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Why do you, personally, write poetry??
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Why do you, personally, write poetry?? |
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garysgirl  
since 2002-09-29
Posts 19237Florida, USA 
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I was just wondering what got everybody started writing poetry? I think it would be interesting to know. Don't you? I know it'll be hard to be serious (HaHa!!), but let's try to think about it. Okay? (That is , if ya'll want to. If not, just write the first thing that pops into your head....HeeHee!!) Anyway, I'll start..... I started writing poems a long time ago. It seemed that I could express the true feelings in my heart better if I would write them down. I know I'm not a good poet like so many of you here at PIP, but I am learning from all of you. I've never studied poetry writing before. I do enjoy writing my feelings, though. Well, I'll see all of you later, I hope.......  ~Ethel~  |
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Janet Marie Member Laureate
since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554 |
My grandmother told the story for years to any one that would listen-- that when I was around 5-6, that I used to walk around the house singing and chanting rhymes... "the chair is over there...my sister has blonde hair" and that later when I was a few years older I used to sit in a rocking chair and read Mark Twain, Kipling, Shakespeare and other poetry from class assignments out loud at the top of my lungs.  rofl (why ask why) lol As long as I can recall, I've been drawn to rhyme...the cadence comforted me, calmed me down. I wrote my first real attempts at poetry around 9 for school, but they were lost in various moves. I have journals and diaries that are full of angsty teen poems from about 13 on..most were rhymes. Its hard to define the "why" of when I started to write...its more like its just always been a need to put the words and emotions down on paper in some sort of cadenced validation. Now in addition to still needing that emotional validation and connection with my muse, its also a need to find a way to do the inspiration justice and hopefully grow as a writer as I learn from the immense talent here and as I read the classic poets who led the way. thanks for asking Poetess Ethel...it was fun to recall some of these old memories.  [This message has been edited by Janet Marie (12-06-2002 12:54 PM).] |
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garysgirl
since 2002-09-29
Posts 19237Florida, USA |
Now see, Janet Marie, I knew that everybody could say "why" so much better than I could. Even your explanation sounded poetic. I love all poetry, and have since I can remember reading. ~Ethel~ |
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Cpat Hair
since 2001-06-05
Posts 11793 |
what got me started... well I got to the place I couldn't remember them all in my head and then I started writing. ( smiling) Unfortunately for the rest of the world. |
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Local Parasite
since 2001-11-05
Posts 2527Transylconia, Winnipeg |
I like Ron's answer.  Myself... I write as an art form, to be quite honest. I do it because it's the one thing I feel that I'm actually good at. I guess writing poetry is therapeutic for me not by catharsis, but through comfort. I also just plain love the concept of poetry. It's a way of communicating that requires thought and interperetation. Poetry is using words to describe what words cannot describe on their own. Through the careful arrangement of words, poetry leads the mind into a state of understanding that is not based merely on semantics. I love the irony in poetry, that it focuses so heavily on the words, and yet, its message is always entirely wordless. It's something wonderful to be able to write poetry, as I'm sure you'll all agree. I would consider it unjust to neglect this ability that I have.  |
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Kielo Senior Member
since 2002-02-11
Posts 1109 |
Ah... I first wrote a poem 4 years ago. I was practicing piano, and my muse hit me over the head, and the first four lines of a poem just appeared in my brain. I didn't write after that, except in English class, where we were given prompts, and told to write. I loved that class, especially the writing blocks.  Anyway, the poem I wrote was published, and people kept telling me I was a great writer. I started writing then, to help myself deal with life, because that year was the worst year of my life. While looking for a poetry site, I found PIP, and stayed, to keep myself humble. I continue to write because I have some minor talent, and because I would like to use it and improve it. Kielo |
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Mistletoe Angel
since 2000-12-17
Posts 32816Portland, Oregon |
