Skip to main content

Poem's Inspiration


Poem's Inspiration

A friend I have met on Google+, +Rebecca Colabot and I were discussing how we found inspiration for our poetry. She asked me a question about whether or not my poetry comes from what I feel or from my creative imagination. I'd like to share with you what I wrote in answer to her inquiry and some additional thoughts about writing poetry.

All my poems come from what I feel. But I believe imagination is an important part of poetry writing and prose, for that matter. We are all a product of the things we have read. The imagination takes hold of the thoughts and feelings and we creatively write about it. So, to answer your question, I believe it takes both feelings and creative imagination to write a poem.

I think inspiration can come from any source. It may come from a memory. It can be a painful memory, something that maybe we have never discussed with someone, yet a poem may allow us in some anonymous way, to reveal the dept of the pain. The memory may be a bittersweet memory. Forgotten friends, lost loved ones, lost loves, any memory that evokes happy memories but also accompanied by sadness, an expression of an emotional void. The memory can be an amazing, joyful, even blissful memory. A first kiss, a first love, a long night of loving, the birth of a child--any of these can call forth emotion to fuel the poetry of joy.

A sunset, a piece of music, a song, a friendship, a line from a movie, a found lost object--any of these can call forth from the hidden life-stream of words, a poem. Another's poem or story can be inspiration for a poem. This poem was inspired by something I read from a quote I came across in the Love Quote Community on Google+. I forget which one.


Her love was a tonic, refreshing my soul.
Her love was ironic, coming late my way.

Her love was amazing, making me whole.

Her love was a blazing, setting fire to my day.
Her love was astounding, giving me life.
Her love was so grounding, I made her my wife.



This poem's not the greatest and was written quickly. But, I feel that it adequately portrays my feelings at that moment in time. I've gone over it several times but have been unable to improve upon it. So I let it stand as an expression of the depth of my emotional response to another's writing.

Poetry's source--our poetry's source is a combination of all the poems read and heard, the songs sung and listened to, the stories read audio-books borrowed and movies watched. The poem's source is influenced by all the writing classes we've taken and all the literature courses we've attended. 

I’d like to offer a word about the form of my poetry. I like to write with some rhythm and rhyme. I try to keep a structure in my poems. The poem I shared above rhymes throughout the poem—tonic, ironic and amazing, blazing and astounding, grounding. I also rhyme at the end of the sentence, but I alternate the rhyme: soul, whole and way, day and life, wife. Rhyme and rhythm add to the poetic form.

Until recently, I had not written much poetry or about writing poetry. I’m trying to catch up with both. Thanks to all on Google+ that I have interacted with this past month or so. Thank you for taking the time to read my comments on a Poem’s Inspiration. Please add a few comments of you own.






Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Stephen King’s “What Writing Is”

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft    “What Writing Is” I have written an article in another Blog summarizing several sections in Stephen King's book. This article is about another section of his intriguing book. Stephen King’s “What Writing Is” 4. What Writing Is —pp.103-107 Stephen King suggests: “Telepathy, of course.” Writing is telepathy. Telepathy is defined as “the transmission of information from one person to another without using any of our known sensory channels or physical interaction.” In modern fiction and science fiction, many superheroes and super-villains are endowed with telepathic abilities. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the earlier expression thought-transference. (Wikipedia) Writing about telepathy, King suggests that we are “downstream on the time-line”. We are in the here-and-now and as he writes from the past, he

Christmas Day is here!

Christmas Day is here! Christmas toys assemble, little armies in strict array Christmas days tremble with memory's magic display Christmas ways resemble lost youth's joyous play Christmas snow remembers forgotten childhood days Christmas tinsel twinkles with the blinking colored lights Christmas memories sparkle in the yellow candlelight  Christmas tears sprinkle on the lonely winter nights Christmas years dwindle as they amble out of sight Christmas morn' sends Santa down the warm chimley, there Christmas morn' brings Jesus in the cold wood manger, dear Christmas morn' rings soundly, filled with festive cheer Christmas morn' sings loudly: Christmas Day is here! © 2014 ajwrites57 A Long ❤ ❤ ❤ Merry Christmas Card:  By Souvenir Post Card Company, New York (eBay front back) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Soldier Image:  Brownie in Christmas Land by Marian Jack, 1922 via open clipar

old friends

old friends searched online for former friends surprised to see untimely ends friends, their spouses, moms and dads sad to see the deaths they had the inexorable tick and tock of time, leads us all to fields, sublime through twisting, turning hands of fate, soon we'll all be known as "late" years roll on, time is passed no one knows how long it lasts each life is counted out by days as friends we oft go separate ways friend's faces show the lines of age as each one turns his separate page fools fleeting time waits for no man eighty years our lives may span so count your days with special care for who knows how, who knows where our beating hearts will one day stop find old friends before they drop © 2014 ajwrites57 A Long ❤ ❤ ❤ Image adapted:  By SDRandCo via morguefile.com