Poetry...something a lot

Chatterbox: Inkwell

Poetry...something a lot

Poetry...something a lot of people won't touch with a ten foot pole.  However, I would rather write a poem than a short story or a novel.  Most days.  I'm sure there's other people who agree that poetry is misrepresented.  Those that agree and those that don't, show yourselves.

Therefore...the purpose of this thread is for commenting on and (constructively) criticizing each other's poems, talking about poetry in general, what works, what doesn't, and arguing about poetry.  Go to it, unashamed poetry nerds, if any others exist.

To start out, here is a poem for you to figuratively rip apart.

 

Destination Red and gold blurs of light

Streaked past, wheels a distant haze

Drawn into a pointing arrow shape

In the taut string of slicing roadway.

Purposefully lined in one direction

Going somewhere too inexplicable to identify

Racing to unknown destinations and

Passing through the spheres of

Other unnamed journeys.

The beautiful, random waves of brightness

Spread along the roadside.

It was the sunrise at seven PM

All of the lights straining for home

In the complex ocean of shimmering

Headlights and smoothly racing hearts. 

Achh.  I wrote this pretty recently and haven't...really edited it yet.

 

submitted by Naomi P., age 14
(January 10, 2012 - 7:02 pm)

back to the Inkwell

C'mon people post,

and if you won't,

then let's have a toast,

to the poetry thread,

that's entirely dead.

 

submitted by Naomi P., age 14
(January 13, 2012 - 6:22 pm)

well yeah...

submitted by ...
(January 27, 2012 - 9:14 pm)

I've tried poetry. I like it but I have trouble staying with the right rhthym and rhyming words. 

submitted by Elizabeth M., age 12, Germany
(January 28, 2012 - 1:25 pm)

You definitely don't have to always rhyme and stay within a certain rhythm!  Poetry can be completely crazy and "unstructured"--a poem could even look like the object it is talking about :)

submitted by Naomi P., age 14
(January 28, 2012 - 6:59 pm)

I do poetry sometimes.

submitted by Emily L., age 16, WA
(January 28, 2012 - 7:15 pm)

Oh cool! Go unstructured poetry! I'll post something soon!

submitted by Elizabeth M., age 12, Germany
(January 29, 2012 - 3:06 am)

I like memorizing poetry. I memorized the Lady of Shalott, because Anne of Green Gables is resiting it when her boat sinks and Gilbert has to rescue her, and also because it about King Arthur(sort of). That and the Night Before Christmas are the only two poems that I have actually memorized the whole thing, but I have started others.

submitted by Ivy, age 12, Camelot
(January 29, 2012 - 3:27 pm)

I don't write poety, but I love reading it! My favorite poet is definitely Mary Oliver, but of course there are so many others I also love, like Edgar Allen Poe. I can never understand Robert Frost, though.

I may try and edit your poem later.

submitted by Ima
(January 29, 2012 - 7:22 pm)

I have a book of Edgar Allen Poe but I had problems with the language...

submitted by Elizabeth M., age 12, Germany
(January 30, 2012 - 8:20 am)

Yes, he's brilliant, but sometimes he'll even do things like write half of it in Latin or French. I always have to read his books/stories/poems/essays at a computer because there are usually things I have to look up that may seem like details, but you can only understand the piece as a whole if you understand them. It... can get a bit frustrating at times. But Robert Frost is even worse because the words themselves aren't the problem. Even if you know them all, one or two tend to mean something else, which will affect the whole poem, but I can never figure out which words to look at! To understand his poems, I literally have to analyze every single word. I'd rather not take my time to do that. Some of his poems are alright, but most are inscrutable.

submitted by Ima
(January 31, 2012 - 7:36 pm)

Reading poetry?????

YEATS YEATS YEATS!!! I am a complete lunatic when it comes to Yeats.

"Cast a cold eye/On life, on death/ Horseman, pass by!"

Oooooh.

submitted by Mattie
(February 22, 2012 - 9:07 pm)

@Ivy...that's a lot of memorization.  I remember having to memorize "The Highwayman" in 6th grade and that was kind of fun :)

@Ima and Elizabeth M....Edgar Allen Poe is awesome, but yes, a little hard to read.  Scary to read aloud at midnight in semi-darkness in a graveyard.

submitted by Naomi P., age 14
(January 30, 2012 - 7:06 pm)

I started to memorize "The Highwayman," but that was one of the ones that I never finished!

submitted by Ivy, age 12, Camelot
(February 4, 2012 - 4:48 pm)