 (big hugggsssssss) The beginning to what got me started writing poetry is a sad story. It basically started with severe depression which I had all the way from age 8 to age 13. I almost committed suicide when I was 12 years old because i felt there was no release; the school-kids abused me, my father at the time neglected me, and I had a rare disease called Asperger's Syndrome which affected my social and people skills and made me isolated. Anyway, after I got homeschooled during middle school years, my mom and dad looked into a special school to provide my unique needs. That school was Denver Academy. I went all four years there in high school, and I was ever so shy and taciturn. That would all change once I became a sophomore. My sophomore English and Literature teacher was named Philippe Ernewein, who is still a friend I talk to every now and then. One January day when I felt sad and had a bad day, he came up to me and said "What's wrong, can I help you?". Slowly I got into the pain that was deep in my heart and I told him so much and then he told me "i think I know just the thing that can help. Write it out, Noah!". Then he told me his life story, about how he grew up in Belgium, his father dying of alcohol overdose and living only with his mom and siblings. He said he loved watching western gunslinger shows, especially The Lone Ranger. he said to his mom, "Mommy, are we really going to America to meet them? Are we? Are we? Are We?". And his mom promised him yes and when my teacher was 8, he moved to Virginia. Just like me, he got bullied by school kids, only because he could barely speak any English at all. He went to school on a very small school bust, he remembers, and also finally he learned English eventually and started to earn respect. Yet, he told me, he was still troubled. He didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. So when he got up to my age, he became a local disc jockey and that is actually the same time Dave Matthews was becoming popular in Virginia. (As a matter of fact, you won't believe this, but dave Matthews met him one evening and performed a few songs for my teacher in the backyard of his hometown including "Satellite" I am absolutely not kidding! They even asked him if he wanted to be a roadie, but he declined, saying he wishes to teach). Finally, in inspiring him to start writing, my teacher, when he was 22, taught at a university in Louisiana. After a while, he said he got exhausted and wanted to find a place "far away from civilization". This place he went to was Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, a beautiful canyon which I actually visited with him two years ago, and there, he became a park ranger and eventually befriended all the Native American Indians there. Then one day, a person there shared the sunrise over the canyon with him. He said that day the sunset inspired him so much he began to write what he felt, and ever since poetry has been his gift. So then, he deeply touched my heart and I wrote something called "An April Without Rain" about my tears. he said it was marvelous and told me I have to keep writing and let everyone know how I feel and replace the sadness with the beauty of life, which I have already soaked up much of, yay! That day was February 2, 2000 when I got my first poem out there. A little more than 10 months later would be when I first discovered Passions! All my old poems used to be so sad and depressing, and I only share a few of them, while since I have known Joanna, my poems have turned into happy ones of love and bluebirds and unicorns and pretty things! That is my story of how I started writing!Your story was so very touching, sweet friend, God Bless You, you are a special friend to us all who writes with such love! Love, Noah Eaton "Underneath your clothes there's an endless story..." |
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Local Parasite
since 2001-11-05
Posts 2527Transylconia, Winnipeg |
Holy Moses, Noah... your story sure puts mine to shame.  That's like something out of a movie!Very interesting story though. I'm happy for you. |
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Cpat Hair
since 2001-06-05
Posts 11793 |
geez.... I think I just found the reason to stop writing... I have no story like any of these to tell.. I just do it... and started it literally because I could not remember all I had composed in my head and some of them I wanted to go abck and think about again.. Why did I compose in my head... now that's a different story... but that was not what was asked.... touching story Noah... LP... yours makes me feel like a slacker you work at yours... I just spit them out... |
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Jaime
Registered
MemberPosts 250 |
It was random. One day I just layed down on my floor and started writing. (I was 13.) I needed to find my voice. When you live inside your head, you look for tangible confirmation. Or at least, I did. Also, I'm obsessed with creating. (Hence me also painting, sculpting, designing, cooking, etc.) Yes, someday I will have 10 children. i was here |
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Skyfire
since 2000-12-27
Posts 3381Riding |
Alrighty... time to dredge up the past... *ahem* I've always been an avid writer and reader. I was at a grade 12 reading level when I was in grade 6. The rest of the class would still be plowing through chapter one of a book, and I'd be done the day after the teacher assigned it. I wrote prose, mostly, because I felt that poetry was for saps and... well, the "poetry" lessons we had in school turned me off of poetry. I still don't know what half the terms I "learned" mean. Anyway I'm off topic. I wrote until I was about fourteen, and then stopped because no one else I knew wrote, and I didn't want to be different. Grade ten hit, and I was forced to write a bunch of poems for an assignment that I failed miserably (because I didn't know what a ballad is - still dont' come to think of it). I wrote a song for my niece who had died, and that pushed me into writing another one, which to this day is one of my faves. After that I just couldn't seem to stop. My poetry definately has helped me cope with most of the bad stuff that I've been put through in the past five years, and it's definately obvious if one reads my poems, just what kind of mood I was actually in, and what feelings I was not letting myself show. I am so off topic No, on second thought, let's not go to Camelot. |
