How do you write poetry?

[rayheinrich]

off-topic: your point about being 78 made me think of Ruth Stone, who was named poet laureate of Vermont at 92 (so you have 14 years to practice for that!)
she wrote so well: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177510

        The Wound     - Ruth Stone

The shock comes slowly
as an afterthought.

First you hear the words
and they are like all other words,

ordinary, breathing out of lips,
moving toward you in a straight line.

Later they shatter
and rearrange themselves. They spell

something else hidden in the muscles
of the face, something the throat wanted to say.

Decoded, the message etches itself in acid
so every syllable becomes a sore.

The shock blooms into a carbuncle.
The body bends to accommodate it.

A special scarf has to be worn to conceal it.
It is now the size of a head.

The next time you look,
it has grown two eyes and a mouth.

It is difficult to know which to use.
Now you are seeing everything twice.

After a while it becomes an old friend.
It reminds you every day of how it came to be.

[ellajam]

off-topic: your point about being 78 made me think of Ruth Stone, who was named poet laureate of Vermont at 92 (so you have 14 years to practice for that!)
she wrote so well: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177510

        The Wound     - Ruth Stone

The shock comes slowly
as an afterthought.

First you hear the words
and they are like all other words,

ordinary, breathing out of lips,
moving toward you in a straight line.

Later they shatter
and rearrange themselves. They spell

something else hidden in the muscles
of the face, something the throat wanted to say.

Decoded, the message etches itself in acid
so every syllable becomes a sore.

The shock blooms into a carbuncle.
The body bends to accommodate it.

A special scarf has to be worn to conceal it.
It is now the size of a head.

The next time you look,
it has grown two eyes and a mouth.

It is difficult to know which to use.
Now you are seeing everything twice.

After a while it becomes an old friend.
It reminds you every day of how it came to be.

wow

[choccakeinabag]

Usually its something I experience or hear striking me as odd, and when I am thinking of it it becomes more odd, and then it becomes a poem.

Yeah! 

I try to portray a certain strange feeling I had. Maybe I'm just trying to make myself and others feel stranger.

[UselessBlueprint]

I've gone through a few methods. A few years ago I would ride my bike to the park, draft ideas for half an hour, then tune it later that night. When I started college, it was usually drafted on the train ride in on Monday, and hopefully finished on the train ride out on Friday. Now I take a lot more individual notes, usually on my phone, then think about the story these notes create, and put that story into words.

The common denominator his how I think of what to write. I sit for a while, reflect on the past week (or month, or year), ask myself what I want to write about, note some thoughts on the subjects, and then find the appropriate way to say it all.