Poetry writing is for everyone, not just for elitists

ENGLISH literature gives us thousands of poems, and thousands of them are masterpieces and are written by poets that eventually became reknown. Among the world’s famous poets were William Shakespeare, John Keats, William Blake and George Byron. Among the world’s famous poems are those entitled “Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, “Paradise Lost” by John Milton, and “If” by Rudyard Kipling. You can become the next Shakespeare! How they and their works became famous must be taken into context as to why poems are written in the first place? Does it happen when it happens, or is it like an essay to something your opinion is asked about? If you have a flash of insight, a metaphor for understanding electricity as water, a parallel to existence or just an inside reflection on what is wrong/right with the world, what do you do with it? Say you will be asked to sit at this lake before the waterfall and wait there for hours for more to follow, what can you come up with it?

Would that be it or do you start thinking about something else like what helped put into the world that lake or that waterfall? Like journal writing, poetry can help record those thoughts and special insights in helping forge your feelings into a perspective so that you can start coming to terms with it, rather than having it subvert back to the inertia that carried the feeling or idea to consciousness to begin with. This can help you come to terms with the idea/feeling itself, to move forward with your growth as living human being. People write poems because it builds their brain. The power of the metaphor, simile, parallel or figurative language is not only a good way to put things into perspective, but metaphors are easier to remember than a complex set of interactions.

Others write poems because it is therapeutic. A dialog of one is still a dialog, and like journal writing provides an amiable outlet to vent our feelings. Remember that recently Tagalog spoken poetry has become viral? It helped especially millenials pour out their feelings about life and the world. Others write poems because it encourages deeper interpersonal relationships. As you write, not only do ideas bloom but so is your vocabulary. It gets broader, and your understanding about relationships between ideas grows and how this affects you and the world

comes closer together. Lastly, others write poems and find themselves opening up to a wealth of human knowledge. By writing, you are doing the legwork in understanding other poets. There are as many ways to read poetry as there are people, but when you start thinking in a language you are more easily able to understand another poet in that language.

You need not be an elitist to become the next great poet. Many people seem to not like poetry. Perhaps they were taught badly in school by teachers who themselves feared poetry or perhaps they believe poetry is for clever people, pretentious people – or just strange people. Or they were taught just in passing only to be over done with the syllabus. But poetry has no more need to be elitist and obscure. Writing poetry may seem impossible for beginners but it really isn’t. Here is a quick, but not limited to, guide on how to write poetry for beginners so you learn the basics and start putting together your first poem or improving what you have already written.

First, you must capture a moment. You must focus on one moment that expresses an emotion or works as a metaphor for a bigger idea. It is not usually something that is filled with ideas on love, hate, etc. Second, steal a conversation. Since Filipino loves gossips, it has been recommended that those are put into good use. Listening to others can kickstart poems, because you will hear things you would never say or think yourself. Third, describe something or someone. Specificity strengthens a poem, and it’s hard to get more specific than throwing all your attention toward one thing or person. The only trap with these poems is that they can sometimes read like lists.

Fourth, respond to something. Response poems have been around forever. For starters, you could respond to another poem, a piece of art, something someone said to you, a cool-looking car, etc. Nothing is off limits. Fifth, use someone else’s line. This is kind of like eavesdropping, I suppose, but there are poems that will take a line from another person’s poem and make that the first line. In this tradition, it is also good form to mention the poem is “after (poet’s name here).” How this can help is that you’ve already got a great line out of the way–and just need to write the rest of the poem. ( Paid article)