWrites Thanks. I do write personal poems too, but sometimes that isn't what inspires me creatively.
That’s almost exactly how I got into poetry! I feel pretty much the same way.
How you felt about poetry is how I use to feel with writing fiction since I always written poetry but I’m slowly starting to get better (hopefully) so I get the insecurities there haha.
I used to write poetry a lot in Uni, took a several year break from writing in general and got back into fiction writing. Recently, with my writing group, I heard several poets reading out who inspired me to try again. I find my voice and sweet spot in Fantasy/Abstract Narrative freeverse with internal rhymes. I can write strange, beautiful, lyrical poems where the imagery could be literal or metaphorical. My latest one was The Beautiful Sha'ir about a mystic who uses vocal powers to control people, the narrator is a gay lover who ultimately kills him to break free of his toxicity.
At Uni I studied under Jackie Kay and read a lot of hers, we also read Carol Ann Duffy, former poet laureate, since she headed several departments in my uni.
I still have many singular lines in my notes lol I add to majority of them over time. Some poems and song lyrics take time like that to develop with more experience and inspiration.
ive been into reading classical poetry for years now (tons of dead guys and gals writing about nature and lost love without the spectre of industrialization looming over everything! ah, i love that).
i definitely have this problem of reading more modern poetry and going, "i really dont get it." but i feel like that about sylvia plath as well, and her stuff is not that new. but from time to time i will try modern poetry, and once in a while i will find some that makes me feel stuff, and that i connect with emotionally without it being basic and that makes me really happy. my favorite so far in that category is bluets by maggie nelson.
I'm with you on that! Some modern stuff I just shrug my shoulders at and reach for my nearest classic!
One of my favourite poets is Andrew Marvell. He lived in the 17th century so all his writing is in old English but if you're interested in older stuff he's really great.
For books of poetry I recommend Averno by Louise Gluck, Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith and Citizen by Claudia Rankine. Andrea Gibson is also a tremendous poet though I think their poetry is best experienced in spoken word form, and you can find albums of their work in Spotify etc. I had trouble connecting to poems when I was younger and only "got" them in the first year of university during an English class. There was a list of poems as part of the syllabus though we didn't get to all of them but the list included "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop, "Tiara" by Mark Doty, and "Saying Your Names" by Siken. Those poems remain so important to me.
I really resonate with your experience with poetry. I've always liked poetry from a distance, and I still don't get what makes a good poem from a bad one. I have books on form, and took a whole class, but I still honestly don't get it lol. I even got a good grade but I don't understand entirely why lol? My teacher was also relatively closeminded about what *he* thought was good or bad poetry, to the point where he just entirely discourged us from using certain (well established) techniques.
To me the most frustrating thing is still not being able to tell good from bad. Like I can write as much poetry as I want but how do i know if its even good?
Shaelin Wilde ~ you should watch Before Sunrise where the guy makes a poem with the word 'Milkshake'
I highly recommend Billy Collins' book Aimless Love. Reading his work feels like going on a nice contemplative walk
Thank you for the recommendation!
My heart leaps into the sun, embraced by the warmth which comes.
What sounds I hear on this blue sky day, carries me far away.
The whisper of prairie grass on the plains, surrounded by forests across the wane.
She's adorable. 💝😄💝
Great video!
Great way to shift your mental blocks too! 🙌🙌🙏
Paris Spleen by Baudelaire is my fav poetry book, it's prose poems. They are "accessible" despite his use of fantastically unusual and big words. It can be difficult but not in a "I don't get this" kind of way. He basically says what he means.That's the book that got me into poetry. Check out "The Stranger"
Hello! How you felt about poetry, where you get ideas for lines but couldn’t figure how they fit into a full poem resonated with me. I mostly write poetry, but when it comes to fiction, I get ideas for intense scenes in my head, some I’ve even written out and got praise for, but I can never ever figure out how I can fit it in a story with each moment still feeling engaging. I feel like so much set-dressing eludes the core idea of the piece but is unfortunately necessary. I just can’t bring myself to write it, I get so bored. I have stories that I want to bring out into the world, but I’m not sure how to write from emotion while sticking to the story because my emotions aren’t linear and don’t bend to what the story calls for. If the feeling I want to capture in a story lasts a moment, how will I be there to capture it again?
Can you make a vid on character self-discovery and growth?
