this is just a bunch of poetry advice that really helped me and maybe it’ll help you too! The diologue format was just to get me writing and I thought I’d share it with you because of the advice in it. It’s also a segment of the novel I’mwriting :))
“Well, poetry isn’t my specialty so this is a bit out of my comfort zone. I assumed it would be easy. You know, because I’ve written songs and I thought it was the same… I was wrong.”
“Not necessarily. The essence is the same, but it depends on how you like to write your songs and your poems. Maybe your writing style in both remains or maybe it’s different. How have you been writing your poetry?”
“I’ve been writing as if it were a song, which it’s not, so that didn’t go as well as I thought it would. I kept adding a melody like I always do when I’m songwriting and it just ends up being so unsatisfactory. Like, it seems incomplete because I’ve written lyrics and not a poem. The way I see it, my lyrics require a melody and music because I’ve written it as a song.”
“I feel like you understand what you’re doing already, you just need a nudge in the right direction. Your main domain in writing is narratives, correct?”
“Well, I’ve read your narratives and some of your structure can tend to be rather… poetic. Do you understand what I mean? Think poetic devices. They’re called that for a reason. Which do you often use in songwriting?”
“Um… similes and metaphors, rhyme, caesura and enjambment… that’s it.”
“What I said before and… personification, sometimes onomatopoeia, imagery, and alliterations.”
It’s all about perspective,
“Poetry is the in-between. Or at least, I think that’s how your poetic style would be. Use that personification that you don’t in songwriting, ditch the rhyme – or don’t, but just remember that rhyme isn’t strictly required – and imagery. I cannot stress imagery enough. Show don’t tell; but only when it seems fit. Show me emotions, tell me feelings. Describe it all in word vomit and then, and only then, organize your ideas and thoughts into lines and stanzas.”
I want to emphasize that these tips may not aply to everyone. Maybe the songs you write (if you write songs) are fluid and you wouldn’t mind if it was converted to a poem. Maybe you don’t write songs at all and there’s no ‘in-between’ for you to derive from your writing styles.
If this does help out, then I’m so glad!
