A little less reflective poetry, a little more fiction please
All this girly prose ain't satisfactioning me
A little more grit and a little less tart
A little less light and a little more dark
Close your heart and open up your mind and baby satisfy me
Satisfy me baby

Baby close your eyes and listen to the sound
Of your thoughts as they gather speed
It's a powerful gift and I can show you how to use it
Come along with me and sow that imaginary seed

A little less reflective poetry, a little more fiction please
All this girly prose ain't satisfactioning me
A little more grit and a little less tart
A little less plight and a little more dark
Close your heart and open up your mind and baby satisfy me
Satisfy me baby

repeat to fade...

No offence meant to anyone, I'm only messing about, but I've noticed that this site seems to have been largely taken over by poets. Is this because poetry is quick to write, quick to read, has a swift churn out rate for new work and thusly accumulates large amounts of feedback?

I don't know. I can't write poetry to save my life, and often struggle to read it - I've been told off for trying before now. But surely some people have fallen into the rhythm of writing poetry because it seems more likely to draw feedback?

I write poetry because that's what I do
I have tried to write porse and short stories and whilst I have achieved a couple not totally convinced that they are any good equally of course my poetry may be garbage as well I will post one of my shorts on here one day.

I have written a sort of prose/poem ( longer than Chubby)

But the beauty of poetry is that you can express your self in a very succinct way were by default you have to pad prose out

anyway if you want more short stories get your backside into gear and write some

take care

David

I'm not criticising the strong presence of poetry on the site, after all, if I don't want to see it, I just don't click the links. I just think that some people may be sticking to producing large amounts of poetry because it's "easier" than expressing yourself in a more elongated sense.

While I will admit that some poems really hit the mark, I think that many, if not most emotions are far too difficult to accurately express in so short a space, especially if you're limiting the format in which you can express it.

Insane, I don't write poetry because it's easier. I write it mainly because it's there inside my head anyway. Writing is merely a final concretising of the words and images that traverse across my internal landscape.

However, I do sometimes also toy and have fun with poetry.

As for writing poetry because it's more likely to draw feedback. Well, if you notice the dates at the bottom of my pieces, many of them were written long before writewords was even conceived. Many people who write poetry are actually very private people. It took me an awful long time to be able to share my work.

I love writing poetry. It gives me oooooodles of satisfaction.

But, as you can see, I also write longer pieces too. And, I use both light and dark. Sometimes very dark!

is "concretising" a word?

Language is dynamic. I believe in inventing words where appropriate for communication. I know it doesn't exist in the dictionaries yet. But, it will :¬)

...watch this space!

Jib

I tried your new word scam at school if criticised for apparently misspelling some word I used to say it wasn't the word you thought sir it is spelt as I have it there never got away with it.

I like you had written a great deal before coming on here and write I suspect for the same reaosns as you or at least similar reasons.

But partly as a result of the feedback on here and the discussions with a few such as your self I have started to experiment with diferent styles 'Goodbye' for instance

Can you have too much poetry NO

can you have too much literature in general No

the creative mind is a wonderful thing and should be encouraged in all

Insane get writing ...

take care

david

classic made up word was surely

Perfick

Actually, the amount of poetry vs fiction on the site is very nearly equal- if you look on the archive you'll see the figures. But poetry is much more of a sharing community I think- and this is possibly because it's less competitive and also something that is literally shared with an audience out loud quite often. And of course, it isn't easier, but it is a way in to other writing for many many people. I've taught creative writing for 12 years and I'd say 90% of people start with poetry- and some go on to other writing, some perfect and shape their poetry. Also, it's easier to read and digest on the web/computer screen.

I've read more poetry since joining this site than I have for years... and most of it has been very entertaining. It's opened my mind to a different writing style and helped me to see things from a new perspective. I have heaps of respect for those poets out there that manage to create something beautiful from just a few words.

The poetry isn't the main course for me, but it's certainly the tantalizing starter or the satisfying dessert... an important part of the menu and I'd miss it if it wasn't there.

I do think it's a shame that so many people think that writing good poetry - cracking poetry that makes your stomach churn or your heart stop for just a second - is easy, because, of course, it isn't. Writing a short poem and getting exactly the write amount of for exxample emotion, aesthetic or intellect in exactly the right amount of words take weeks and sometimes years to acheive. Think about Elizabeth Bishop who took 20 years (yes years) to write The Moose - this wasn't obsession, this was knowing instinctively that the poem wasn't quite right. Also think about Basho's haikus "girl cat so thin on love and barley". How much social history, emotion, place, is distilled by these few words?

I think another mistake people make is in assuming writing poetry is purely about pinning an emotion down on a page or espressing an opinion - often it is, but it can also be about playing with words, about expanding the vocabulary, it can even be about testing our faith in words. Most people think poetry is easy to write because more often than not it uses a language of the everyday, but it's how we treat that language that lifts it into poetry. Eluard called prose "words walking", and poetry "words dancing".

