What got you started as a poet?

What got your mind cranking? What made your heart open up and let it all out? How do you continue to make such outstanding work?

For me, love and heartbreak started my poetic side off. W/ my ex-boyfriend I filled an entire journal w/ love poems and hurt feelings expressed on paper. Now my inspiration comes from my mother who's sick and my life now. My husband and our life, my family, dreams...what makes you tick?

For me, I didn't start out writing poetry. I started writing in a diary a few years ago simply because I had so much to say but no one who would listen.

I stumbled across poetry quite by accident, acctually. I never really thought that I would ever write a poem because it seemed so hard. So, I tried to write a parody of a song, but I ended up branching out my own way and coming up with a whole bunch of good rhymes. I wrote what I felt like, and that was my first poem. It has advanced from there, and I write about feelings I was never aloud to express in the past and whatever is on my mind when I pick up my pencil.

I'm sorry about your mother, and I hope she doesn't feel so bad all the time. Good luck with your poems and your life!

Well, when my friend Daniel and I were in Junior High, we had dreams of being in a band or something like that. So we started writing our own lyrics, forming out the notes in our head until we could master an insturment to play it on. Unfortunatly I never really mastered my electric guitar, but I kept writing songs and they eventually turned deeper, darker, had more meaning to them than a rock song or things like that.

Daniel followed my lead and we began writing peotry together and I think what kept us writing was that we had a rivalry against each other as to who the better poet was. When I'd write something, he'd write a poem similar to try and best it and vice versa. When we got into Highschool and the two of us started getting more and more distant, I kept up poetry, writing in my spare time about events, like a little diary and it led up to where I am today. Heh, yeah I guess I do still consider them my 'diary' entries.

--Bryce~

Thanx for you support and comments about my mother. You never know how you'll handle something like cancer till you're faced w/ it. Actually, I always thought I'd be stronger under a situation like this...but compared to my mom, I'm incredibly weak. I have so much respect for her, I think that's what is making me write so many poems like my "Cancer" poem and "Hope"...those are words you learn to live w/ and carry as a torch when you live w/ cancer...

That must be incredibaly hard. Although none of my family has ever dealt with cancer, my own mother is sick with Parkinson's Disease. She pretends to be really strong, but sometimes, I'm not so sure.

I know it's tough, but hang in there! Your mother sounds like a wonderful person.

I started writing poetry when i had too much hatred and pain inside me. i never told a soul and still i never will. i only let it out in my writing.

Ami-thanx for your words of care and concern, stay close to your mother. Any illness takes its toll in one way or another, make sure she knows each and every day you love her!

Andrea-your pain is your own private "treasure"...I call it that because your pain is what makes you write such priceless poems. Only you know how to make them your own and only you can make the pain go away...never quit writing!

As crazy as it sounds I never had any interest in writing poetry. My two best friends wrote these magnificent masterpieces and I was alway's anxious to read their poetry! One night we were all on the phone on 3 way and I was whining about all the wrong things in my life. I said at least yall can write these beautiful poems....I can't even do that! So they decided we were gonna hang up and call each other back in 30 minutes and in that 30 minutes we were all to write a poem! So I did and I wrote the poem The Invisible Force in that 30 minutes...every since then I've written poetry!
But my strongest poetry came out when my husband left me....

Boredom and that whole life crapping on me thing:p

the whole "Lifes the shits" and stuff like that is wut got me to start writing... i write about how my friends/family make me feel... things i read about and feel i culd write about it... and so yea... my life is still the "shits" and all so i still write!!
*Krys*

By thinking up silly things like your "booger" poem
which takes me back to a 5th grade memory with
a girl!

You know what, I never thought I could write poetry or make two words sound right together till 7th grade. I hated that English teacher but she taught me the basics for how to make them the way I needed them to be. Poetry isn't about making sense to the world, just you...I can understand the emotion from lost loves...and struggling to know what to do...I'm there now...and of course writing helps, to not let those emotions build up inside you...there's nothing better. Even if you don't post the really internal ones, the ones that make you relive the moment... its better to at least have the words out of your head! As for the "booger" poem...that was a forum challenge...and it was fun! If ya can't laugh at things like that, life's too serious!! Glad I dredged up that memory for you...hope it wasn't all that bad!!?? Take care all!

