Poetry should be personal and imaginative. It should show your feelings and emotions.
As the freest form of writing poets often struggle to set the bounds each poem will live within. Without bounds you cannot have poetry.
Freedom is not doing what you want when you want to. Freedom is knowing how to use the rules to enhance your writing. Like all art forms, poets need practice, knowledge, and commitment to succeed.
What is poetry to you?
Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain.
— Elie Wiesel
The protagonist has to face insurmountable odds. Pressure needs to sneak in from different angles to test his skills and strengths before he saves the day. The pressure applied by the antagonist should bend, but never break, the hero. There should always be one, and only one, helpless person in the story, and that’s the reader.
“If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To be a successful writer your readers must trust you. It is easiest to gain your readers trust when you write about your area of expertise. Why? Because you actually know something about the topic your are writing about.
If you don’t have an expertise then start reading and writing about a topic, it is the best way to develop and show off your expertise.
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”- William Wordsworth
If you don’t love what you are writing about then no one else will either. If you are not excited about your writing why should I be? If you are passionate about your writing chances are you will be able to find passionate readers for it.
Jacob
The August poetry contest was amazing. We had 109 very good entries. It was hard to pick a winner. Here are the results. We have been given permission to publish all three poems.
First Place: “Bullfighter vs. Beast” by jenshead
A fight until death?
Mere man against beast.
Spectators in arena overflow –
Greedily prepare for the feast.
How barbaric in its undertone –
To overcome the impossible feat.
In Matador dress on center stage –
Resolve set against retreat,
cape now on fence,
the competitors at last meet.
As chanted Corrida echoes fly,
from eager gluttons in their seat
Torero and Toro tango at last –
Their dance enigmatic; no peace.
Veronica flip of red ignites –
Bull’s full wrath and fury unleash.
No Surrender; the tempo quickens –
Intensifying the mounting heat
All eyes focus on ritual end –
Shall bull or beast be beat?
Second Place: “Oh look, there’s death!” by HansErik
*This poem made me laugh out loud when I read it. Humor and poetry are a wonderful combination.
Oh look, there’s death!
He is so calm,
Snorting dirt, chewing cud
On the Spanish lawn.
How worthy I’ll feel
If I shout out, “Hey!”
And he and his flies
Fly over to play.
For what am I to him,
Something as small as me?
My sense of all
Is as tall as his knee.
He’s not moving…
Maybe if I snort and achoo.
Nope, still no sign…
What if I moo and moo and moo?
Now my nose is tickled,
I’m really going to sneeze.
I’ll use this red napkin
So as not to make a breeze.
Wait, he’s turned his head
To fix an ox eye on me;
He’s tracing the earth-
I really should flee.
Oh no, now I’ve done it,
He’s charging this way.
I didn’t mean what I said,
Let’s be BFFs, Ok?
Oh my, I’m alive!
I won’t even need a cast.
When I stepped aside,
Death kept going past.
Third Place: “An End To The Bull” by akjames
*This poem was selected as a finalist because of its unique approach to bull fighting.
Tonight, under the light of truth from a million stars
she would put an end to the lies.
Once her reason for being, now a weight,
around her neck, dragging her earthbound.
Too often she allowed the bull to sweeten the pill
of bitter excuses he peddled.
Working late, car broke down, conference away,
bull, bull, BULL!
Only she could put an end to it,
but what final barb?
His eyes twinkled under stars,
but she must take him by the horns,
cast him to dust.
I want an end to the bull,
you tear my heart out, trample on
my love beneath your hooves of infidelity.
He snorts, she sees more bitter excuses ready
to tumble from his lips,
she thrusts her sword between his horns,
a twist for good measure.
‘I don’t love you anymore’
He falters, falls, dies in the dirt.
Note: We awarded second and third place free premium accounts becuase we really enjoyed their poetry.
*See all of our writing contests
This writing contest will start on September 12, 2009.
Purpose: Have fun, enjoy the competition, improve your writing, and become a better author by participating in the peer critique process portion of this contest.
Who Can Enter: This contest is open to all authors. All submissions must be posted and assigned critiques completed by November 30, 2009. Your chapter must be 10,000 words or fewer. You may post additional chapters to this site for critique, but only one chapter will be eligible for the contest.
Subject Matter: You choose. Please refer to our content policy if you have questions.
Prizes: The winner of this contest will receive $50.
How to Enter: It’s pretty easy
Decisions: There will be 2 rounds of judging.
Entry Fee: There are no entry fees or purchases of any kind required to enter and win the contest. After you submit your work to the contest you will be required to complete assigned critiques of other authors (4 for free members and 2 for premium members). You will receive 3 critiques of your work in return. Those who do not complete their critiques will not be eligible to win the contest.
Rights: All chapters remain the sole property of the author. After we have selected the winner we will seek permission from the author to publish the winning work on our blog. The author is under no obligation to allow this.
Notification: The prize winner will be notified by email on December 12, 2009. We will announce the prize winner on our blog on December 14, 2009.
Really I Can Do That? You can continue to work on and edit your chapter after it has been submitted. All entries will be frozen when the contest ends. We will judge the latest revision of your chapter. You only required to submit your chapter for critique once.
“Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.” - Mark Twain
When you first start writing it is hard to decide where to begin. Don’t spend too much time trying to figure it out. Just start writing about something you love. If you love what you are writing about your passion and energy about the subject will naturally come out.
If you can’t figure out what you love then write a blog post about how perplexed you are. Writing about confusion is much more therapeutic than simply sitting about pondering your predicament. Writing about your writing problems will almost always help you overcome them.
Jacob