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garysgirl
since 2002-09-29
Posts 19237Florida, USA |
I really thank all of you for telling your stories. I enjoyed every one of them. Capt. Ron, will you tell us "why did you compose in your head", before you started writing your poetry down on paper?? Thank you all for replying with each unique story..  ~Ethel~ |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
why do you breathe? it's as easy as that, when the time comes upon you... |
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garysgirl
since 2002-09-29
Posts 19237Florida, USA |
You're totally correct, Christopher.... I don't think a poet can keep the words from flowing out, and going SOMEWHERE.... ~Ethel~ |
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PoetryIsLife
since 2001-10-27
Posts 1763...in my boxers... |
Septermber 11, 2001. "A life unexamined is not worth living." |
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kaile
since 2000-02-06
Posts 5146singapore |
cool thread |
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Juju Member Elite
since 2003-12-29
Posts 3429In your dreams |
I don't know Juju - 1.) a magic charm or fetish 2.)Magic 3.)A taboo connected woth the use of magic |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Gads, I could pick up a little from each life, nod, and say, "yes...that's why..." each and every poet who responded validated my own thoughts, "this is why," or "no, this, too!" But I feel it like Christopher does. I think I've written it, too...that to take it away from me, now? Would be putting a bag over my head. [That might sell better on a book's cover, but overall, not too good for the life expectancy...] It's just gotten to the point where I don't WANT to ignore the tones within. I need to find a way to let the tones out - writing happens to be that remedy. Just do it.  Not a very poetic answer, but that's my story, and... |
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Ringo
since 2003-02-20
Posts 3684Saluting with misty eyes |
To be as completly honest as possible, I don't remember why I first started writing poetry.. I remember the first story I wrote, and it was a school assignment when was 6 or 7... my guess I started poetry for much the same reason. My mother started me reading poetry when I was... well as long as I can remember, so i kinda fell into it. As for more odern reasons, I actually feel that the poetry writes me. I have challenges sitting down and just writing for the sake of writing. I ahve to have that un-defeatable urge to put something on paper before I can write worth anything. I'm drowning, choking |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Ethel? I came back, with a little more "poetic" reply... /pip/Forum91/HTML/003565.html  |
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littlewing Member Rara Avis
since 2003-03-02
Posts 9655New York |
because I hurt and feel . . . and this is what God gave me to get it out. |
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Ratleader
since 2003-01-23
Posts 7026Visiting Earth on a Guest Pass |
Next time you step outside, on a day of thunder and impending rain.....ask yourself why you take that slow, deep breath, as you have done so often that you'd have to consciously stifle the urge in order not to do it. When you understand that, you will know why I write poetry. My thunder is within, and when I go there, poetry is breath to me. ------------- Oh yes -- and how did I start? My sister had a fifth-grade assignment she couldn't do: write a poem. I was eight, and still unable to read because of my dyslexia....but I said a poem because I wanted to help her do something that seemed so easy for me and so hard for her.... She wrote it down and turned it in the next day. Many years later she wrote a book, but I don't think she's ever written a poem, or tried. ~~(¸¸¸¸ºº> ~~(¸¸¸¸ºº> ~~(¸¸ ¸¸ºº> ~~~(¸¸ER¸¸ºº> ______________Ratleader______________ |
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Tiersdin Member Elite
since 2000-11-17
Posts 2364east coast |
I have always loved to creative. I wrote my first song at seven and an opera for my cousins and I to act out with our dolls around eight. When I sang them for my mom and family, they weren't sure to be impressed with my ability as a song writer or my voice. I still remember those songs. My mother wrote beautiful poetry and would read some of them to me. She also introduced me to music. My mom bought me an organ then showed me how to play it. But it was the piano that was my first musical love. I wanted lessons so bad becasue I knew I would master it. But alas, my famiy couldn't afford it at the time so I would tag along with a school mate and watch her play. I would easily learn what she was doing by watching and for some reason this infruiated the teacher. I wasnt allowed to come back. Still, muic took a back seat to art. I remember asking my mother at three to show me how to draw people. My first real effort was of my mom on her wedding day. Funny thing is, I knew it was a crap and I was angry with it. I showed it to her anyway and she was deeply impressed. She said, "children much older than you cannot draw this well!" It helped a little, I suppose. But I knew I could do better. As a teenager, music and singing became more important. Although I always did all. So I wrote songs mostly for my group. I went from keyboardist to bassist and that dominated my life into my early twenties. I still miss those days. My kids would never touch any of the expensive equipment that ate up the space in my livingroom- even though