Sprouting Ink: Poetry

Happy Valentine's Day! (+ advice on writing about love)

Happy Valentine's Day, my friends! For most of us, especially in quarantine, today is just another day. But, this also gives us an excuse to ponder what love is, what it looks like, and how we feel about it.

As I was trying to write a couple of love poems for an ASB contest, I found that it is really hard to write about love. How do you articulate it in a way that isn't cliched, when the word itself feels overused? How do we write about something so fundamental in us, but in a way where it is also unique in comparison to the billions of pieces that have done it before?

So, I went and did a bit of research, stumbling upon some fantastic advice, interesting articles, and a new lense on what "love" can mean.

I began with this article by the New York Times, called "How We Write About Love". I highly recommend you read it. It discusses patterns we fall into depending on factors like our age and gender, a some cliches that didn't even register to me as cliches previously. Part of this is because of my lack of romantic experience-- how on Earth am I supposed to portray love in a unique way if I've never even been in love?

So naturally, I resort to the common phrases of "meet cute", "electrifying", "smelled like cinnamon", etc. Now, I don't think that recognizing that young people write about wanting love as opposed to being in it is a bad thing. Rather, seeing this helped me embrace it. Yes, many other young writers might write about similar experiences, but I can consciously make my way of describing it uniquely my own, while still knowing that the feelings I depict are accurate.

Some other tips I got from my friends on Young Writers Project were also enlightening. One placed an emphasis on writing from experience, and said that instead of using cliches, we can spin them. Another reminded me that love pieces don't need to be happy. Not all love is. The last one told me to look at love from my own perspective, which is an interesting thought. Write about how love affects you, affects your characters, as opposed to the relationship itself.

Lastly, I understood that love poems don't need to necessarily be romantic. You may have heard this before-- I know I have many times before. I took it with a grain of salt though, because as I noticed in songwriting, we can write about other loves in our lives, but most times people will assume it's romantic. In my songwriting workshop this past fall, I wanted us to write about our good friends. It ended up sounding like a love song, because all of the ways we described our best friends could be easily applicable to a romantic partner.

So, if anything actually, I think non-romantic love is even harder to write. Once you recognize this though, it becomes easier to remedy. They are not impossible to write-- rather, be more specific. Explore what makes you differentiate a friend from a potential romantic partner. Or the different types of loves, be it one between you and a grandparent, or between your cousins. Only then, I think, can we really dig into the different nuances of all the various relationships we have in our lives. That is how we differentiate our loves in this life, and our pieces from others'.

I've been struggling lately with trying to find pieces to recommend you guys to read. I don't have that many to be honest, because most times I read the pieces of other young people simply because they feel closer to myself. I have though, come up with a small list. This will sound extremely weird, but I love love. I hope you will enjoy these pieces as much as I did.

Poetry:

On This 100th Anniversary of the Sinking of the Titanic, We Reconsider the Buoyancy of the Human Heart by Laura Lamb Brown Lavoie
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Elliot
Stone Arch or Conch Shells by eyesofiris (Stone Arch isn't strictly romantic, but a wonderful poem with stanzas about love :)

Short Stories

The Gift of The Magi by O. Henry
The Last Leaf by O. Henry
In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried by Amy Hempel
Anything on NYT's Modern Love column

Novels

can I say anything YA? Depends on what you like. If I think of any super standout ones I'll put them here, but feel free to comment below if you have any personalized requests (I really read too many)

Songs

Let Me Go by Hailee Steinfeld & Alesso (ft. Florida Georgia Line)
Supermarket Flowers by Ed Sheeran
Castle on the Hill by Ed Sheeran
Cardigan by Taylor Swift
Told You So by Little Mix
Never Be Alone by Shawn Mendes
Tuesdays by Jake Scott
Die From A Broken Heart by Maddie & Tae
...and 90% of the English songs on my Spotify playlist (I'm a hopeless romantic)

If you have any more rec's you think should 100% be up here or some more advice, please put it down in the comments! Love y'all (in the way one loves everything beautiful they don't know yet)

February 14, 2021

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Poetry

Technical Elements of Poetry & Editing

Although poetry is more than the words it's made of, there are methods you can use to better translate the image, emotions, or thoughts in your head onto the page and recreate the moment. So after you are able to transfer your poem onto paper, consider some of the following aspects of it to see if you can better convey what you mean to say (hey, that rhymed!).

Title

The title of your poem is always important, because it's kind of like the headline of your poem. It sets the entire tone. As such, there is also a lot of ways to pique interest in your poem and play around with your title. For instance, a haiku with a super long title. Or a poem where the title can serve as your first line. Have fun with it, and consider whether or not you would read a poem with your title.

