I have the exact same problem. I enjoy writing poetry and I do write things from time to time but usually I look at what I've done and go "oh my gosh, this is HORRIBLE and totally overblown". Try not to be too hard on yourself, though.
I've personally always enjoyed writing however my most consistent problems have been:
1. I think of something I think is good or really like but can't write it down/don't get around to it and forget 2. Everything I try to write conciously feels disgustingly horrible and contrived to me
I don't know if this is just something that requires practice and my problem is being too self-critical at the expense of improvement (I often avoid doing things I like since I feel like I'm bad at them and don't want to be percieved as bad at things) and that with more practice I'd be come better at letting the feelings form words naturaully rather than trying too hard.
Often times the things I imagine or concieve and consider to be good come to me at my most emotional, moments of deep depression or over-whelming happiness/love and often times in these moments I do not think to drop what I'm doing and start writing or can't. Attempting to recapture the feeling later feels false and forced to me.
sonseray likes poetry why hasnt he posted in this thread
wherefore art thou sonseray
deletedalmost 10 years
Yes, it's very difficult to write poetry when you are trying to write. Most of the best poetry will come to you completely naturally, whilst the revision may still be applied later on.
At least to me the idea I was trying to convey with:
"We grow and change is so many ways Lost so deeply in a blinding haze"
(though it may be lost since obviously it's easier to interpret your own intent than others) is that personally we each make so many changes big and small that we get lost in the concept of who we are who we want to be and how we want others to percieve us.
Though I'll be completely honest, the beginning of the poem came to me naturaully and I liked it and attempted to expand on it. Conscious effort to continue the poem at a later time when my frame of mind had changed is probably responsible for some disjointedness.
Also, the way I say "realize" rhymes naturally with "lies" (rea-liez) but this may be dialect.
I'm American and prefer the aesthetics of realise to realize tbh
deletedalmost 10 years
I would also suggest loosening up a bit with the couplets. I'd even look towards my critique of the poem in the OP as a small guideline. Obviously your poem rolls far more nicely, but I still find myself thinking that the couplets make it kinda tacky.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't use couplets at all. I'm just saying that it's difficult to make a poem read nicely when there are rhymes on every single line, unless your word choice is completely up to scratch.
deletedalmost 10 years
FTR, I also hate Americanised English in poems. 'Realize' reads so plainly to me through internal phonological articulation. It doesn't come across as soft, but then again this could just be because I'm British. It's pretty unharmonious.
'We grow and change in so many ways, Lost so deeply in a blinding haze'
I actually take nothing from this couplet, I don't really feel like it fits in with the poem. The reason being, is that if one grows and changes in so many ways, it would offer the perspective that doors are constantly being opened and an individual is experiencing a multitude of possibilities and scenarios, learning an awful lot more about themselves. This is the complete opposite to my interpretation of being lost, being lost in my eyes is more about being content with an uninteresting and static lifestyle and never reaching out to new experiences.
The last 4 lines kinda go downhill for me as well.
In a nutshell, I think you're on to quite a nice poem, but I'd definitely suggest polishing it up a bit if you truly stand by the feelings that it may have provoked within you as you were writing it. At the moment, it's a little disjointed and rough, but I believe that, by my subjectivity at least, you could be on to a good poem here.