I've completed 4 manuscripts (70-100K words), 6 feature length scripts and a few abandoned of both. While story is second nature to me, I fail when it comes to characters. Even after watching all of your character development vids, I'm finding it hard to do with my characters what I do naturally with my world and story building. From hearing you speak about yourself and your writing, I'd guess that you naturally crush character, so I'm hoping your insight can help.
Another excellent video. I am currently working with a Reedys developmental editor. My protagonist David Sagacious speaks in rhyme and other forms of poetic alliteration when the evil 100 foot machine gets close to his location - it is the only way to hide himself. Five years ago, when my book was very different, I work shopped the first few chapters at UCLA Extension and two women in their 30s said that is not the way teen age girls speak. From that point I found away around that using the Omniscient voice to tell the entire story. My second book is going to be less science fiction and more political and historical. I am a 61 year old man. Do you have any suggestions or books to offer which would help with my write quest to write authentic dialog and scenes for young women 18-21. I appreciate any suggestions.
I wrote poems as a kid too, and somewhat during early twenties... But after my mother died suddenly a couple of years ago I got back to it and self-published a collection of poems about the first year of grief. I don't think they have a certain form or voice that I would write in normally, they just had to come out as therapy in the form they did. And frankly I didn't think I'd get back to poetry in a looong time. But, I'm back, just six months after the release of the collection. But now I am writing in a totally different voice, and it's leaning towards the short prose I used to write before. I am also working on a novel, and on short stories, but I find poetry to be a nice way to pass the time, to fill the well, but also just get shit off my chest and into being, into art, which for me is such a relief. Like it makes my existence worth it, if some things of beauty are born. I would love to read some of your poetry, as someone who is also just getting back to it, as a grownup :P And btw, I think poems in English are way different than poems in Swedish. So I read and write them in both languages!
I know it's almost 'stereotypical' of the form but poems honestly are (for me) such a powerful way to deal with personal feelings, like you talked about with your collection. I never write about myself in fiction and it never crosses my mind to, but have found myself writing about my own feelings and processing some things with poetry and it's more therapeutic than I even thought it would be.
@@ShaelinWrites Yeah, and I was thinking about the thing you said, that almost nothing in your life felt important enough... I almost always have the capacity to see the the grand beauty in the smallest of things, the most mundane feelings. And when I think about it we are all the same in a sense, it is our capacity for love and hurt and all those things that connect us, sometimes through art and literature. So I think there are things like that in all of our lives, and frankly the most dramatic "important" life-changing things... Well, those we DON'T all share :P
@@ShaelinWrites It's past midnight here in Finland and I am rambling, maybe just trying to make sense of the poems I wrote today. Or trying to validate them by saying we can all connect through them :D That's not egocentric at all :D :D :D I think I'll call it a night!
I think one of my biggest drives to #getgood at poetry is the fact that I'm like, not musically talented at all. There's poetry in music and there's music in poetry, so poetry is the closest I can get to singing without outing myself as a banshee
Absolutely love the scarf! Where is it from?
I actually got it from a market in Vietnam!
I think everyone writes dark poetry when they're adolescents. My favorite poem is "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. I think that is a poem men would like more that women. I have no idea what "The Wasteland", by the same author, is about. I like Robert Frost's poetry. It sort of makes me want to move to Maine. I had this idea for a poem about a young woman who lives where I do - "Her father hit her / And her neighbors bit her / With words that sank to the bone." I don't know how to finish it, though. I've read a fair amount of fiction. I've read every word that Shakespeare ever wrote at least once. I haven't read that much poetry. I would probably benefit from more of that.
You should check out Stephen Fry's "The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within" It gives you all you need to know about how to write structured classic poems :)
I’ve got a book of poetry on amazon
I write poetry using a lot of rhyme and meter. If you’re willing to take a chance on me, my chapbook is called Scarlet Shadows. I’ve been told it’s a powerful read if you read it all in one sitting.
"Write some fricken pOMES shaelin"
gotta man the fuck up and write a darn POEM
also s/o to richard siken bot
richard siken bot is the best twitter account change my mind (you can't)
also on the eighth day god sat down at a type writer and rolled himself a cigarette and create Insta poetry
@@ShaelinWrites 1 dislike, probably B.G
Thanks for the recommendations. I recently signed up for a 30 day free trial on Scribd (Netflix for books), and I searched to see if the site had any of the books mentioned in this video. This is what I found.
On Scribd as book
Night Sky with Exit Wounds By Ocean Vuong
War of the Foxes by Richard Siken
Soft Science By Franny Choi
On Scribd as an audiobook
If They Come for Us: Poems by Fatimah Asghar
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire
I've seen some videos of Warsan Shire reading her poems before and if the audiobook is done by her I bet it's incredible!
