Anyone here write poetry? I'd like to start but don't know what to write about/how.
>>25324728
Writing (real writing, not storytelling) is about grammatical/syntactic elasticity.
What do I mean by this is, for instance:
>About syntactic elasticity is writing.
For instance, seeing that both sides of the linking verb (?) are always equally capable of being the subject, even if one of them is an adverbial phrase (?).
Become interested in grammar, it will help.
>>25324822
Note, I don't just mean changed word order. See:
>About history is what every book should at least partly be.
Mad Lib Elegy
BY BEN LERNER
There are starving children left on your plate.
There are injuries without brains.
Migrant workers spend 23 hours a day
removing tiny seeds from mixtures
they cannot afford to smoke
and cannot afford not to smoke.
Entire nations are ignorant of the basic facts
of hair removal and therefore resent
our efforts to depilate unsightly problem areas.
Imprisonment increases life expectancy.
Finish your children. Adopt an injury.
'I'm going to my car. When I get back,
I'm shooting everybody.'
[line omitted in memory of_____]
70% of pound animals will be euthanized.
94% of pound animals would be euthanized
if given the choice. The mind may be trained
to relieve itself on paper. A pill
for your safety, a pill for her pleasure.
Neighbors are bothered by loud laughter
but not by loud weeping.
Massively multiplayer zombie-infection web-games
are all the rage among lifers.
The world is a rare case of selective asymmetry.
The capitol is redolent of burnt monk.
'I'm going to my car. When I get back
I'm shooting everybody.'
[line omitted in memory of _____]
There are two kinds of people in the world:
those that condemn parking lots as monstrosities,
'the ruines of a broken World,' and those
that respond to their majesty emotionally.
70% of the planet is covered in parking lots.
94% of a man's body is parking lot.
Particles of parking lot have been discovered
in the permanent shadows of the moon.
There is terror in sublimity.
If Americans experience sublimity
the terrorists have won.
'I'm going to my car. When I get back
I'm shooting everybody.'
[line omitted in memory of ____]
>>25324728
Just do it from scratch by going in blind
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry learn everything be curious love fucking poetry
Then go analyze some of your favorite poems
Then just do it again.
Word to the wise if it's about nothing at first it'll be about something by the end, let the thing write itself if you're struggling initially. Or look up prompts.