I also find it sad that there seems to be an apology prevalent for writing poetry or that poetry is the first step to becoming a "proper writer" ie prose or more specifically novelist. I've written two novels and numerous short stories but for me the purest of language is poetry. I write poetry and I'm proud of it, and I'm glad that people on this site that write poetry are equally proud of it.

Like it or not poetry is a part of our lives, almost everywhere you look you will find poetry in some form, whether it's in jingles, anti-war slogans, soundbites, headlines and of course pop music, poetry is there. This is not a bad thing. How can you not read "I wander'd lonely as a cloud/ That floats on high o'er dale and hills/ When all at once I saw a crowd/ A host of golden daffodils" and not think wow - how much distance has been travelled in so few lines, how much of God is present in nature and how much of nature is present in mankind, and especially the words we use to describe mankind? I don't think there's anything wrong with being touched by poetry, it's changed a lot of readers' and wrtiers' lives.

A few days ago I was asked to review the papers on our local radio station I wasintroduced as

and tonight the reviewer is David who is a Poet

I felt really good I didnt ask to be introduced like that but that is how the anchor man chose to introduce me

My point. I am a Poet not a writer who writes Poetry

I may write short stories form time to time and if they earn me money I am not goingto complain but my one desire is to write poetry ( OK I know when am I going to start).

I agree with fevvers why do people asume that you write poetry because it is easy and that you do it as a precursor to becoming a novelist etc.

so come on you Poets lest here you stick up for POETRY

The other thing I like about poetry is the creative and mental workout it gives me. Playing with words is such great fun. I also love the way I can impose restrictions on poetry and then find creative solutions to that and then come up with word and idea combinations that I would otherwise not have thought of.

I didn't write 'Bananas Became Bats' because it would be easier than writing a story about it. It was just such fun. Admittedly, it's supposed to be written from the perspective of my character Shaquilla as a teenager, writing about Barmy Brenda that lived down her road.

But, as for calling myself a poet... don't really feel comfortable about giving myself any label really. I just like to do lots of different creative stuff. Writing poetry is one that I love doing hugely.

Haere mai Fevvers,

A brilliant exposition, well said. Hone Tuwhare (Honay Too far eh)is a Maori poet writing in English, in NZ. He said -
A poem is
a ripple of words
on water, wind huffed

But still water
is a poem winded: a
mirror distortion
of sky
and mountain
trees and a drowned

face waiting
for a second wind
(a second coming?)
rain
oblivion

Ripple of words
on water.

The best poetry has the power to wake your soul up, to drag it out of the mire of the every day and to stand it on top of a jade mountain.

Mind you, to keep everything in perspective he also wrote a love pome(his spelling)
How beautifully
your fingers interlock: how
decorously decorative.
Must you pick your nose like that?

But how uncommonly comely.

How uncrucially crucial:
shuddering balls/ Woman
you unsex me farting glib and
gustily.

O, but how utterly homely.

Longjon

Thank you. I love the poem on what a poem is, I think it's very right.

What does "Haere mai" mean (and how do you pronounce it? I assume it's a greeting and if so it sounds (in my ear, how I pronounce it) much nicer than "hello!"

I think poetry is important, I think the role of a poet and writers of poetry (which is what I really class myself as - labels are for other people to decide, as the radio announcer rightly decided for olebut) are very privleged ones, but not privileged in its terms as "private law", elitist, but in our ability to make life more complex, to stop (especially now) the anodising of culture (and I'm not just talking art here, I'm talking about the shutting down of people's senses across the board). This 'complexing', this 'keeping people open' is what poetry can achieve. It's important.

Cheers

Tena koe Fevvers,

Haere mai is pronounced "high-ray my" and is,as you surmised, Maori for hello. More correctly can be translated as "I see you", but means more "I see you and know you" ( by reputation, as it were)

Tena koe is tena kway, a familiar form of hello, if speaking to a group, particularly one you knew fairly well, you might say " Tena koe, tena koto, tena koto, tena koto katoa", basically "hello and welcome everyone"

I am delighted to hear your view of poetry; every time I open a book (of poetry), whether individual publication or anthology, I find it exciting. How can Housmans "On the Idle Hill of Summer" not be-
"On the idle hill of summer
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams."
Or Akmahtovas "Willow"
"And I grew up in patterned tranquility,
In the cool nursery of the young century"
Or Archibald MacLeishs "Ars Poetica"
"For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea-
A poem should not mean
But be."
Mine may, to me and others, bear no more than the scent of doggerel, but, like Voltaire, I shall defend ad infinitum my right to bring it to bear.

Haere ra
John P.