they were toddlers! And they could sleep like angels through practice sessions. God, I miss that! Poetry, though I wrote it off in on throughout my life, didn't become serious until maybe six or seven years ago. Like you, Ethel, I write my feelings- though the poem may not always express the subject; if you can understand that. Like Little Wing, I write mostly about my pain. I a manic depressive and this is a fine outlet for me. At times, I leave off writing to pursue my other loves. I've been singing again, doing shows for parties, weddings, ect. I write now when the mood hits and some of my poetry, I will never share. The year before last, I gave my husband a book of poems written only for him as card. He's not really into poetry much, but he did appreciate the effort. I love posting here at pip and reading most of you when I can. But it's the creative process that moves me- in whatever direction it takes me. Be it poetry, music, art, sewing, decorating, crafts, whatever. As long as I can express myself, I'm good. I'm good. (That was a mouth full) Loved reading everyone else's comments! Very enlightening. ~tier |
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Juju Member Elite
since 2003-12-29
Posts 3429In your dreams |
I am still thinking about it. I enjoy it and I am able to express my intelectual side poeple ignore. -Juju Juju - 1.) a magic charm or fetish 2.)Magic 3.)A taboo connected woth the use of magic |
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* shining star* Member
since 2005-06-29
Posts 76PA,USA |
I guess because it lets me express what i feel and i dont have to talk to anyone about how i feel. so i can just write it. -Smile, it's not a sin. |
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timothysangel1973
since 2001-12-03
Posts 1725Never close enough |
My story isn't so different from many others, but I got pregnant and married at a young age, and my husband then was not very nice to women. He had grown up around a father that had abused his mother all his life, and so he knew nothing better. It wasn't long until he started it with me, and I was ashamed to admit what was going on behind the closed doors, so I never told anyone but one of my really close friends. I started to write as a way to get the feelings out, and I would hide the poetry under my bed when I wrote it, because I knew that if he found it he would get mad, and knock it down... I realized that I could write about everything once I started writing. I had been a child stuck between my battling parents all my life, and had lots of anger and sadness from that... So, I started writing about everything and I wrote, and wrote, and still I write. Though that part of my life is long over with, and I have moved on and re-married and had another child I still write about the ghosts of yesterday that sometimes rattle their chains. I also write about the good stuff too, and I write in spurts these days masked as spair time lol I think that alot of us live inside ourselves, I know I did for years. Without the comfort of the words on paper, I could have moved out of my own soul and no one would have known that I was gone. If poetry was a man, he'd be the perfect one because he lets me cry when I wanna cry, cuss, yell, scream, be gentle, soft, full of anger, full of smiles, full of tears that I can't cry and so many other things. So... My poetic voice was born of pain and those dark hours that seem to never have an end, but somewhere along the journey I learned to not only look for the light and life I deserved... I went out and got me one. Thanks Ethel for the thoughts and the reflections, and Thank You Poetry for saving me from myself (and others) Tima How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink? |
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Juju Member Elite
since 2003-12-29
Posts 3429In your dreams |
Yes my poetry was born out of lonelyness and betrayel.  Juju - 1.) a magic charm or fetish 2.)Magic 3.)A taboo connected woth the use of magic The dictionary never lies.... I am magical (; |
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ctowen Member Elite
since 2001-10-18
Posts 2286Green Mountains of VT |
.... respectively to passed remarks, I write to gather my thoughts... ... I learn that by sometimes writing things I see, or heard .... or even lived can give me alternate views to understand my own views. Hence, when I write I try to give the possible outlook for as many of these view points as I can so that anyone reading can see and enjoy the words to their own eyes ...... ... wrote my first poem in first grade to the cutest girl in the class, and years later ... 8 to be exact, she remembered every line. I write for the expressions ... "one for all, and all for poetry" * Ct |
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SmartChick Member Rara Avis
since 2001-09-23
Posts 7081On A Journey To The Unknown |
When I was about 14 years old, I started writing my feelings down. Lord knows, there was enough stuff going on in my life, and I was filled with alot of anger and pain. I don't know, if it was poetry or not. About 4 or 5 years ago, I started trying to write poetry. I am no where near as good as some of you are, but, I don't like the idea of writing about whatever in poetry form, instead of just plain writing, Be it of anger, pain, saddness, lost love, etc. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
For the money.  |
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sandgrain Member Elite
since 1999-09-21
Posts 3662Sycamore, IL, USA |