For me, it was back when I was 9-10 when I had this HUGE crush on this guy...and I felt like, my diary entries didn't quite express my emotions as much as i wanted it to and since i'm a love song freak, i decided, what the heck, I'll rhyme like the songs i love so much! And now I'm 15 and about 9 crushes later...i'm still rhyming :)

I started writing stories, after finding out about fanfiction then finding out about fictionpress. After writing a few stories I got inspired from everyone elses poems, writing my own.
BTW, that was a great question to ask, great to find out everyones responces!

The girl i like is really into poetry, and when we went through some rough times(kinda still are) i started to write my feelings down.... i like poetry, because unlike normall writing your not bound by the same rules, and because i like science and math not english....its a good thing to have less rules because i dont know what the rules were in the first place......

I used to have nightmares when I was little, which grew into be believing in vampires etc. That's what started my first poem which is on the site 'Die with the Dusk, Dragon' which I wrote when I was 9. Now I write about vampires, demons, suicide, whatever I want, but I have a policy against happy. I don't like happy, period. Don't ask me why coz I don't know. Peace, love and empathy.
-Belle Misericordia

My ex-girlfriend is the reason I began writing. I wrote a little bit before her, but nothing serious. Then when I started going out with her I began expressing myself through poetry.

That's pretty much me. I've always written stories, screenplays, stageplays, and the like, but never poems or songs. I didn't think I could. I just read the poems my friends wrote and would be in awe.
The first time I was ever inspired to write poetry was right after the air date of Angel's Season three episode "Billy." The one where Wesley goes all Jack Nicholson in the hotel. Yeah, that brought out the poet in me. I'm still really proud of that one, so I'll probably post it soon.

When I was in 6th grade, life took a big turn for me... it was when I really started to understand and comprehend reality, I began to be able to express and describe my emotions. Evenutally I just put them into words, and called them poems.

We had been studying poetry in grade 5 and 6 and learning about it. That's when I started reading poetry by Robert Frost and Shakespeare and all kinds of poets. And over the years I'd write some poetry, they sucked, but I just wrote...Then in the summer of 2003 my life went BOOM and I tried to find a release besides cutting, and then in November I found this site, and wrote and wrote. Then that account had gotten banned in like May or June...So I made this account. :) And I will never stop writing. :) You all are so talented! Never stop writing xxx
-Mortalidaga
xxTakeCarexx
Smile lots..xxx

Hmm...for me it probably was creative writing that got me started writing ANYTHING. Lol...well I was in a writing competition in school and I made it to the State Finals, and they had a poetry contest and I entered. Even though I didn't win, I thought it was a cool form of writing, so I stuck with it. I find my inspiration to be from experiences in my life, mostly with love and guys and all that mushy-gushy teenage love stuff. ;) Happy writing!

=)
.:jOy:.

wut got me startin to write was this guy i liked, it was in like 7th grade and i had bought a new notebook and i was at my friends house and we just started to write, first i wrote love poems, then i prgressed to write sad and depressed poems(whi i have no idea) and noe im in the lost relationships kidn of mood.

i started writing poetry a year ago.. my friend inspired me because she was the best poem writer i knew!! she always told me i could do anything and i said i want to write poems and she said then write poems and i've been writing ever since and my poems have matured a lot since i started!

I didn't start out as a Poet...really. When I was in 2nd and 3rd Grade I loved writing, just about anything, but mostly I wrote Fantasy Stories and stuff kids write about. My teacher, Mrs. Miller, encouraged me --both years-- to continue writing, and she'd always tell me how good I was at it. Often she'd let me use her computer to type up short stories, and stuff. By 4th Grade, writing longer, more meaningful stories was what I did. I also loved to write in a Journal, although it was hard, so mostly I didn't --except when things just seemed to be oh-so-terrible in my life, and I had no way out but to write everything down. I do suppose I wrote Poetry during that time, but not anything that meant something to me. In 5th and 6th Grade, when my free-time became less, and homework became more, that's when Poetry was thrown at me. Stories were still my favorite in 5th Grade, but by 6th, Poetry was all I had time for, and what I needed most to express my feelings. I still loved Stories, but Poetry was more 'my thing'. My English teacher, Mrs. V, absoloutely adored my writing, whether it be a Poem or a Story. I promised her that the 1st book I published would be dedicated to her, and so I will keep that Promise as long as I remember. =) What really got me started on Poetry was Guys...or shall I say Guy. Daniel was his name, and I absoloutely adored him. He was between 15 and 16 when I was in 6th Grade. I fell for him, and fell hard.

