hey y'all i'm a bit new! she/her, your local doctor's favorite mystery. i write poetry and am making progress on it. i'm here if anyone needs support!!
https://ko-fi.com/16tinyfrogs
intro/FAQ (that i prob should've done a while ago)
hi! i see a lot of tumblr users with pinned introduction posts- so i'll probably make this as a rough draft & update it as i see fit.
i'm ella (she/her)! i got into poetry at the end of 2024, and i really like writing it/documenting my progress on this blog! scroll back far enough, and you'll get the reeeally rudimentary stuff...
i'm still in high school, but i have a profound love for the english language and butchering it with my (probably) outlawed use of punctuation in my contrapuntal poems. i also like to read a bunch, as well as sing, bake, draw, paint, and play with my 2 dogs- luna & olive.
my poetry- i often forget to actually post my stuff haha. my poems (& prose- i'm too lazy to separate them) are under #poetry & #original poem. *if it is tagged with #poetry but not #original poem, it is still my original work- i'm just forgetful with my tags lol.* i write about anything and everything, from chronic illness, to my queerness, to my faith, to media i liked, etc etc etc
other tags- #answered asks for any asks submitted (i try to answer each one as soon as i can), and #yappings for when i'm just talking about random things! (edit 7.25.25- i put a couple of my posts where i answer questions about my process/formatting/other technical stuff into the tag #behind the scenes <3)
↓ FAQs about poem formats & publications!
-> what's a contrapuntal poem?
great question! contrapuntal poetry is inspired by contrapuntal music, which is pieces with simultaneous/overlapping melodies. in contrapuntal poetry, you'll see 2+ individual poems (often from unique perspectives) which can be read on their own, and then together in one big poem. it's like a 3 in 1!
-> how do i read a contrapuntal poem?
attached is a screenshot of an old contrapuntal poem i wrote, about controlling relationships.
the poem on the left is the point of view of the controller. it reads like a regular poem- i am/ constricting,/ i'm scared of you/ trying ...etc
the poem on the right is the point of view of the controlled. it also reads like a regular poem- beware,/ the vine/ wrapped around your throat. ...etc
now, here's the cool part. they combine into one big poem! this might be a little harder to read- i'll type out the first couple lines as an example so you can see how the perspectives fit together.
beware,/ i am the vine/ constricting, wrapped around your throat./ i'm scared of you/ trying to escape the strangulation, ...etc
does that make a little more sense? it can be kinda confusing to read at first, but it's so awesome when you get used to the format! eventually, i wrote a poem about some characters from Severance, with three different perspectives! was a mind bender to write, i'll tell you that.
-> what's a blackout poem?
okay, so i don't know if it's reeeally a technically recognized format, but i saw it on @two-bees-poetry & thought it was super cool. i've only done like one or two, though.
my blackout poems are taken from other poems/prose pieces i've already written. i think of it as uncovering a secret message!
so here, my contrapuntal poem about two characters from the Unwind books forms one secret message- "can i come home". this is very fun to try as a little thought experiment with your own works- i highly recommend it!
-> do you have works for sale/for print/published?
nope! this is basically the only place i've ever posted my work, apart from the occasional text to a close friend. i don't know the first thing about selling my work online, and i don't really think that my writing should be paywalled. that's not to say that i don't appreciate the outpouring of support i've gotten from this community, though. y'all are all very kind! & i have *nothing* against any poet who sells their words. get that bag sis lmao
as far as printing goes- i think it's super special that people want physical copies of my poems to have as gifts or hang on your wall (or whatever else). i have no problems with that, but please please please do not sell my work!!! i am literally just a person posting her silly little words for other people to see! let's just all be nice!
alright, this ended up SO LONG. oops. i def don't have enough notability to be writing this much in a post.. but i guess if you followed me, that's what you signed up for. feel free to ask me questions or talk to me about literally anything. i love making friends!
i think part of what makes me so mad about the fact that em dashes are an “ai indicator” is that they feel really human to me. half the time i use them it’s because i get distracted in my sentences, jumping around to add more information or breaking off a thought suddenly to hop onto another one. bridging gaps in clauses that can’t be connected otherwise. you can’t give em dashes to algorithms!! they’re for us!!
that photo is one i took of a blue button at the beach the other day. blue buttons look like individual creatures or jellyfish, but in fact, each "one" is actually a colony of little tiny animals called hydroids and they work together. here are a couple facts that i based this poem off of:
-> hydroids live connected to each other to form colonies that we see as blue buttons
-> blue buttons are completely at the mercy of the tide and have no way of controlling the direction they move in, they just float atop the sea
-> hydroids have super varied lifespans, some live only for a few hours while others live for months. blue buttons themselves have been observed to live for several years in the wild
and as a bonus, falling down this rabbit hole led me to learn about soft fossilization. as i wrote the last stanza i wasn't actually sure if creatures this soft could fossilize, but i found that even jellyfish can fossilize through soft fossilization! it's pretty cool.
anyways, who knows if any of this is actually correct so please fact check me if it's not but yeah this is just a cool little poem i wrote in 20 or so minutes :)
You've inspired me to start writing contrapuntal poems (i WISH TO I know not what to write about but that's secondary)
But how do you format them? Like how do you get the columns to line up like that
yay yay yay i love asks like these!! i have my formatting process written out in this post, it uses google docs but could probably be applied to other stuff? anyways, if you check the other two posts that i have tagged as #behind the scenes , you'll find a bit more advice/insight into my writing process if you want a bit more help :) i am so glad that you want to write a contrapuntal poem!! if you end up posting it please tag me i'd love to see it!
Hi, "on watching a parent age"-fan #37465 here... I'm not known to cry from media but I can't even make it past the title without tears welling up after having read it that first time a year ago.
Please never stop writing!
thank you so much!! i can't express how much it means to me that people still read and care about the words i put together with my own head. you guys keep me going and i hope to keep making stuff that means as much to y'all as it does to me <3
hi if you do this i'll love you forever.... my contrapuntal with artemis in it is literally one of my favs i've written because i love the greek gods so much. pls make it a contrapuntal they're so much fun i promise
