What's your style?
 

So how do you all write poetry? Are you a steam of conscience type? Highly structured? Do you have an idea in mind when you sit down? Do you prefer structure or no? Do you edit a lot, a little, or not at all?

I definitely have to have an idea, some subject I'm thinking about. I can't just sit down and start writing. Sometimes I write very structured, such as Idle Hands. In that case, I edited heavily through the whole process to get the rhyming scheme to work. I think the first two lines were the only ones that remained in tact for more than a fleeting moment.

More often, I go for more prose-style with little to no structure. In those cases, I do a lot less editing while initially composing it, though I stop short of pure stream of conscience, struggling for better wording on some lines. And then I can't leave it alone. Once I'm done, I go back and edit for word choice, tweak the meter, and clean up puncuation, which I invariable use completely inconsistently the first time through.

So for me, it's rare, if not never, that anyone sees an untouched piece exactly as I initially wrote it. I find that interesting. Not interesting enough to change it, because I'm never happy until I've sufficiently tweaked it. Of course, contrast this to my "normal" posts where I usually just hit submit and end up proof reading it while the page is loading again :rolleyes:

Psst. It's "stream of consciousness", not conscience.

This, I think, is Poetry Writing Standard Procedure. Unless you're someone that ALWAYS writes in one exact style, switching things up means that when you do a less structured work you have to go back and fix punctuation/line breaks/capitalization/etc. High structure means you don't continue unless the line you just wrote fits in.

Many times I'll write a poem just because I'll get a line in my head and I'll build a poem around that. Building up the rest of it to match the one idea is interesting to me. Sometimes the one line stands out too much, sometimes I want it to stand out, sometimes I can actually bury it in a poem with lines of equal power and no one would know which was the original. The latter can be the most rewarding. It's as if I created my own "writing assignment" and did well on it.

Heh, I know for you this is a big deal (I remember that discussion-turned-argument after watching Dead Poets Society) but for me, showing someone an untouched piece is like watching an unedited movie or wearing a dress without a hem.

I don't....its the best style for all of us....:D

Hmm, refresh me as to what my stance was at the time...I only vaguely recall this one.

You said that the original draft of poetry was very, very important, just as important as the finished product. That it deserved display. I said no, I didn't want anyone to see my draft, and that I loved crossing things out and basically distroying my original draft, and that what was important was the diamond, not the coal.

Hmmm. I suppose then that my position has changed. Though I would still say that an original draft would still be of interest, if it exists. Much the same way delted scenes and director's cuts are of interest.

Of course, seeing as I do most of my composing on a computer, such a thing doesn't even exist, any changes are long gone. Of course, the rate, amount, and kind of editing is completely different between typed and hand written. If I were to hand write something, I'd be a lot more methodical before writing soemthing down because it's so much less clean to edit.

I write mostly stream of consciousness. (Huge surprise, I know. I'll just wait here a moment while you pass out from not surprise. Done? Okay.)

But I'm way more interested in alliteration and internal rhyme than in traditional syllable count/end syllable rhyme. I love approxiate rhyme and assonance. Actually, if I had more free time I'd probably try to write in the traditional Anglo-Saxon heroic style. I lovelovelove the descriptive phrases in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

At work we have a tradition the people who've been with the department a while get roasted with a poem when they leave. I've been chief poet for the past 6 or so years. Those require the traditional rhyme and meter and thus when I'm writing for me I like to do more free verse.

Oh, and my husband and I make up funny nonsense songs all the time. We have such stars as the pot noodle song (pot noodle, nuh-nuh-nanow), leydo leydo leydo, leydo leydo ley (hey!), and the one I made up in my head this morning on the way to the vet: Where's that french dog monkey cat?

I like to play when I write, so I try different things. Sometimes it starts from a thought, a note, idea, image, or snippet of overheard conversation. Sometimes a strict structure seems needed as rhythms emerge, or rhymes appear. I think I like to keep things conversational myself, and I also have a fondness for ambiguity, dual meanings, and multiple possible outcomes. I edit a lot - even if I'm doing stream of consciousness, as the written word seems to linear to truly capture my leaps of thought.

Blast. I had it originally as consciousness, but I read it one too many times while proof reading the post and it started to look wrong, so I changed it. Dang.