Thread: Cross contamination

Occasionally I hear writers say they avoid poetry, that they hate it, loathe it even. So I'm wondering if some of you good people think similarly, and, if so, why. Some of my favorite prose writers were also poets, and my own view is that writing poetry has helped my prose style tremendously.

I find those who write poetry, but claim never to study it and to hate reading the work of others, incomprehensible. Simply not liking it seems quite normal by comparison.

I like the old poets (like Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman) and the old ballads and sonnets - but modern poetry tends to leave me cold. I don't know anything about writing it, but what I've tried reading seems to wander too much, or not make much sense. But I think that's like some people preferring the Masters to modern art - just a matter of tastes.

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

I find those who write poetry, but claim never to study it and to hate reading the work of others, incomprehensible.

I only like to study the poetry that I sense would be worth my time. Often, when I read unpublished work, I struggle to understand what the poem is trying to say, and it's a frustrating position to be in, to say the least -- I'm never sure whether it is just an off-day and I'm being dense or if the poem is intentionally obscure. Published poetry is different, of course, I think because the assumption is it must have some value to see print.

This is ironic for me being a writer to say, but I'm not the best at reading comprehension (yet, I'm in AP English), so poems are so torturous for me to read. We've been explicating them to death this year. And, they're not simple poems. We have to talk about the literary devices, and I'm so bad at getting them. So, I wouldn't take the step to write my own.

I don't in any way avoid, hate or loath poetry. I can enjoy a good poem as much as a good work of Fiction. I just can't write poetry. At all.

Poetry was my first and greatest love. It remains so. I'm not good at it, though I've had two master teachers. One of them was my grandfather who taught me that through poetry language reaches as near perfection as any human endeavor can. Fortunately he also taught me other forms of writing, else I'd've starved early on instead of making quite a comfortable living putting one word after another. While straight prose can flow so easily, I struggle with poetry.
The muse teases.
She does not stay but only passes close,
lightly brushing a fingertip across my mind
so that a glimpse of beauty, only a glimpse,
is all I grasp ere she's gone again.

I enjoy writing poetry, but I don't read very much of it. I think writing poetry influences my prose in a good way. I've used lines, simile and metaphor in my prose that I've lifted from poems and vice versa. It can really get the wheels turning. Maybe it's poets I don't like.

I have several poetry anthologies in my library. But, admittedly I haven't cracked their spines in years. In high school poetry was all I read. I liked the way good poets could paint whole landscapes, or emotional turmoil, with just a few unexpected arrangements of words.

Along the years my interest moved into songwriting, and then, morphed into writing fiction.

Interestingly I've found "poetic writing" is often frowned upon when it comes to writing fiction. Even one writing book advised, "read through your manuscript and find one comparison on each page, and delete it. Do it again if you find more." I find my penchant for similes and metaphors being systematically beaten out of me with each successive advice or critique.

I think the beauty of prose is dying in favor of more easily accessable reading. I'm actually, and this may be silly of me, trying to intentionally write at a "lower reading level" now because I believe it's what most readers are looking for. For some, similes and metaphors are just too much thinking to be worth their time. And poetry is chock full of them!



Even some of my favorite prose writers, like Ray Bradbury down there in my signature, are dismissed by some readers with a sneer as "artsy fartsy" writing.

I don't want to say I don't like poetry, but rare are the times that I actively seek to read it. I think perhaps it's because it makes me feel dense. I'm capable of appreciating good poetry (usually), but I never feel like I've really grasped the message and meaning of any poem. Perhaps that's why my favorite poet is Ogden Nash--iambic pentameter seems to be a little more up-front for dunces like me. That, and the fact that he tends to spell things out, rather than hint at them. "Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker." Yes, indeed.

And I'll second what Hawke said: Five-year-olds write better poetry than me.

I hated writing poetry at school, but I've been thinking that I should write some to improve my prose writing; I may give it a go soon.

I love poetry, and I feel it goes hand-in-hand with writing. The use of imagery and semantics to create feeling and emotion is the same in both.

I have an appreciation for good poetry, because it requires the poet to be quite skilled with language and conveying ideas. However, a good chunk of poetry is just awful, and I have no respect for it. Also, I know that I'm absolutely incapable of writing poetry, or at least, I have no desire to try. I can make lines that rhyme with each other, but nothing I produce could really (in my mind) be called "poetry."

I find those who write poetry, but claim never to study it and to hate reading the work of others, incomprehensible. Simply not liking it seems quite normal by comparison.

The types of poetry I loathe are free verse and blank verse. By comparison, I can become quite ecstatic over ballads; why do they not receive an airing on this site?

And on the question of study, why do certain people with a foot in both camps claim to study poetry to death, but appear to backslide on studying the intricacies of prose writing, hmmm?

I enjoy the constraints imposed by structured verse. It becomes a real creative puzzle, to say what you wish to say within the constraints of rhyme and meter. But that doesn't mean I necessarily enjoy reading it (mine or others). Having to force myself to comply with the constraints of structured verse undeniably make my prose better. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I do it.