MADNESS IN SEARCH OF

[42BelowsBack]

It seems like people reading poems/prose believe the words reflect the artist's emotions. However when it comes to story telling, fiction is the default.

Fiction, not truth;
Words don’t reveal who I am,
Judge the tale, not me.

Interesting. I think all writers have a starting position. A foundational philosophy with which they build upon. As Angeline says, thanks for sharing your great point; I add with confidence. And share my love of onionated opinions. Onionated isn’t even a word yet there it is.

I like the writing maximum, write what you know, then write what you don’t know. Which sentiment is expressed in different ways throughout this thread, though few would agree with me. Which I appreciate.

After all: Great minds think a like and fools never differ.

 

[42BelowsBack]

"Euclid, the mathematician of classical times, considered the number series 1, 2, 3, 4 to have mystical significance because its sum is 10, so he dignified it with a name of its own - Tetractys. The tetractys could be Britain's answer to the haiku. Its challenge is to express a complete thought, profound or comic, witty or wise, within the narrow compass of twenty syllables." - Ray Stebbing


Not a Tetractys in 17 syllables

Triskele

Spell
Druids
Sun, Earth, Sky,
lite spiraling
Autumnal ritual leaves.

Form breaking. I like this 17 syllable blending of two forms to a poem’s will.

 

[42BelowsBack]

This isn’t a
Syllable
alphabet
tetractys

A
Belief
Chemical
Deprivation
Enthusiastically
Facilitates
Genuine
Human
ill.


This is a gobble gargle
(Ménage à trois poem).


Yay!

(a smack in my chops).

 

[SmilingLez]

Random thought: Poetic forms much desired are thoughtful movements of my tongue.

Forms be done 42.

What madness are you thinking about now?

I will be going toe to toe with the fiction story tellers on every writing challenge. You don't need 10 chapters to tell a good tale when 147 words will do

https://www.literotica.com/p/femme-and-the-fist


Edit: Just submitted my prose for the AI challenge.

 

[42BelowsBack]

Random thought: Poetic forms much desired are thoughtful movements of my tongue.

Forms be done 42.

What madness are you thinking about now?

I’m thinking I’ve ironed out some kinks with help. Now I feel punched out. In need of a creative rest.

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

I’ve been thinking about how to end a poem. The aha moment poem, the everything comes crashing down to land on a dime poem. The pretty as you like bow tied off poem. The float off for ever never ending poem…

 

[SmilingLez]

I’ve been thinking about how to end a poem. The aha moment poem, the everything comes crashing down to land on a dime poem. The pretty as you like bow tied off poem. The float off for ever never ending poem…

have you ever used the "in your face" first line in your poem as the catalyst to end it?

 

[Angeline]

I’ve been thinking about how to end a poem. The aha moment poem, the everything comes crashing down to land on a dime poem. The pretty as you like bow tied off poem. The float off for ever never ending poem…

This will possibly sound dumb but I think you'll know when the ending is right. Sometimes I have to walk away from a poem for a while before I can recognize what will end it with a POW. For me that's because a poem may end in a very different place than I expected when I planned it. I need time to figure it out.

Of course sometimes a poem will end with a whimper instead of the hoped-for bang. To me that says I'm on the wrong track or I need to come back to it or maybe I've written a piece of a poem instead of the whole thing. Or maybe I just produced a turd instead of a poem.

It does help me to read poems I love that I think have especially strong or meaningful endings and think about why they work so well.

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

have you ever used the "in your face" first line in your poem as the catalyst to end it?

Very interesting. No I haven’t. A in your face first line isn’t something I’ve ever thought about. The creative possibilities are very, very interesting…. thanks for sharing.

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

This will possibly sound dumb but I think you'll know when the ending is right. Sometimes I have to walk away from a poem for a while before I can recognize what will end it with a POW. For me that's because a poem may end in a very different place than I expected when I planned it. I need time to figure it out.

Of course sometimes a poem will end with a whimper instead of the hoped-for bang. To me that says I'm on the wrong track or I need to come back to it or maybe I've written a piece of a poem instead of the whole thing. Or maybe I just produced a turd instead of a poem.

It does help me to read poems I love that I think have especially strong or meaningful endings and think about why they work so well.

@Angeline you write with the level of creative control I aspire to. A lot to unpack here. Reading with a specific focus never entered my mind.

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

have you ever used the "in your face" first line in your poem as the catalyst to end it?

First attempt at an in your face first line that ends the poem. Probably needs a better name etc.

