Wednesday 13 February 2013

Descriptive prompts for poetry

It has been a quiet week for me this week, so I searched for creative writing prompts and found these on Creative Writing Now. A short list of descriptive prompts follows:-

1) the first signs of spring

2) your house late at night

3) someone who annoys you

4) what it's like to be under water

5) the classroom of a school you attended

6) a pet or another animal you've had the chance to observe

7) a doctor's waiting room

8) a monster you imagined when you were a child

9) the way a particular person snores

10) the view from the top of a tree.

A second topic this week is the idea of writing across lines. Yes, I know it is quite legitimate but I have been reading one or two well-respected poetry magazines (including The Poetry Review). I am appalled at the random way in which many so-called poets simply break up the lines of the poems.
I have two reasons, the first is that I really believe that to enjoy a poem it has to scan, have rythm and have some discernable structure. Otherwise, why not call it prose and write it as such. Does calling it poetry confer some imagined kudos?
The second reason is that I like to be able to read a poem without studying it first. If I have to read a poem several times before I can understand it, then I lose interest. Am I lazy? I don't think so, I read constantly. I read a wide range of subject matter from many sources but "modern" poetry is not something I enjoy. Much of it is like abstract painting of the kind perpetrated by the conceptual school of art. In my opinion, and I stand by it, it is utter rubbish.



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