You are so pretty and smart 😇❤️
Ocean Vuong is very good.
Hi! I'm an aspiring writer who's been looking for all the help I can get in search of bettering my writing. Your videos have helped and inspired me to keep improving my works and for that, I'm very grateful. You seem to know so much about the subject and if I understand correctly you are also studying it to some degree, forgive me if you've mentioned it in a previous video, but what is it you study and where? I hope to study something similar in the future!
Yes, I'm just at the very end of my BFA in Writing! I only have two classes left. I keep the university where I study private though, I'm sorry! But there are many writing programs at many schools, so I'd take a look at schools in the area you're interested in studying in.
@@ShaelinWrites Thank you for the fast reply! I understand and respect that you want to keep the university where you study private but I'll try to research what opportunities I have for taking a BFA in writing!
I loved
what you
did there
haha
PS: Does anyone have any collection of poems that isn't sad or angsty? I wouldn't relate to that right now. Think girl about to turn 30, that is content with life, yet ambitious.
I know she gave a ton of recs but I was looking for the mood of the poems.
My favorite poem is by Travis Bickle "I first saw her at Palantine Campaign headquarters at 63rd and Broadway. She was wearing a white dress. She appeared like an angel. Out of this filthy mess, she is alone. They...cannot...touch...her."
I like landscape poetry, Shaelin. But not just, you know, the fields are lovely, the flowers are waving, the brook is burbling... But like, "The field was blazing red lines of lava, as the cold red sun sat behind the frosted treeline, my breath was blue grey, like the night softly seeping in behind me, there was no wind, all was still, but the sound of barking dogs in the distance, and the reminder that the wolves would come soon, drink from the pools in the furrows of the field, and hunt my grandfather's cattle, and maybe me, if I stayed out too long."
Sometimes I write from nature's point of view entirely, and just don't worry about myself even being there. I write from a "I love you point of view", in nature, or to people I am writing too sometimes, like my wife. I sink down into a mood, and let the words reflect aspects of the mood, thus my poems can be inspired by a line, but I tend to let them be inspired by a mood, and pick a line from the poem, or idea, to title it later. I feel almost hypnotized by the mood. And look around me at what makes me feel that mood, or how the objects enhance that mood. I humanize things, make them carry memories, or make them as substantial as they are. Take for instance. William Carlos Williams, "So much depends upon the red wheel barrow, glazed with rain water, beside the white chickens..." He breaks it into pieces, and each line takes on more importance. How can a red wheel barrow be so important? A loved one might need it to feed chickens, or pass the time to forget tragic memories, or maybe it is the last reminder of a loved one who died. Maybe kids are eagerly planning to use it to build things when they get home like a dam across a stream, that's what I did when I was a kid. Those moments meant something, they still do. Adults seem to think that being an adult is about being cool and have your shit together. It helps. But shucking off the important moments of childhood is to betray it, and lose it. Of course, there is a difference in being childish, and child-like. But I find just ruling one's self in a loving way, and keeping the youth alive without spoiling it inside, is the best of both worlds. Your poetry you wrote when you were young, was probably done in a good way, through moods and brooding, and dreaming outloud, creating characters, scenes, etc. Over time you get better at it, and can add rhythms, and structures, and sound flows. I wrote crap when I was young too. Reading the old poets will help an english writer get the hang of rhythm, and it will seep in a bit, without trying. Reading poets like Silvia Plath will help with humanizing scenes, like this one: The Moon and The Yew Tree, This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.
The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky -
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.
The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness -
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.
I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness - blackness and silence."
It's depressing as hell, but she was depressed, and the yew tree which stood for spring and renewal in England, now stands for death for her, temporarily.
Not all poetry has to be dark, a lot of mine is because I am a big Edgar Allan Poe fan. But I've veered off of that. I recently wrote this poem, for autumn:
Autumn is a dancer,
arrayed in gold and red,
twirling in the meadows,
with leaves upon her head,
She's a storm in the hollows,
that wets the spider's web,
and teems the brooks with minnows,
and lays the bears to bed,
She's a blessing to hearth and home,
with teas and spice and bread,
and fills my eyes with glory,
when summer's green has fled,
She's a Fae, of the Orange Moon,
reading books that should not be read,
She's a mystic of the secret,
of the oscillating thread-
that winds between the living,
and the living we thought were dead!
Autumn is a dancer,
arrayed in gold and red,
twirling in the meadows,
with stars above her head."