Hot Joe

Suddenly,
the coffee
in my cup
tastes of
crows

your eyes
are ants,
they race
over my tits
the crows
in my coffee
fly.



2nd play around.


Brunch at Sessrúmnir after the battle at Singasteinn.

Freyja frying in a pan. Skull cracked brain yoke speared. Loki is an egg.

 

[42BelowsBack]

Years ago a guest speaker at a thing, extolled the virtues of free writing everyday. They had a technique that worked for them. It didn’t work for me.

Feeling creatively flat, I decided to reread a poem RAIN by @Wat_Tyler. Rain is a good example of how writing through flat moments generates raw material to craft a poem. I like the imaginative invitations, scent, sight, a deeper philosophical post hurricane purpose.

Don’t get me wrong, feeling flat, it’s not a muse thing for me. It’s a thinking too hard kind of thing, looking at the tools in my tool box. Instead of using them. In reading this poem I can see, flat moments can be productive.

 

[Angeline]

@Angeline you write with the level of creative control I aspire to. A lot to unpack here. Reading with a specific focus never entered my mind.

Thank you. I feel I've been less successful than in past years, but I do believe reading poems to do more than appreciate/experience them helps inform my own efforts.

I was trained as a line editor and while it does, in some ways, ruin reading lol (my first mentor warned me!), it takes you out of the world of content and forces you to look at sentences (or lines in a poem) word by word, to consider the necessity of punctuation, to think about how space around and between words and lines affect meaning and impact.

I think those are pretty good guidelines for reading a poem *after* that first read just to experience it. So you can go back multiple times and question the word choices, the words used to break and begin lines, the use of things like rhyme, alliteration, assonance. What images are really working, what metaphors? Why punctuation or not, same with space, margins, anything that can affect your perception as a reader.

It sounds like a lot of work huh? It is when you start doing it. And fortunately with great poems there's a lot of analysis already available online and off that can help you understand (and decide whether you agree). The more you do this when you read, the easier it gets. It's always about practice lol. But the biggest payoff is that it gets you thinking about your own writing that way. For me that begins happening at the editing stage: the first draft is just getting the basic ideas down.

Hope I haven't rambled too much! But being methodical in these ways I've described really help me both as reader and writer.

 

[MrMrsMrsMr]

@MrMrsMrsMr, I can’t work out whether your poem The Rib is a piss take or some seriously kinky Kirker s#it?

Since I’m being annoying, midway through The Rib there is a weird idk twist in it? The pov changes somehow? idk I can’t put my finger on it

Thanks. I edited it. I think it reads clearer now.

 

[Hotcoffee123]

Do you have an example?

 

[42BelowsBack]

Mind maps, images and poems. I have been making mind maps out of images. Then ordering the extrapolated words to create a poem. As you would expect early results have been a jumble sale. Generating poems from objects in my surrounds seem to work in this way also.

I have also been reading creative non fiction opinion pieces. Sometimes I take a paragraph or a sentence and ask myself what it looks like as an image, or how could it be translated into a poem?

 

[42BelowsBack]

Most of all I have been working on a collection of poems (on and off). I haven’t figured out a way of being more disciplined as a writer.

 

[Angeline]

Mind maps, images and poems. I have been making mind maps out of images. Then ordering the extrapolated words to create a poem. As you would expect early results have been a jumble sale. Generating poems from objects in my surrounds seem to work in this way also.

I have also been reading creative non fiction opinion pieces. Sometimes I take a paragraph or a sentence and ask myself what it looks like as an image, or how could it be translated into a poem?

Are you familiar with ekphrastic poetry? We did a challenge for it (from the ever inquisitive mind of Tzara of course) that may interest you.

 

[42BelowsBack]

Are you familiar with ekphrastic poetry? We did a challenge for it (from the ever inquisitive mind of Tzara of course) that may interest you.

Yeah. I wrote as part of that challenge. I forgot about it of course, however as I wrote my comment I thought hmm this idea rings a bell

Here’s the bell lol Inspired by Titian’s painting of Flōra and Florentine festivals.

It Rained in Florence

Your face is the sun
You place its golden coin

In my broken body
My engine is in parts

In your pink shaded mantle
Oil spills across my canvas

to melt the pure wool of winter
from my wind leathered sinew

the lean bone of winter
perennial as your sacrifice

I am at once your
Flamen and Flaminica

singing to the fecundity of life
singing with your husband

the Wind in Florence
you are a Titian

Flōra forever.
Leaves turned into spring

 

[Angeline]

Yea. I wrote as part of that challenge. I forgot about it of course, however as I wrote my comment I thought hmm this idea rings a bell

Here’s the bell lol Inspired by Titian’s painting of Flōra and Florentine festivals.

