I don't do many, but I do get the odd creative peak. Hope you enjoy it...


I'm sitting at my table,
I don't know what to write,
I fear what's flowing from my pen
From ink, will turn to shite.

It's hard to write a poem,
When writers' block sets in,
I sit, I stare, I cringe, I curse,
I go and fetch the gin.

What shall I write? I ponder,
What kind of verse to use?
A Double Dactyl? Limerick?
Blank verse? I've blown a fuse.

But still my brain's not playing,
No matter how I pray,
Time to give in; admit defeat,
It's not a poem day.

Ooh - hang on...


(c)Cat, Moseley, May 2005

quote:

Originally posted by Cat:
I don't do many, but I do get the odd creative peak. Hope you enjoy it...


I'm sitting at my table,
I don't know what to write,
I fear what's flowing from my pen
From ink, will turn to shite.

It's hard to write a poem,
When writers' block sets in,
I sit, I stare, I cringe, I curse,
I go and fetch the gin.

What shall I write? I ponder,
What kind of verse to use?
A Double Dactyl? Limerick?
Blank verse? I've blown a fuse.

But still my brain's not playing,
No matter how I pray,
Time to give in; admit defeat,
It's not a poem day.

Ooh - hang on...


(c)Cat, Moseley, May 2005

I like it ! Haven't we all felt like that at one time or another! The dreaded Writer's Block lurks ready to pounce anywhere and any time.

I submitted a poem for a magazine competition a few years ago. It was to write a poem in 20 lines or fewer, in any form and on any subject. It didn't appear to get anywhere though because I never heard anything more . Here it is in its entirety:

A POETRY PATCHWORK
OR POETRY IN PROCESS

“Write a poem in 20 lines”. How?
Should it trip along and rhyme?
De dah, de dah - yes that’s just fine.
Should it sound sonorous, ponderous, onerous:
Portray piskies in dusky, bosky bowers; gloamings, glades and silver showers?
Or cry in protest “Why, oh why”?

Who is poetry? What is she, that all our bards pursue her?
Poetry: thou turgid scourge of schooldays.
Thou who wringest great droplets from my sweat-soaked brow!
“Fie to thee, who wilt not let me be!”

But we have moved on now.
Or have we?
The metaphorical drops are still falling as I write these words.
Still I share the strivings of the bards of old
as I cudgel my reluctant brain to shape solidity round elusive thoughts.
“Oh come to me, o Muse! Come soon, before my four times five is up!”

Aha! I have it! My momentous masterpiece!
My peerless claim to lasting fame.
This ode to rank me with the great!
Alas! Line twenty! Oh, too late!!

I missed these 2 poems. How nice!

While I enjoy writing limericks and DDs (and only those since I've been here), I don't think I have written a real poem in my life, though maybe a long time ago in school. That really is disgusting, isn't it?

How does one get started? Do you have to learn about all the different meters and rhyming schemes first? Do you have to take a course?

quote:

How does one get started? Do you have to learn about all the different meters and rhyming schemes first? Do you have to take a course?

I don't know about Cat, but I just write whenever I feel the urge. Apart from reading whatever I could get hold of from a precociously early age, I never had any training to write poems.

I'm very glad that I don't have to write for a living because my poetry writing is very patchy. I sometimes write several at a time and, conversely, I can go for a very long time between poems.

My poems usually come to me suddenly with no warning and I always carry a notebook and pen around with me in my handbag and also keep one beside my bed so I can jot them down if I get a sudden inspiration. I learned to do that because I had one "come on" while I'd nipped out to my local shops one day. I rushed back home, reciting the poem under my breath all the way home, dashed through my front door, pushed past my family and the visitor who'd come round to see me, grabbed a pen and scribbled it down on the back of an old envelope on the kitchen table!

My answerphone message came to me on the bus one day (fortunately, I had my notebook handy). I still use it now .

I wrote a lot of poetry (of varying quality) when my marriage was breaking up. My ex had decided that some other woman's grass was a lot greener than mine (usual story) and I consigned my thoughts to poetry. Most of it was not printable and I screwed it up and threw it away, but it provided a good safety valve at the time.

The best thing to do is just to write but, whatever you do, don't force it or you'll be sitting there in front of an unforgiving sheet of blank paper with the dreaded Writer's Block clamped firmly around the creativity area of your brain. Read lots of poetry of varying styles and by as wide a range of poets as you can. Don't confine yourself to just one or two because then you'll end up writing poems in that style and, while that's better than not writing anything at all, you need to find your own and not someone else's.

I hope this has been helpful to you. If I think of anything else, I'll add it to this post.

quote:

Don't confine yourself to just one or two because then you'll end up writing poems in that style and, while that's better than not writing anything at all, you need to find your own and not someone else's.

Yes, I think that may be my problem. I have been focusing too much on limericks or DDs. I must go to our Stevenson's "Home Book of Verse" and do some reading!

quote:

Yes, I think that may be my problem. I have been focusing too much on limericks or DDs. I must go to our Stevenson's "Home Book of Verse" and do some reading!

Have a look at the Poetry link I've posted in the "Links for Linguaphiles" board as well. You can find literally thousands of poems there.