It's just a lovely mood poem. I will give you a boost, in poetry writing, write in places that evoke a mood. There was this coffee shop near the college where I live, still is, actually, called, The Edge. It was on 'the edge' of campus. Anyway, inside the floors are dark brown, wood, and the lighting is dim, with a lantern here and there, and it was always filled with a few kids writing and chatting, and loners like me. Every time I went there, i just felt this autumnal or spooky/writer mood. And my poems would come out that way. I love that place. But nature is my greatest room, fields, evening walks, morning dew on morning glories, just seeing fireflies and I want to write books on fairies. The smells of drying leaves, the sounds of flocks of blackbirds, its stunning, overflowing with emotions and connections to it. I guess, because I can't trust people very much in my life, it was easier for me to connect to animals and nature. But that didn't leave me empty at all. It made me respect and love nature, and eventually, love people, also, Jesus's words did that too. I don't trust the bible at all, but his words are good to live by, in my opinion. I let the wind flow through me, then I feel, then I write, and that is my way of doing poetry. Autumn is a Dancer was more of a constructed piece, here is a flowing wind kind of piece, below in the next reply.
Under The Mimosa:
"In evening's dimming haze
the leaf's thin stem
becomes more and more grey,
How strange,
An hour ago it was still so green
The smell of freshly mowed lawn
freshens everything,
It sweetens the bobbing dandelions,
(that i purposely missed)
brightens the white stepping stones,
and makes vivid the pink and white mimosa blooms above me,
in the starry, dark-blue sky,
and then you,
as i see you walking to me
you are almost glowing,
tonight,
just because you came to check on me,
i deeply love you for it."
Your video, Shaelin, is going to help a lot of people. You did make quite a few valid points. I too do not like the kiss up poetry of academia. And while there is some good academia poetry, most of it is garbage. If a poem does not invoke a feeling or great change of perception or mood, or leave you feeling something new, the same could be said for books, then it is not a good poem. I will check out some of your suggestions. I hope you have a great week.
This was so interesting! I've written some poems in the past (ie more than 10) but also don't feel like they're any good. As for reading, I actually like Whitman & Ginsberg... and I LOVE Eastern poetry that's heavily influenced by Zen Buddhism, written once upon a time by monks like Matsuo Basho & Han Shan. However, this is vastly different than the kind of poetry you were talking about, so Idk if you would enjoy it.
Purple prose is more style.
The video description tho 😂
I write poetry and have a ton of poets to recommend.
please share!
ShaelinWrites I read a lot of romantic poetry. There’s a collection called Love Poems that’s part of the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets series that I think has something for everyone in it.
"I didn't know what an idea for a poem felt like"
BINGO, it's sensory muscle memory
I think I feel about fiction as you feel about poetry; I've wanted to write it all my life, but I've never successfully finished anything
I'm writing a verse novel at the moment (how happy I was to discover this form, as a poet and also as a neurodivergent person who can't deal with Walls Of Prose), and I'm a few thousand words off 20,000, so -- touch wood -- I may finish this one
incidentally, I would LOVE a video about verse novels :) if you fancied it
Beware of poetry! Perhaps right now, as a fiction writer, your gift comes from "not quite understanding yourself". A lot of imagination stems from imperfectly understanding or imperfectly dealing with the world. The moment you possess lucid psychological awareness of a situation, all the dramatic tension is released from it. At worst--in the case of philosophical awareness--you might have a character like Plato or Ecclesiastes speaking like a stoic, totally dead to the world, seemingly adrift in eternity, or eternal sameness. Or perhaps that's only a clever excuse or barrier or habitual wall they've invented for coping with the world. Nevertheless, Plato and Socrates aren't writing music or short stories. I very much like this idea of an alternate timeline Shaelin, a chaotic, disassociative version of you, who experiences the entire timeline condensed into a single moment. That sounds to me a lot like the atmosphere of good poetry; that Walt Whitman kind of eternity. You see, what a dedicated poet eventually discovers is a means to forgetting words, forgetting structure, forgetting the preparation or results of the creative act, lets go of poetry as a social act, in favor of discovering and dwelling between worlds; an image from Samuel Beckett is particularly poignant to me: “They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.” This kind of language doesn't care about language. If you cared about language, you'd have chosen a pretty subject matter. Poets like Beckett find the simplest, tightest, most indestructible way to condense a horror into plain speaking. Between a world of birth and death; a world where the symbols are childishly simple yet archetypal and permanent. Light/dark, growth/decay, transience/eternity. But again, the poet doesn't care about words like archetype. Critics cease to matter because critics dwell on earth; a poet dwells in the higher realms. What are the higher realms? I have no idea. How would I even begin to describe them. I do not dwell there--but