Okay sooooo!

Chatterbox: Pudding's Place

Okay sooooo!

Okay sooooo!

I think I'm going to try doing poetry.  Buttttttt

 

I don't have a clue what I'm doing

 

So if anyone can help/refer maybe some books (that have poetry or are on how to do poetry) that'd be great!

 

Are poems required to rhyme? if so I should find a rhyming website and bookmark it...

Thanks in advance! 

submitted by Alex
(August 29, 2021 - 1:52 pm)

back to the Pudding's Place

So, I'm not exactly "Good" at poetry but I DO KNOW that poetry doesn't have to rhyme!

I have this book called You/Poet by Rayna Hutchison & Samuel Blake that's pretty good. It's like a workbook, with prompts and types of poetry & all that stuff.

Where The Sidewalk Ends is a book by Shel Silverstein, & mostly funny poems, but there are a few really good ones in there. Like the "Invitation" poem :D

There aren't really any rules to poetry. Have fun! 

submitted by Writing_in_the_dark, age 11, NY but not NYC
(August 29, 2021 - 3:02 pm)

Omg Yesss Shel Silverstein, those poems are amazing bwahaha

Thanks :D 

submitted by AlTop
(August 30, 2021 - 1:09 pm)

Hello, fellow (or soon-to-be-fellow, anyway) poet! I'm going to go ahead and admit that I also don't know what I'm doing, but I like writing poetry so maybe I can offer some advice. 

First and foremost (I'm not actually sure what foremost means...) Poems do NOT have to rhyme, but they most certainly can. I think of songs, which often do rhyme, as a type of poetry, but I've red plenty of poems. In fact, Emily Dickinson, a very famous poet, did not write rhyming poetry, as far as I know. Long story short, it's up to you wether the poem you write will rhyme or not. You can write some that do rhyme and some that don't, too, if you want some variety!
There's a book I'm currently using that gives a lot of writing prompts. It's not just for poetry, but it filled to the brim with prompts you can use both for stories and for poems. Also, it has advice from lots of different authors, including at least one poet! I'm not sure if it will be of any use, but it's called Rip the Page! by Karen Benke if you're interested.
I'd also like to reccomend using a journal or Google Doc or even the Notes app on an iPad/iPhone. That way, you can keep track of poetry and you can write down lines and ideas for poems.
One last thing: if you're not feeling inspired try writing poems through the eyes of characters from books. Sometimes it's fun to take a little thing in your life, such as a love for a season or something someone said to you, and turn it into a poem that completely exaggerates or changes the perspective of it.
Hope that helps, happy poem-writing! 
submitted by Periwinkle, age Pi, Somewhere in the stars
(August 30, 2021 - 2:37 pm)

Hey! I'm kinda a poet!

I think the way I learned to write poetry was just writing and reading poetry. There's really no set of rules you have to follow, so trying things out, see what you're good at, see what you like, see what you like to read. I consider myself a freestyle poet, but I have written some rhyming poetry. Experiment, even if you think you won't like something, or you think you're not good at it.

Write about whatever you want. I mainly write about my life, but that's only like two thirds of the time, and I used to never write about myself. Remember that poetry styles change and morph while you get better and while you become different. Play around with punctuation and capitalization. Try different spacing. Try making poetry to look like something. Try poetry with a structure. Try poetry without a structure. Try an acrostic. Try a blackout poem. Try mingling your words with a song you like. Try writing something based on someone else's poem. Try describing with your senses something abstract. Try making your lines really choppy. Try Roman numerals. Try making your lines really rambly and long. Try writing a poem that ends before it should. Play around with stanza length. Try different fonts. Try different handwriting. Try writing about something really boring and making it something profound.

Anyways, what I was trying to say before listing a whole bunch of prompts that you'll probably never use but I probably will, is that you should do everything with your poetry. Don't be afraid of failing. You'll probably make something beautiful.

I hope to see you over on the regular poetry thread (the thread I frequent most often)!

Goodbye for now! 

submitted by WordSong, age Forever, Under a rock
(August 30, 2021 - 5:20 pm)