poetic sensibility in other writing?

i think it's especially useful in writing short fiction, but i think some ability crafting poetry pays dividends in everything in life.

Sometimes when I try to write fiction, it just turns into a poem or song...

Hmmm... interesting conversation.

I don't know about me. It seems my book writing and my poetic self are two different animals. I don't see much similarity in the two. Perhaps because my poetry tends to be shorter and sometimes more direct. When I'm working on my ms, I'm doing more scene visualizatin and describing for a long haul. I don't know if that makes any sense.

I probably should pay more attention and use the positives of one with the other, but I've never really thought about it. I will now.

Good question, Trish!

I think that poetry influences my other writing, but I also have to be careful in balancing it against prose or lyrics or whatever else I may write.

Some writers who I feel hit that poetic voice are

Leonard Cohen said:

Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women
There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows
There's a tree where the doves go to die
There's a piece that was torn from the morning
And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws

Click to expand...

Tennessee Williams said:

I’ve been – not so awf’ly good lately. I’ve run for protection… from under one leaky roof to another leaky roof – because it was storm – all storm, and I was – caught in the center…People don’t see you – men don’t – don’t even admit your existence unless they are making love to you. And you’ve got to have your existence admitted by someone, if you’re going to have someone’s protection.

Click to expand...

Ray Bradbury said:

One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.
- The Martian Chronicles

Click to expand...

Paul Simon said:

The candlelight flickers
The falcon calls
A lime-green lizard scuttles down the cabin wall
And all of these spirit voices
Sing rainwater, sea water
River water, holy water
Wrap this child in mercy - heal her
Heaven's only daughter
All of these spirit voices rule the night
My hands were numb
My feet were lead
I drank a cup of herbal brew
Then the sweetness in the air
Combined with the lightness in my head
And I heard the jungle breathing in the bamboo

Click to expand...

I also agree with William that poetry can touch every part of your life. It can inform your experience and your peception of life. There are things we experience in life that most people never see and they enrich us. Rob's boy with a Taco, Bret's wife pulling the world away, and many other simple everyday things become a deeper experience for those attuned to the poetry that is in our daily living.

I have a friend who is a "bug guy" (I can spell that without out looking up endemologist). I accidentally came across Annie Dillard who wrote Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood and The Writing Life and fell madly in love with her writing, especially because it was so beautifully, poetically, phrased. I offered it to my "bug guy" friend because alot of her work is on the inhabitants of nature and the beauty found in nature. He gave it back after a short while and said, it was too poetic for him. I thought for sure the mating practice of the horsehair worm would captivate him. No, too poetic.

Yes, some work can have that characteristic. But, what I found astounding was that the very characteristic of being poetic actually repulsed someone. For me, the lesson learned is that having that poetic perspective is a boon and a bain. Unless you are adept at crossing over techniques, poetics is a world of it's own. PS: A world I would never want to leave.

Hi Stew-I've no poetical type aspirations-but since hanging around here I have been writing a few on some threads-I have been told that some of them pass muster-but I am not a good judge of anything that I write!

However, I will say as you suggested-it does improve the writing I am doing-I think for the reasons you stated-Dave

So I guess my question is, do you think your poetic aspirations trigger in your other writing and improve it?

Click to expand...

They most definitely trigger. But I don't think they always improve because I find I have a hard time balancing. My writing can have too much poetic fluff, or, none at all. I sometimes read my work and it feels very text-book like. It reads in monotone. But when I try to spice it up, I get very carried away with the poetics. This happens when I converse or correspond as well. I get caught up in some metaphor or another and you can actually see me lose focus, my eyes turn upward and I look as if I'm talking to the sky.
I do enjoy reading work with strong poetic influence. Barbara Kingsolver comes to mind right off. But it has its place. I've read thrillers where the author gets way too descriptive about the scenery as the car races madly from the crime scene. A time and a place for everything.

The danger in writing poetic prose is it can come across as purple, or at least a little lavender (to those who matter). It's a shame because lean writing is frequently celebrated as a lofty goal when only a slight infusion of lyricism can make prose sparkle.

I just read Koontz "Velocity" a grim and gripping thriller. I was surprised to see how poetic it was.