Love, Heartbreak, Fights with my Mom, and things likr that are what turned my Writing into hearty, emotion-filled, Poems, that people could actually relate to and understand where I was coming from. Inspiration came from everywhere and anywhere that was possible. Love, Heartreak, Suicide, and Sadness have always been my main focus, but I've started to write poems about Friends, Poems that Have to Do With Life, and Happy Poems. Seemingly, though, Sad Poems have always been easier.

My friends encourage me often, and many of them have became aspiring Poets themselves. I know of one friend, Shelby, who has used Poetry to express how hurt she has been this past while, but it's not helping her much. She is a cutter...as of recently, but we are offering her support as much as we can. She is my trouble-making friend, but I think she has 'problems' that she doesn't reveal. We are very close now, and I can understand where she is coming from. She inspires me a lot too, so --as I said before-- I am inspired from many things, people, and places.

I am ending this eternity long Post.

|With Love|
-Manda

When I knew i was falling.... :(

(edited: Read post- Fallen)

don't remember at all...

I started writing (not anywhere near well, but still writing) around 4 or 5, putting together short stories. My first poem didn't come until a few weeks before my 11th birthday.

I had the same awful dream over three consecutive nights. The third night, after sobbing myself dry (yes, it is possible for those of you who haven't experienced something like it), I wrote my first poem. Not the kindest, gentlest way to begin, but it definitely got me writing. ;)

Odd enough to say, but that dream affected me for many years and sparked a great deal of introspection, searching, and poetry in my life. Sometimes I think I've gotten over it... sometimes I'm not so sure....

I was collecting a load of quotes from a bunch of websites when I accidentaly came accross this site. I loved some of the poetry on it and ever since then I`ve been obsessed. Although, for ages I was collecting other peoples quotes and poems. One day I just decided I was going to have a go at writing my own.... and it spiralled from there. I usually write about what I feel but I`ve spent a few days with some friends and now i`m writing other stuff to.

That is a very interesting and cool way to get into writing, Blood Red Tears!

i started writing wen i was eleven. i came across a poem i'd written wen i was 8 an it was really gud. i wrote a few more to see if they were any good and realised it was a great outlet for my emotions.

when i needed a friend and nobody was around for me trust with a secret I had to keep.....

Reading John Donne's Poetry...

All but one of my poems are about love and all of my love poems are written about and inspired by the same guy. This guy was my first b/f almost 2 years ago. We have dated 3 different times and between those three times there has been a lot of heartbreak and pain. He was my first boyfriend, the first guy to hold my hand, the first guy i kissed, the first guy who told me he loved me, the first guy i broke up with, and the first guy who broke up with me. Now after our last breakup I have had to learn how to handle the fact that we are only best friends.

Donald.

My ex-husband.. long story short.. he's gone. Maybe dead. Not sure. But he's gone and he's never coming back.

Yeah..

I had to write a poem for school once and I liked it and when i showed it to my friends they loved it and told me i was really good and I just kept writing after that.. so i guess I could thanx my english teacher

Mostly the same reason as ~Jackie Bilson. I had feelings for a guy in 9th like never before and he disappeared on me in a glance because I wouldn't give "myself away" to him, lol, so I was hurt and disturbed so I went on writing corny poetry that didn't even make sense back then. I wrote of how he made a mistake and how I felt I had done something wrong, blah blah. Thats how I started. My 1st poem~ about a guy that left me because I was more serious and not a hoe. WOW.. after that day I wrote poetry time after time. Writing in notebooks as entries wasn't enough. I had to let more out, so I did about different shyt. After 11th grade ended, I exploded in writing more poetry than I thought- left and right, because my life flipped upside down and so much :( . But yeah, now you know. ;) check out some poems of mines if you have the time.... muahhzzzzzz

CyN