the phantom part of me that does, my unconscious or my evil twin or my chaotic self--this is the daemon which whispers poems in my ear if I am just quiet enough and just still enough to listen; letting go my barriers between self and void. Other poets might go about it differently. I can't speak for other people. Perhaps their "other" dwells more with people or pets or acts of generosity. My other dwells in a kind of eternity; but again, could that be soley the result of the kind of poetry and philosophy I've read? Too much Taoism, Buddhism, Rilke, Holderlin, Nietzsche, etc? Perhaps. Perhaps then I become transparent; as flimsy as a teenage self who also wrote whatever interested him. Perhaps, what was needed was to fall in love with a new vision of the world, a Henry Miller sort of vision, a Charles Bukowski sort of vision, a Nietzschean sort of vision---all of these are particular in a sense, but not so specific compared to other poetic visions, since, what seems required, is the energetic abundance of a discovery, or new way to see or live or feel, such that everything else in the hero's world must change as a result. A poem could be thought of as a hero journey into the essence, which has only one step...not 12. You are either in or out. If you're in, you can stay in, perhaps indefinitely. Buddha did. Chang Tzu did. Bukowski and Su Tung Po did. Whitman did. Sylvia Plath did. The writers of religious gospels did. Comedians like Robin Williams stepped into it--seemingly permanently. Shakespeare is pretty fixated on dwelling there and staying put---in fact, say what you wish about his importance, but what's so odd about him is this compulsive need to democratically allow even the most unimportant walk-ons and extra characters to share a part in the total-eternity-vision-of-humanity, even if they are evil, or murderers, or boring, or stupid, or endless hangers on or followers---they all are allowed a space to contribute this foggy atmosphere of non-time and semi-oppressive nightmare logic...or its opposite, love and brotherhood and romance logic. Circling back to the very beginning of this comment, I'm often surprised at the childishness or world-stupidity of famous fiction writers; their first instinct to problem solving is to retreat into fantasy. They must be insufferable to live with, but at the same time, their access to writing and dreaming is inimitable; hence so much of part-time, self-help writing community is full of people much too capable and too logical to ever discover such childishness and topsy-turvy thinking needed to be a story-teller. Meanwhile, if the fiction writers are hobbled, true poets are even worse off! They're chronic good-for-nothings! They're zealots, fanatics, martyrs, hypochondriacs, schizophrenics, hermits, and religious seekers. Their level of confrontation with the world is extreme. Incessantly extreme. Not that they will always say extreme things or feel intensely, only that, their dissonance between self and world (as we know it) is that of an eternal wound. A wound that cannot be healed or stitched shut. So when people talk to me about "taking a class on poetry" or "Studying a few poems", I think, well, that's nice; that's very cute of you. And when I hear that someone is saying to us, "well, my life doesn't seem important" or "well, my life certainly isn't as interesting as Kim or Kanye" I would say to them, my heart breaks for you. My heart breaks that for you, this one fraught and mortal life you have is not yet significant. I just want to reach out with the wing of a momma bird and shield you from the wind of a not-yet storm. It's Salinger watching helplessly in the dream of children running off unseen cliffs. In poetry, your life must become so important to you, you would give it up to stare at a pebble in the sunshine, on the sidewalk on the way to cashing a lottery ticket; seemingly every particle and atom in the universe becomes supercharged with both positive and negative affinity in every possible direction, voice or interpretation. A voice which just speaks with common sense is far, far too well adapted to all the bric-a-brac excuses, evasions, cruelties, horrors, spectacles, distractions of a mediocre life. Such a voice finds everything under the sun, exceedingly easy...save for one thing: Poetry. Poetry is the beginning and end of the human challenge. Exceedingly simple, effortless, and available...yet the curse of human life "in general" is so radically disfiguring to the human soul, that after a lifetime---after perhaps a century--the number of human beings who really and truly follow the innocence of becoming in every aspect of life, is so small, so catastrophically obscure, as to be seen as more of a pathology than a gift; All of Christianity is funded upon the hope of one such madman---and 2,000 years has not proved long enough to find a passable replacement. Same with Buddhism. People would rather keep on re-hashing these old myths than read a Rilke or a Holderlin. I'm not sure what, exactly, to make of that. Rimbaud says, "a pity for the wood which finds itself a violin." Poetry and poets are like that. I believe its safe to say so, without exaggeration. Else, they've either awakened to it, or stumbled into it. It helps to discover a guide; someone to point across the threshold from common-ness to revelation of some kind---for there are many voices and many kinds of higher calling or insight; what matters, is your own. So, to all those who have bothered to read this entire rant, here is the only advice a poet will ever need: "Why do the master's poems never fail? The master directs awareness, not beauty."
