blog How Writing Poetry Helped My Prose

[Ban]

Banten submitted a new blog post:

How Writing Poetry Helped My Prose
by Ban

Have I mounted the mountain of poetic titans?

Is my skill so vast, that my own mind I frighten?

Have I reached the heights of Byron and Shelley?

Will wicked awe, make me poetry's Machiavelli?

…

No,
nope,
definitely not
and no.

My roaming poeming is and shall likely remain rather mediocre, but practising it did improve my prose, and therefore I’m glad I write rhymes from time to time. Feel free to stick around as I ramble a bit on my experience with poetry.

How?

So how did I improve? The clearest manner in which I’ve bettered my writing is that I now possess a larger vocabulary. I’m a cheese-eating Dutchman, which I’m very glad of, but not being an English-speaking native does mean that there are some gaps in my English vocabulary. My approach to poetry helps me here.

To me poems are like puzzles. When I sit down to write them, I know the feel of what I will write, same as you know what a puzzle should look like when you're done with it. The hard part is finding the correct pieces to finish that puzzle. This inevitably sends me on a mad goose chase around the internet’s many online dictionaries to find words that fit what I want to stay, and the manner in which I wish to say them. Along the way I’ve picked up a handy set of English words, which tends to be useful for a writer. For example, my Dutch mind...
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

 

[Ban]

Hey Greybeard, I'm always on the lookout to sneak some poetry in, but I've only managed to do it once in my current book. It was a chapter set around christmas time, which always merits some caroling in my opinion.
Whenever I return to fantasy, I hope I can create more opportunities to rhyme away.

 

[Holman]

Your signature has given me the urge to alliterate an alphabet of cheese based criminals to fit around the letters you have missed.

The Adelost Arsonist
The Dolcelatte Desperado
The Feta Felon
The Halloumi Hooligan
The Isabirra Identity Thief
The Jarlsberg Jailbird
The Kabritt Kidnapper
The Nocciolo Nark
The Old Amsterdam Outlaw
The Takelma Tresspasser
The Ubriaco Usurist (struggled to find a crime beginning with U and hence a criminal - poetic licence needed)
The Vachard Vandal
The Wensleydale Wrongdoer
The Xynotyro Extortionist
The Yorkshire Blue Yardbird
The Zamorano ....

You are right it can be fun to just play with words.

 

[Ban]

Your signature has given me the urge to alliterate an alphabet of cheese based criminals to fit around the letters you have missed.

The Adelost Arsonist
The Dolcelatte Desperado
The Feta Felon
The Halloumi Hooligan
The Isabirra Identity Thief
The Jarlsberg Jailbird
The Kabritt Kidnapper
The Nocciolo Nark
The Old Amsterdam Outlaw
The Takelma Tresspasser
The Ubriaco Usurist (struggled to find a crime beginning with U and hence a criminal - poetic licence needed)
The Vachard Vandal
The Wensleydale Wrongdoer
The Xynotyro Extortionist
The Yorkshire Blue Yardbird
The Zamorano ....

You are right it can be fun to just play with words.

The Zamorano Zorro (Pulling out the Poetic license as well)

This is a lovely continuation of the cheese list

 

[pmmg]

I think it is useful to have poetry and a poets eye in the tool bag. Poetry requires working with words and using them in ways that magnify their impact, while keeping to an economy of words. This, I think shows, when writers have a poetry background, in their writing in many ways, not just with unusual word choices, but with the right words at the right time. I think poetry also aids with creating voice, which is probably the one thing I find most under utilized in many of the things I read.

 

[Ademal]

I wouldn't call myself an accomplished poet by any measure, but I have definitely found myself appreciating the art of poetry as I work to make my prose carry more weight-per-word by trimming out as much fat as I can.

A lot of poetry seems to be the art of that, after all, of hitting us at our core with a single punch rather than pages and pages of buildup.