Poetry Talk

Welcome to my Poet Lady Chat Room. I would like to invite you to click on the chat box and type in a question, a suggestion, submit a poem, in other words – “chat with me.” I may, if you submit a poem, decide to feature it in my Poem of the Week section or, we may simply exchange ideas and suggestions about your poem.

This is a place to “talk” poetry with someone who has loved it all her life. I have a true passion for the possibilities of poetry and would love to hear your thoughts and/or read your poem. I will be happy to offer my reaction to your work and, based on over 40 years of teaching poetry, organizing, and conducting poetry workshops, working as a book review editor for an international poetry magazine, authoring five books of poetry and two textbooks on teaching poetry, send along my thoughts on ways to make your poem stronger and more impactful.

If you’re on my site, you have a connection to poetry. Feel free to connect with me – right here -right now, by typing your message into the “chat box” and clicking send. I’m waiting…

 

Your friend in poetry, Susan

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A question (1 reply)

Sarah01
2 years ago
Sarah01 2 years ago

Lately i am unable to write. Lines come to me but i can not get the poem out. I feel like any word i could write couldn't possibly measure upto my expections which isn't how i want to judge my poems at all. Poetry is in a way decorating your rawest feelings, giving it shape and a pattern but excessive refinery is bad too. Do you as a poet experience this? How can I take a step towards banishing this inner self critic 

Susan Katz
2 years ago
Susan Katz 2 years ago

Hi Sarah,

What you are experiencing is common to almost all poets, writers, play-writers - we all have those moments when words or lines are in our head, but refuse to come together in a cohesive way upon the page.  What I have always done is write down the lines as they come - don't worry about their being a part of a poem - just capture the words, the lines and put them away for another day.  Many times, when I have been going through a "dry spell" I jot down the lines that pop into my head and then discover, when I am writing whole poems again, those lines find a place into my poems or, become the inspiration for a poem.  If you must judge something - judge the quality of your writing - set standards for your poems - requiring that they possess imagery, meaningful line breaks, rhythm, occasional rhyme, hyperbole - all of the elements that make poetry, poetry.  Perhaps you should look at this as a good thing.  Writing is a bit like farming - you prepare the ground, you plant your crop, you nurture it, harvest it and then, let the fields go fallow - fertilizing them and enriching them.  It is, I think, like that with poetry - a time to harvest and a time to enrich the "soil."  I hope this helps.  I think I can guarantee you that the poems are there - waiting to be harvested.  Your friend in poetry, Susan

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