The way to write poetry is simply, begin writing. Inspiration is everywhere: in the supermarket, driving in your car, news on the radio or tv, newspaper articles, conversations with friends, overheard conversations of strangers, memories, missed opportunities, anticipation… I could probably go on listing places and things that inspire poetry, all day. The point is, a workshop attendee or student, will often tell me, “I don’t know what to write about.” My answer to that is, “Open your eyes, listen, feel, involve your senses in your daily life, and you will find more to write about then you have time to write.”
Here’s a good place to start:
Choose a color and assign that color a mood. Blue – sadness. Now, without ever using the word “blue” or “sadness” in your poem, describe it using imagery, metaphor, simile, rhyme, and alliteration, enjambment, onomatopoeia, and other poetic techniques. Use as many poetic techniques as you can. Write with so much feeling and emotional commitment that the color and feelings jump off the page at us. Write so that we believe you and begin to feel what you felt, when we think of the color.
Example: BLUE
I am descending deep
into the sea where darkness
like a slinking shadow
reaches out to me I hear
a kind of distant moan
the water chills me
to the bone and I am lost
I am afraid I taste salt
on my tongue and wade
through darkness seeking
light I drown in sorrow
masquerading as the night… ( SAK)
Choose a color, any color and set the scene for us – take us in, under, beyond the color to the emotions the color evokes. I would be delighted if you would send your poem my way through my Chat Room at www.poetladykatz.com so that we could discuss it. Write on my friends…. Write on, Susan