#poetry tips

[two-bees-poetry]

hi! i love your contrapuntal poems so so much, and i was wondering if you had any advice on how you write them? like what your process is like and how you match them up!

- @cowboy-heart

Hey there! Okay, in my experience, writing two poems and then trying to match them up so that it makes a third one is almost impossible. What I do instead is this:

I write one poem (usually the left side, for some reason), so it looks like this

And THEN I start to write both the second and third poems and the same time

From here ^^ you start to write it diagonally, I guess? Every time you add a line to the right side, it has to make sense both vertically in the second poem by itself, and horizontally in the third poem.

This version of the left side is what I consider to be the "raw" version- all of the line breaks are completely arbitrary

- don't be constrained by these line breaks! make your own! see the difference i made between the first picture and the second picture? "he is our brother;" works better with "he never let me play alone."

Pro tip: semicolons are your FRIENDS because they can act like commas or periods

ta-da! does this make sense?

try it! tag me! enjoy!

[mirrorless-chronicles]

9 Traditional Forms of Poetry:

Sonnet- 14 lines, written in iambic pentameter (a meter with five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables per line), with the rhyme scheme ABAB (Also known as Shakespearean)

Haiku- traditional Japanese form with 3 lines and a common syllable pattern of 5-7-5. It often focuses on nature. (You can also do patterns of 7-5-7 or 3-5-3)

Villanelle- 19 lines with five three-lined verses (ABA) followed by a four-line stanza (ABAA).

Limerick- a humorous five-line poem with a rhyme scheme of AABBA and a specific rhythm.

Ballad- A narrative poem with song-like qualities, usually written in four-line stanzas with a rhyme scheme. (like ABAB or ABCB)

 Ode- a formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses or celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea. It typically follows a specific structure.

Elegy- a reflective poem that grieves the loss of someone or something.

Sestina- a complex form with six stanzas of six lines each, followed by a three-line conclusion stanza.

Pantoum- composed of quatrains where the second and fourth lines of each stanza become the first and third lines of the next stanza.

There are more but this is all for now!

[theodditylacey]

i think i'm going to try writing poetry again.. i probably haven't written a poem in months. any tips? i just need to get back on a roll.

[sabrecrane]

Poetry Notes For Beginners

Some notes I've taken from my course at university.

Not sure what happened with the quality on the second one, my apologies.

[poet-slenderman]

Do you have any poetry tips?

I personally like to write based upon rhyme schemes. I don't understand meter very well, so I work with what I have.

I typically like to make a rhyme to the first verse within the second to fourth line, and for any other lines just do what feels right.

If I can't figure out how to rhyme something... Don't be afraid to look it up (rhymezone is great). We don't gatekeep here.

(A) With a little bit of work,

(B) You can find a way,

(A) There is a great perk,

(B) In practicing every day

If you're just starting out, it's easy to stick to four line verses before resetting the rhyme scheme, but I also highly advocate for experimenting!

(A) I don't really know where I'm going with this

(B) Or how long it will be

(B) We'll just have to see

(A) With motivation and muse's kiss

(A) There is such a lovely bliss

(B) In making such poetry

Freeform is very nice too, and it's fun to play around with capitalization and grammar for emphasis. I don't do this as often, so I can't come up with an example on the spot, but I know there's one somewhere I can find.

This is pretty broad, but if you have anything in specific you want help with, please don't hesitate to ask

[starryzzz]

i really want to get into poetry and how to write it but i feel like i'm too uninteresting to have anything to write about, like suddenly i have no life experiences :(

[theauthorpaula]

(via How To Write Poetry: Tips For Beginners)

[lustlessgrace]

sitting alone in the waiting room

feeling lost, bracing for the news

my body’s collapsing

it’s more then a fracture

it hurts to breathe.

it hurts to move.

looking at it another way is like bandaging a bruise

so i’ll ask them to cut me open

and have it removed

but yet they still tell me

it may not be the best move

so do i sit there in silence

or let catastrophe reign

it might just have been easier

if i died that day