It Rained in Florence

Your face is the sun
You place its golden coin

In my broken body
My engine is in parts

In your pink shaded mantle
Oil spills across my canvas

to melt the pure wool of winter
from my wind leathered sinew

the lean bone of winter
perennial as your sacrifice

I am at once your
Flamen and Flaminica

singing to the fecundity of life
singing with your husband

the Wind in Florence
you are a Titian

Flōra forever.
Leaves turned into spring

Ok. I remember the poem. We discussed it a while back. I'd forgotten you did it after reading the ekphrastic thread.

 

[42BelowsBack]

A theory on workshopping poems.

Workshops facilitate self development; A maxim I learned from another poet, teach others to teach themselves so that they in turn teach you.

The purpose of a dedicated reader.

Workshops provide poets with dedicated readers. The reader provides feedback to the poet. When we write poems we are blind. We already see, feel, and know the poem. Because of this we unconsciously fill holes and make connections that others cannot see. In a sense the reader poet relationship is the blind, guiding each other. Personally I like availing myself of another’s eyes. To see through them is always of great value.

A good reader doesn’t intrude. They simply say, hey this is what I can see. The poet at all times has right of refusal or right to accept. Feel misunderstood. Validated. Or be inspired.

A, purpose of feedback includes the reader self identifying what they can see, and what they like.

By reading analytically we teach ourselves. Especially when we read to give feedback. I often read other poets and make my own set of notes.

Workshops allow poets to inspire each other and experiment with ideas.

When I post a poem, I often rewrite said poem post posting. In a sense I am yet to complete a single poem. This is a solo act. Workshops supercharge this process via the mechanism of a group.

Workshops have: Challenges, Goals, Outcomes.

Invariably: Write. Read. Give Feedback.

Post or submit. Substack (not promoting it) versus traditional publishing routes; Ss removes all associated costs. But if you want to win awards gain notoriety or scholarships traditional publishing is a good way to go about it. Submit, submit, submit, publish or perish. Get out there poet. Poets are born not taught.

Poets believe they have something to offer the world.

 

[42BelowsBack]

I have decided to start an Insights from poetry readings journal.

Insights from the POETRY. LINKED READINGS ONLY THREAD

The world is how we see it.

Most, the ignorant would think it’s crazy to seriously explore poetry on Literotica. How dare these titillationers feel they contribute something worthy to poetical discourse. Discovering my poetry on Lit is life exploring opera between cum dumpsters and alley cats.

There will be funky fungus, life on mars, cave poeple playing big hairy guitars. But. The world is how we see it.

I read the Linked poems and realized in the POETRY. LINKED POEMS…. THREAD (or what ever it’s called) All the poets listed believed in themselves. THEY BELIEVE in their voices and WRITE what they see AS themselves.

So today I think, I Lit poet: Musk believe in myself, musk write, read, give and seek feedback and keep something like a reading journal. Even better, if I see something cleverer in a poem. Have a go at it myself. Who cares if I fail and hit the wall face first? (its, only my face). A stray cat kicking a can. I Think of it as only my face, developing my skills while playing around down this alleyway.

Lit poetry is an alley with many many branches. In this place you can find answers to anything poetry. I am discovering my music in between the cum dumpsters and Lit cats.

So I come, play, keep and restart my journal. Feel free to write readings reaction graffiti on this here wall.

I think of the history of a poor man’s Jazz. He could have all the skill in the world, but if he doesn’t believe in himself! Who the fuck is he?

 

[SmilingLez]

Words twist,
safe and sound,
held back by the crowd.

The moral majority shouts,
“Keep it clean,
don’t stray.”

But creativity is messy,
raw and real.

Let the lines crack,
let the truth spill,
no filters,
just heart,
just soul.

 

[42BelowsBack]

Words twist,
safe and sound,
held back by the crowd.

The moral majority shouts,
“Keep it clean,
don’t stray.”

But creativity is messy,
raw and real.

Let the lines crack,
let the truth spill,
no filters,
just heart,
just soul.

I walk down this alleyway and see you, As always writing true to you. Love it.

 

[NivKay]

https://voca.ro/1ndfbI1K1VKo