Capitalization

It's been a trend recently, at least in the poems I'm reading, to strategically use capitalization to convey the state of mind of the narrator or the general mood of the poem. One of the most noticeable uses of it that I think is most meaningful is not capitalizing "I". It illustrates that the narrator isn't confident, and feels that they don't deserve to be capitalized. You can also use capitalization, like in the middle of a line, to emphasize a word. The reason the capitalization is meaningful is because poetry is also very visual, and details like that of this one can add to the reader's experience.

Archetypes

Archetypes are one of the things I learned in school from reading poetry and short stories, and the concept in itself is pretty cool. Essentially, it's how certains things (colors, numbers, seasons, time of day) have various meanings and connotations that can be utilized, and the knowledge of these symbols and what they mean is knowledge every person already has when their born. Neat, right? Some examples are winter symbolizes death, and light symbolizes knowledge. Perhaps not all of your readers will consciously notice these, but utilizing archetypes can add another dimension to your poetry, and using specific symbols can add undercurrents and depth to your poem. (I'll post a list soon & link it, but for now you'll have to look them up)

Punctuation

Punctuation is important in your poem, particularly because poetry can also become aural (the listen version of visual). As maybe your teachers have told you, you aren't supposed to pause at the end of each line-- it's at the punctuation. The use of punctuation, or lack of thereof, can be used to indicate states of mind, the cadence of the poem, etc.

Line Breaks & Form

This one relates back to the visual aspect of poetry. Line breaks give more air to your piece, which also adds to the form of it. I've seen poem in the shape of a lightning bolt, and created one with different justifications (left, right, center), so there's definitely a lot to fiddle with.

Flow

This one is kind of self-explanatory, but what I'm getting at here is the flow or choppiness of a poem. This is partially controlled by punctuation and line breaks (for phrasing), and really affects the way your (or the narrator's) voice will come through. The best way to determine if it flows the way you'd like it to is to read it aloud.

Poetic Devices

...yeah, this one encompasses a lot. And they affect everything above this. Similes, metaphors, repetition, alliteration, and rhyme are probably some of the main ones, or most noticeable ones, but there is also assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, etc. Idioms aren't too common though, but it can be fun to put a spin on common idioms. I think it's important to look at what each poetic device does to it's reader as well. For example, the similes and metaphors affect the imagery of a poem. Repetition, alliteration, consonance, and assonance slow the reader down, making them move attention to the words. Rhyme gives the poem a certain cadence-y feeling to it. Most of these poetic devices should come naturally within the writing, and if it doesn't don't force it! Overdoing it with poetic devices can definitely detract from your poetry's original messages.

And I believe that concludes the technical elements! I like to think that the consideration of these elements should come in the editing phase, but you have the ultimate jurisdiction over that. Hope this helped, and let me know how it went + any questions down in the comments!

December 08, 2020

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Overview

Poetry

Poetry is one of my favorite forms of creative writing, and perhaps one of the most misunderstood. Now, you probably know a good amount amount poetic devices from school: rhyme, alliteration, metaphor, similes, idioms, personification, assonance, consonance, etc. Because of this, I won't go into detail on each. However, many times, the way poetry is taught in classrooms is through poems with more archaic language, and this results in lots of people believing that poetry is fancy nonsense.

If you can't tell, I'm somewhat irked with this method of teaching poetry, just because it's because of these misconceptions that were formed and nurtured that prevented me from writing poetry earlier on.

So, if poetry is not a crazy code created simply for the purpose of torturing innocent students, what is it?

The answer to this question is different for every poet. That is part of the beauty of poetry, I believe. According to the dictionary, it's "a literary piece with a special intensity". In my opinion, poetry is boundless. It can rhyme, it can not rhyme. It can be a sentence long, or a page. A poet can write for others, and they can write for themselves. Poetry is anything you, the poet, call poetry. In short, poetry is freedom.

At its core though, the one thing all good poems have in common is sensory details and emotion. Sensory details is a fancy phrase for tidbits that appeal to either your sight, touch, hearing, smell, or taste. These details are important because they serve as gateways to allowing the reader to experience what you are writing about, which lends itself to conveying emotion.

With those being the only two "requirements" really, poetry can be intimidating in it's vastness. What I mean by vastness is that there are so many artistic choices you can make, it's hard to know where to start. Thus, I think the first step to begin writing poetry is to sit down and try to write a poem. If you think it should rhyme, make it rhyme! Not sure? Maybe give a prompt a go. Whatever you do, just start writing. After you get down that first poem, you might you think it sucks. And maybe it does. But write another, and another after that. They will be better.

As you continue to write it, you'll find that poetry is not hard, and that anyone can write it. Is just a matter of whether you're willing to put your mind on the page.

December 04, 2020