If you could write like anyone, who would it be? (I don't mean mimicing style or language but I suppose emotinal and intellectual depth) My aspirations fluctuate but Eliot is up there somewhere, as is MacNeice, Wordsworth, Elizabeth Jennings, Elizabeth Bishop, Marilyn Hacker and Geoffrey Hill.

How about you?

Somewhere Diana Wynne Jones and Neil Gaimen. Not very literary I know, but they both right fantastic tales, with some basis in mythology or something similar.

For poetry, I wouldn't want to write like anybody but myself. Poetry is such a personal thing. I don't enjoy reading published poetry, although I love reading the poetry on the site. I think thats because its a window into the soul of an anonymous person.

W.H.Auden and Szymborska - simple and profound both.

Rosalind - does a published poet not have a soul then? (;

I don't know if you can be truely yourself if your writing poetry to get it published. I may be wrong about that, but the poetry on the site seems to have a different quality to it.

I have to say I disagree. Would you write poetry if you didn't read it? If it wasn't published in books, on buses, on the underground. Is your favourite poem one that has never been published and given to the public arena? Most poets don't write and publish poetry to make a living, because there isn't much of one to be made from the actual writing and publishing of poetry. And I would say one of the main differences between published and unpublished poets is craft - re-working the poem until it is fully acheived.

When I talk about writing like someone else, I'm actually talking about aspiring to someone else's level not what they write about or how (I know I didn't make that very clear at first, sorry). I suppose I'm saying do we aspire to write to the level of Atilla the Stockbroker or Robert Frost - where do we pitch our ambitions?

Cheers

Its cleansing
Its enjoyable
Its a need I have to take my feelings and recorded them so that I can't deny them anymore
Its satisfying
Its a form of attention seeking
It something to do when I'm bored

This made more sense before the post which I was replying to was edited.

Except maybe the bored one, this sounds like the reasons a lot of poets write, published or not.

Again, I'm walking in on Poetry Group II chat. Hope nobody minds.

I don't write poetry in order to be published. I write them because the words and textures are often already floating through my mind. Writing them down helps to concretise and make tangible what would otherwise dissappear. So, I can look at them again. And I enjoy putting pen to paper (and yes, I often do write poetry by hand first).

Obviously if the poems were ever published then I'd be chuffed. But, that's not why I write them. I would like people to be able to read them though. So, this website is a good place to put them up.

I didn't realise this was a dedicated group topic. I apologise. How do I tell which topics are for groups, and which are general?

poetry would have to be Wilfred Owen

literature probably Charles Dickens

but equally i would love the imagination and inventiveness of Edward Lear, Lewis Carrol and Roald Dahl

to take up one or two of the other points that have been raised I doubt any of us will make more than beer money from our poetry and I agree with Rosalind to some extent but I would love before I die to write a poem which people from a wide spectrum read and said

"I wish I had written that"

that is almost worth more than money ( almost because it depends when you ask me the question if I can pay the mortgage)

Hi Rosalind

It's not a Poetry group II topic, it's from the Inspirations and Ideas forum - open to everyone. I think the confusion came because I'm a PGII person.

Jibunessa

Do you ever read someone's poem and think "I wish I could write like that?" If so who?

I'd like to be able to write like Stephen Donaldson. Dark, complex and terrifyingly paranoid.

As for poetry, I'd settle for being able to write poetry, let alone being able to do it well.

No. Not really.

There are of course poems I've come across and thought "this is incredibly beautiful, or funny, or ...". But, I've never thought "I wish I could write like that"

I too like MacNeice and Wordsworth's imagery of wondering lonely as a cloud is I think very powerful. And, as someone who likes mist-shrouded mountainsides and the occasional solitude, this resonates with me deeply.

I wish though that my Bengali was better. Although I can both read and write it as far as communicating goes, if only I could write like Rabindranath Tagore or with the fury of Nazrul Islam. Or if I could write like myself but in Bangla, using words and subtle emotions that only a Bengali or at least someone from the Subcontinent uses. Not all words have exact English equivalents. And you lose something of its essence, the fragrance of the emotions conveyed, during translation.

Fantastic! I didn't mean it had to be in English (I wish I could write like Celan or even Hafiz - but I only know Hafiz in translation [but I think he sounds wonderful in Farsi] or Neruda) but what I'm getting at is do we have ambition in poetry? - I don't mean the ambition to be published - I mean the ambition to write well. Have you tried writing poetry in Bangla? Of course it will be impossible to post up but that's not a reason not to do it. I'd go for it.