Rare Audio Books I have the urge to grasp your perspective. As for me, I am cursed; the average things in life give me a sort of unwanted desire to write about it (and make it rhyme)...
are you sitting or standing up?
She squattin sis
So happy when you didn't hold up milk and honey for the reccomended....thankyou haha
Have a look at this channel it is called The Purple-beanie poet to get an idea of my kind of Australian poetry I write.
PS: Does anyone have any collection of poems that isn't sad or angsty? I wouldn't relate to that right now. Think girl about to turn 30, that is content with life, yet ambitious.
I know she gave a ton of recs but I was looking for the mood of the poems.
All my poetry is amalgamations of my experiences, my world outlook, and a fair bit of channeling the Divine. Not as in the Christian God, because I have a fair bit of baggage with Them.
Charles Bukowski.
Is there even "a way" to write poetry?
I am ?? not sure ???
There may be some tips and helpful advice or the scholarly it "should" be done this way for best results. But as far as set in stone guidelines, no. Obviously haiku is structure specific. But your poem is YOUR poem create it how you want.
I mean as much as anything else
Not to spam, but I've won awards for my poetry--and still suck.Ask Yahoo! Answers. Anyway, everyone else was writing about angst, unicorns or candy. The competition wasn't fierce. We got a steak dinner for winning, but we lost all rights to our poems (yes, it was legit lab fair stuff). Basically, they were allowed to use it in textbooks. Not mine. I would like my icon to go into a psychology book. It's not vanity. Fry your brain.
The only thing worth writing poetry about is Bionicle
like for the Rupi reference 🙌
I think you have to be brave enough to write poetry and share them with others even braver. Too emotionally attached. Ha
With that scarf around you, Shae?
You may as well be a poet.
I'm sure you're not going to blow it.
Welcome to the dark side! 😉🤣
Hey.
I realise the facade might throw you off,
But this might help you rise aloft
And know, a penny it won't cost
Google the literature club of Doki Doki
It might just be your cup of tea.
It certainly has helped and led and terrified me.
😁
I just found your videos and I've noticed that in every video you're always degrading yourself and your writing. Be confident love.
Wait, so your school taught you to not use “said”, but they failed to teach you to love the thing you’re studying? What the fuck.
I'm not sure I get what you mean or where this is coming from? I was taught not to use said in elementary school (back when I was 10 years old), not in university, but I don't really know what you mean about not loving the thing I study? I do love what I study, but I didn't do my degree in poetry, I did it in fiction. Many people face ups and downs during a degree because there are challenges but I've always loved what I studied. I'm a little confused about where your comment is coming from. It sounds like a critique of my school but I think you have some of my statements mixed up.
ShaelinWrites - ok sorry. My meaning was that it’s odd that a course in poetry didn’t do for its students what casual reading did in terms of teaching the value of poetry; makes me wonder what the university was focusing on if it didn’t ensure the prerequisite of getting students into poetry in the first place. My comment is also muddled in general biases against universities as well as the assumption that your comments about “said is dead” were in regards to university specifically, which was a miss-assumption on my part. My general point being, if I were a poetry teacher, literally the FIRST thing I would do would be to get my students to appreciate poetry on an emotional level before jumping into technicals. Sorry if I wasn’t/am not making sense. Also in retrospect, dropping a wtf was less than appropriate, so my bad.
To be fair to the professor of that class, it wasn't a poetry class, it was an introduction to writing class with over 100 students and we only covered poetry as one unit. I don't feel there was anything done to steer me away from poetry in the class, but it's also not like the professor was especially enthusiastic about it (he wasn't a poet himself). So sure, he didn't make me love poetry, but I think it was more a personal thing that was holding me back and I don't think any amount of enthusiasm really could have made me fall in love with poetry at that time. This was so many years ago I don't really remember what we discussed or learned in that poetry unit in that class, to be honest, but it's not really that the course itself made me dislike poetry or anything.
ShaelinWrites - So yeah, my original comment was all false assumption. Thanks for clearing it up though you didn’t have to.