In 1964, our 3 year old (the youngest of our 3 children at the time) was in the hospital with an abcess in her pelvic. What'd caused it was a mystery and they suspected it was a staph infection. I was in stages of a miscarriage of a 4 month pregnancy refusing hospitalization because it was a different one than my daughter was in. My grandmother in another state was quite ill so my mother had put the family home on the market, to move in town and care for Grandma. We lived very frugally to make ends meet allowing maybe 2 brief long distance phone calls a year. My mom called saying she'd sold her home the night before and they called her this morning informing her Grandma had died. I cannot explain how sick and forlorn I felt. As though I was on a lone island miles from anyone, yet sad and guilty that I could neither help my Mom or our daughter. The need to talk to someone was never stronger, but lack of funds especially now with medical bills, told me calling was taboo. That night I wrote my first poem to and about my dear, dear grandmother. It just came as I wrote, and I felt so relieved when I finished. |
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Marshalzu
since 2001-02-15
Posts 2681Lurking |
I started writing poetry so that I could get girls and well some of them were actually impressed by it, much to my surprise, after about a year or so I started writing for myself, for a while I flirted with the idea of getting published but I now know that I need to do a lot of work to get to a publishable standard. |
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GG Member Elite
since 2002-12-03
Posts 3532Lost in thought |
When my sister and I were little, every Thanksgiving we would each write a poem about what we were thankful for. She's 5 years older then me and she'd help me rhyme and make it sound 'pretty,' then we'd read them for Thanksgiving dinner. One year I got especially interested in it and my mom had just bought me this cool journal, so I wrote my first poem all by myself. I think I still have it somewhere. Poem Found it! I wrote another one, which I'm sad to say that I lost, but I'm proud to say was about the rain! It was the end of kindergarten year. My teacher advised I go to summer school because I was a bit behind with reading. Because of the interest in writing, though, they decided I'd be okay. (They ended up putting me in a reading program for like two weeks the next year and then it all snapped and reading became really easy for me and I moved to the top of the class in reading.) Score one for poetry! Didn't even think about poetry again for years. My sister wrote a little and I heard her read hers sometimes. I thought it was cool that she liked it and all, but I just didn't see the point of it. Then when I was about 11 I started getting real sick, being in constant pain, and going to doctors all the time. That continued to get worse and then several months later my grandma, who'd basically raised me, started to get ill. She was eventually diagnosed with cancer and I helped take care of her as she died. It was at that time, 13 by then, while I was fighting my own often disabling health problems everyday and while I learned how to feed her morphine, check her insulin, and clean her bedpan, that I started writing poetry again. I guess I was desperate. I'd sit for hours on her couch, in the dark, listening to the monitor of her breathing, afraid to fall asleep... and the first poems were just prayers, really. Not angry, just desperate. Still makes me cry to read them! So, in short lol... since this is so long (sorry about that!)... I write poetry because I'm no good at regular journaling. I'd rather actually accomplish something when I spill my guts... and I may not really (accomplish something), but at least this way I can pretend I am.  He was a man of sorrows ...I am a girl of tears. |
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littlewing Member Rara Avis
since 2003-03-02
Posts 9655New York |
That was good up there K - sheesh I am so filthy rich I toss all my cash right out the window while I'm driving . . . |
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Juju Member Elite
since 2003-12-29
Posts 3429In your dreams |
Yes .... money... I am filthy rich... -Juju Juju - 1.) a magic charm or fetish 2.)Magic 3.)A taboo connected woth the use of magic |
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sandgrain Member Elite
since 1999-09-21
Posts 3662Sycamore, IL, USA |
It was 1964. The youngest of my 3 children was hospitalized with an abcess in her pelvic, suspected to be a staff infection. My mom, in another state, had our family home on the market so she could move in town by my Grandma, who was ill, to help her. I was in stages of a miscarriage, refusing hospitalization in a different one than my daughter was in. We were extremely financially strapped. My mom called saying her home sold last evening and she got a call this morning that Grandma had died. I felt so badly for my mom, terrible about my Grandma passing, plus my immediate family problems. Making a long distant call to talk to anyone was too costly, so I felt lost. That evening I sat thinking of how much my Grandma meant to me, and words just came in rhyme. That was the first I recall writing poetry with feeling. It gave me relief, as if I had talked with someone. That's really how and why I began. It seemed like a God given outlet for the hurt I was feeling. |
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garysgirl
since 2002-09-29
Posts 19237Florida, USA |
Hello everyone. I can't tell you all how much I enjoyed reading this. It is so interesting to me to read about how and why you all write. Thanks you all for your responses. Hugs, Ethel |
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