I think if all you want to do is express your thoughts in a few words, write a diary or journal. Poetry is an art form and as such demands artistry. Für Elise or Ophelia by Millais are two very recognisable and poignant pieces of art. They required moments of inspiration (a relationship with 'Elise' and the character Ophelia). They also required an intimate understanding of composition: structure, tempo, pitch, key; colour theory, brush strokes, materials. There are so many technicalities to poetry and these are the reason poetry has survived as a form of writing alongside prose and drama. Some forms, such as the alba, are very rare; others, like the limerick, can be taught to children. A clerihew is rare but is very similar to a limerick in it's composition. There is a huge range of tastes to acquire and experience and there's a lot of pride to be taken in proper expression. Other people have recommended reading poetry and developing tastes. This is essential. But it won't all come by osmosis: you have to understand what you're actually looking at and why it's enjoyable. Proper expression of yourself must go hand in hand with proper expression in language. You should read books about poetry. I wouldn't advise poetry about poetry, it tends to be fucking horrific. Stephen Fry wrote a book called The Ode Less Travelled. By his own admission he's not an aficionado but he offers a very compelling and accessible introduction to metre and form. He says: I'm saying this because I think there's something implied in "My interest and creative energy in writing prose has all been obliterated by English classes at school." I think it's important not to cower from dissection and analysis. You've been told to experiment. What's the point in experimenting when you have no basis for your hypothesis? What rules are you disproving if you don't even know them? Fry asks if you'd call a child smashing a piano — calling it 'self-expression', of course — art, because of that misnomer 'self-expression'. You may not like Arthur Schoenberg or Ferneyhough; or Malevich or The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, but these artists always knew the rules that they were breaking before they broke them. There are issues that remain unresolved in literature. One might be mimesis — how much a representation bears resemblance to a reality. This has attracted people from Plato to Coleridge to Frank Kermode. Then there are the codified basics: metre, form, rhyme, symbolism, phonetics. These must be known.The point remains: it isn't a burden to learn the difference between acid and alkaline soil or understand how f-stops and exposure times affect your photograph. There's no drudgery or humiliation in discovering how to knit, purl and cast off, snowplough your skis, deglaze a pan, carve a dovetail or tot up your bridge hand according to Acol. Only an embarrassed adolescent or deranged coward thinks jargon and reserved languages are pretentious and that detail and structure are boring. Sensible people are above simpering at references to colour in music, structure in wine or rhythm in architecture. When you learn to sail you are literally shown the ropes and taught that they are called sheets or painters and that knots are hitches and forward is aft and right is starboard. That is not pseudery or exclusivity, it is precision, it is part of initiating the newcomer into the guild. Learning the lingo is the beginning of the right of passage.
Fur Elise and Ophelia are finessed final products that were only created after and by mountains of experimentation and mistakes. I feel like saying that "poetry demands artistry" and pointing out these examples, you are elevating poetry to a very high standard that presents it as mostly inaccessible. "Poetry cannot exist without art." "Poetry must be deliberate." The truth is that you cannot learn artistry unless you begin with the starting steps. pabst isn't going to learn all of the elements of poetry before he starts writing it and in fact, writing poetry is going to help him learn to identify these elements. There are many rules we don't learn until we break them, or whose intricacies we aren't aware of until we push the boundaries. The basics must be learned - but it's not true that they must be known before embarking upon a career, whether for personal amusement or for profit, in writing of any sort, which includes poetry. It is impossible to expect anyone to have a grasp of the basics without first putting those basics into practice via writing. Until you actually try and sit down and write, all you have is theory.
I'm worried this is going to turn into a bit of a chicken or egg scenario, but I think we're in agreement on this point. Metre, form, rhyme, symbolism, and phonetics are all theoretical until put into practice. That's self-explanatory. The theory is, in my opinion, what practice should rest on. Perhaps "must" was hyperbolic clumsiness, but I want to stress the importance of these things since it's something I sincerely believe in and something that was neglected in the other posts. At the very least the two should be worked with simultaneously — such that "writing poetry is going to help him learn to identify these elements." I've distinguished between the more basic theoretical features of poetry and more complicated ones that engender serious thought and discussion. Are you arguing that there are basic concepts that have not been codified? Could you give specific examples? I agree that no one's first anything is going to compare with Keats, or Shakespeare, or Beethoven, or Matisse, or the huge range of artists that you can no doubt come up with yourself. The point that I'm trying to make is that these great artists are examples of technical mastery as well as expression and that in them we can see that one shouldn't "cower from dissection and analysis"; there's a real pride in confronting these theoretical elements, that shouldn't be seen as "pseudery or exclusivity", head on.Until you actually try and sit down and write, all you have is theory.
There are many rules we don't learn until we break them, or whose intricacies we aren't aware of until we push the boundaries.
Fur Elise and Ophelia are finessed final products that were only created after and by mountains of experimentation and mistakes. I feel like saying that "poetry demands artistry" and pointing out these examples, you are elevating poetry to a very high standard that presents it as mostly inaccessible.
I do think we agree on more than it appeared to me at first sight. I am not arguing that there are basic concepts that have not been codified, but I am arguing that some concepts are more easier encountered via experimental writing (anaphora, hell iambic meter, for instance) and "discovery" for oneself than via studying text and then careful application. Sometimes it's easier to take a ride in the cart before trying to learn how to hitch the horse to it. What I mean is that while it may appear to be approaching things from the back end, experimental writing allows a writer to explore what feels "good" or "natural" to them without the bother or fuss of terms, "proper vs improper usage," etc. Instead of approaching writing or poetry from a mechanical angle (i.e., "Here is my tool. I know what it is called, how it is made, and how it should be used. Now let me apply my tool") I advocate for experimentation ("I need to move a rock. How should I do that? I could push it" tries pushing "Rock doesn't move much. What else can I use?" spies a stick "What if I put one end of the stick under the rock and pushed?" attempts; success The man doesn't know he's just used a lever to reach his goal but he's reached his goal and discovered something in the process. He doesn't know what a lever is. But he will probably try to repeat this method to various successes and failures until he learns how the lever works even though he doesn't know the physics behind it). I agree we shouldn't cower from dissection and analysis, but I certainly believe the use of these tools had its pitfalls that one typically encounters and it helps to be aware of.