How Do You Start?

The first two or three lines always seem to just pop out of nowhere, ready to be written. One that's being published now is about a "painted lady," a Victorian-era house. I happened to be in a town where many of them are being restored and the first few lines suddenly came to me.

I don't write too many poems, but the ones that I do put on paper and/or get published, are always rhyming. I don't know why; it's the way it justs comes out.

Really good question, Alvah, and I bet just about everyone has a different answer.

For me, it could be any of the above, though I find themes difficult and slippery to grasp for a beginning. This is why writing poems for contests often gives me trouble. Images or forms - for me - often give me a push-off point.

It might - actually, quite frequently - be a word or phrase that forms the seed of a poem, and I don't know where it's headed until much later.

Alvah,

Somehow an image or a line pops into my mind, and I think "I could write a poem about that". Sometimes the first few lines seem to rhyme right away, so I try to carry that through, but sometimes it just doesn't seem to need any rhyme--I just feel a rhythm that carries through as I write it. Many times one line or phrase leads to the next, and I'm pleasantly surprised where the poem finally ends up. For me, that's a big part of the enjoyment of writing poetry.

I very seldom start out to write a particular form, with the exception of limericks, which I have to admit, I write as kind of relief from "serious" poetry.

I saw a documentary produced by Metallica about the year they took to make one album. One scene showed the lead guitarist and lead vocal finding suitable lyrics for a piece of music. They each listened to the music through head phones and mumbled words into a tape recorder based on the rhythm. They then wrote down what they believed the other had mumbled.

This is similar to what I do as well as the ‘popped into my head’ method as mentioned by Stormie and Dobiwon; walking around the garden with a coffee and cigarette mentally strumming meter in my mind. Usually a 8/6 beat: dad ah, da dah, do dum, de doo and so on. Eventually my thoughts wander and the sounds change; often bringing something into mind.

And that is what was happening about ten minutes ago. The first two lines coalesced in my mind with an image of playing scrabble. Bingo! A poem is born - Scrabble, but it is a nothing poem really. A silly throwaway but worth a smile perhaps?

Colin Fiat.

I treat each poem as a story. I work out theme, location, POV, choose a form, and allocate how many lines each part of the story gets then. Then I start filling in actual words. The process usually takes weeks.

Yeah, I agree w/ the above. Sometimes it's a phrase. Most of the time its an image I get a glimpse of in daily life that stays w/ me.

I usually- and this will sound utterly screwball, I know- have the idea and occasionally a rhyme or two just fly into my head out of absolutely nowhere. This is basically how my poem about a demonic clown came into existence. (It was, however, pretty bad. Like Vogon levels of bad.)

i just spit it out in one big vomit. i don't have an idea. i just start with the first word and add to it until i get to the last word.

Usually, I have an idea that evolves.

Actually, I just have a large amount of alcohol. I pride myself as the Prostetnic Vogon as supposed to mere Vogon torture.

For me, it begins with an image, a title, or a first line--or some combination of them. Driving to work in the morning I observe things around me, which I tend to write haiku about, trying to remember them and write them down when I reach the office. My standards for haiku are fairly strict, so not many of them make it to paper.

If it's a title or first line, I tend to make it in some meter. Depending on what the subject matter will be, I think about the form. If it is something that will involve a turn of thought, I'm thinking sonnet. I'm pre-disposed to sonnets anyway, and so that's my first choice. I have to keep reminding myself there's more to poetry than sonnets. If the subject matter is something repetitive, I might think villanelle. If I think this is a short subject, I might go with a cinquain.

Since images usually aren't enough to carry the poem (except in haiku and maybe cinquains), I have to think long and hard about metaphors. How can I convey what I want to say through a metaphor. This is difficult to me. Metaphors do not come to mind often, and sometimes an image, a title, or a first line will languish for a long, long time till I can come up with a metaphor. That's true about the two main poems I've written this year. Both had gestation periods of a couple of years while I thought through the metaphors.

I then think of hard hitting, action words I can use. If I think the poem will be a rhyming one, I look for the hard hitting word for a line ender and see if there are enough rhyming words for it. If not, I figure on burying it in a line and use common rhyming words.

At some point in time I begin thinking of what I want the reader to take away. Am I telling a story? Trying to encourage? Paint a pretty picture? Teach? All of these will enter into my thoughts when, after gestation is complete, I spit the thing out on paper, usually in a fairly short time. After that, I look at each word and make sure it complies with Coleridge's "best words in the best order".

Well, that went way beyond your question on how we get started with a poem. No charge for the extra thoughts.

NDG

I start with a writing prompt, or I start with what I want to say, and spend months/years until I get it out right. Other times, I just write and see what happens. There is no true rule. Keep doing what you need to do until you get the poem you meant.

I came up with a cool poem while sitting on The Throne. Ya never know.