Snowflake Challenge, Day 14

[alisanne]

Day 14

In your own space, create your own challenge. Whatever your challenge is, and have fun with it! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I have seen a ton of fabulous responses to this!
I'm going to go with a personal challenge to myself this time.


I challenge myself to write a poem this year. *wibbles*

You should know, I suck at poetry. BUT there is poetic_hp, and they even post prompts, so there's a built in community where I can post my attempt, once I try. :/

To those of you who write poetry...Any tips?

Comments

[lightofdaye]

I'm sure you'll do great at it. Good luck.

If all else fails plenty of things rhyme with cock.

[shaddyr]

I am sure you will do great!

You could always go for a limerick. *grin*

[bridgetmkennitt]

I don't write poetry, but you totally got this! \o/

[brumeier]

What worked for me when I did a similar challenge last year was to choose a type of poem I thought I could easily manage, familiarize myself with the rules, and then just hammer away at it.

Or you could just go free form!

[fairyniamh]

No tips, I started my writing with (original) poetry and they have even been published... Still, I ran away from it and have not gone back.

I wish you good luck though. It isn't as easy as it looks, but I have faith that you can do it.

[smallhobbit]

I do a neat line in doggerell, my strapline is probably 'Well, it rhymes'.

For a couple of rounds sherlock60 had a poetry page and I tackled most of the forms. I'd say launch yourself at it. The little brother comm holmes_minor has some gifted poets who swim beautifully - I bounce along on the seabed and bob up every so often.

[kelly_chambliss]

Yay! We always need more poetry. I've never written fannish poetry, but in my non-fan stuff, I try to let the images do the talking. Concrete and specific, that's my approach. And Alexander Pope's maxim: "the sound must seem an echo to the sense." You'll be great, lovey!

[delacourtings]

i don't claim to be a very good poet but i do dabble in the genre and i've taken a few creative writing classes and read a few writing books. here's some exercises/ i've done over the years that might prove to be helpful!

•make a list of happy images (or sad ones, or angry ones, whatever emotion you please. ) you can choose one of these to further expand on or you can just keep this list in your back pocket for when you may need it later.
•ea deverell has some great writing worksheets for writing novels but i find this metaphors and smilies worksheet really useful for poetry.
•make a list of opposites, things that contradict each other. these can come in handy when you want to create a certain image.
•write something aural. write with the intention/goal that all of your words will sound good spoken out loud.
•write something inspired by a piece of music.
•write something inspired by a painting.
•and one of my favorite exercises was a jargon exercise. you take specific jargon, like medical terminology or i used spy jargon, and create a poem out of it. i still have my piece if you want or need an example.

some things to keep in mind/things to try to do whilst writing:
•alliterate
•have concrete imagery
•connect things in unconventional ways
•play on words
•have a theme. for this poem, the prompt was sing so i used a lot of musical imagery and vocabulary. play, harpsichord, singing, crescendo, fortissimo, etc!

•i also find other people's poetry to be a great source of inspiration. i have some quote and poetry tags you might want to peruse here and here. and lifeinpoetry posts a lot of beautiful quotes from poems.

•and of course, there's also always prose poetry! ;)

i hope this helps you at least a little bit, sorry it got so long!