Friday, December 10, 2010
Sometimes you have it... sometimes you don't.
I do not feel that there is anything wrong with trying out different styles of poetry. I think it is good to have a well rounded sense for all of poetry's variety. Yet, I can almost sense it right away when I do not work well with a style. I almost feel like I am forcing myself to produce a jumble of words that sometimes I would not even consider to be poetic. Even worse, I sometimes dislike trying to mimic the style of another poet. On some occasions it will work out well, even good at times. Other times I feel like I am forcing myself to write like the poet and that my words and poems do not have the authentic feel that I would like them to have. None the less, if there is anything that I can take from trying to mimic another poets style, it is the bits and pieces of their style that I can fuse into my own. I agree that exposing yourself to more and more poetry will only make you better in the end.
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I feel the same way about mimicking other poets, sometimes it feels wrong, like I'm cheating by copying their styles. I do, however find that it is fun to try and get inspiration for poems from other poets.
ReplyDeleteI honestly love reading poetry for insperation. Sometimes one line speaks so much to me that I could write all day. But copying ryhums and other parts of peoples work is not something I do well at all. I feel like I am traped in a very small box. But I think by trying to mimic others I learned so much more about my own writing style
ReplyDeleteI get the idea of feeling forced into a certain style or form, and felt that way when we did some of the exercises. But when I read other poets and try to write something similar, I almost always like what I come up with.
ReplyDeleteWriting in different styles is always a challenge, but it can have good results. I really wasn’t one for putting too much repetition in my work, but after doing the presentation and seeing how Poe and Neruda did so, I found I liked it. I also think that copying someone else’s style entirely isn’t quite the same thing. There’s taking some parts of style for inspiration, and then there is just plain old copying.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you here, when doing the muse work where we were asked to write from the different forms it was extremely difficult for me. For one i am so used to writing in free write that when it came to writing in any other form it was difficult. Though it is sometimes good to broaden your horizon and do what you wouldn't usually do like incorporating another poets style at your own, sometimes it is just hard because we are so used to our element that it is hard to get into anything else. At least i know that is how i feel about the concept.
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