10-15-2013, 08:47 PM
What is true in writing fiction also applies to poetry. If you constrain everything too tightly in the first draft you will stifle the best work your mind can produce. You will miss the little associations. The imagery will feel forced. Stepping back and trying it from different angles will sometimes free your creative process.
The looking for key words ideas of Keith was exactly where I was going to go next. You've already started this. Now go back and consider each poem (the original also). This doesn't have to be exhaustive: What themes, phrases, ideas, images seem to come up more than others (not necessarily repetition). You're sort of treating your writing to the best of your ability as if you're the reader. You ask yourself, what's important to me here. Not what do I think is important to include, but what do I seem to be writing about that's important. Isolate those ideas next.
(AJ the poems are interesting drafts, and I think you're doing great)
The looking for key words ideas of Keith was exactly where I was going to go next. You've already started this. Now go back and consider each poem (the original also). This doesn't have to be exhaustive: What themes, phrases, ideas, images seem to come up more than others (not necessarily repetition). You're sort of treating your writing to the best of your ability as if you're the reader. You ask yourself, what's important to me here. Not what do I think is important to include, but what do I seem to be writing about that's important. Isolate those ideas next.
(AJ the poems are interesting drafts, and I think you're doing great)
The secret of poetry is cruelty.--Jon Anderson