Write What Comes From The Heart

To me the best poemsz don't necessarily have to rhyme or anything, if they come from the heart and mean something to you, chances are they are gonna mean something to someone else. For example, my poem Love Lost and Found Again doesn't rhyme at all, but it has that mood and tone about it that makes it deep and to me... has a powerful meaning.

We've been over this before. The heart doesn't do a damn thing for poetry. Adding emotion to a piece of poetry has nothing to do with being emotional while writing. Detachment works very well.

"I also don't think any emotional outburst has a poetic value. Of course not. Poetry has as much to do with the way of expression and stile and how to generate and launch the feelings, that has with the authenticity of those feelings that give you the clay to start with."

^ took the words right out of my mouth. I'd agree that, while in the throes of some passionate emotion, a person may not at first "spill genius from the tip of their pen," as an old English teacher used to say. Poetry owes a lot to evaluation, fixing problems, revision, etc. But I totally agree with dd-man in that the original emotional impetus is completely necessary for writing truw, emotional poetry. Where revision and detachment comes in is in revising the first expression of those emotions - sharpening them - and making them more effective.

Detachment does work well. Numerous poets deal with the idea of trying to be detached from their work. Obviously there is an attachment of some sort, the writer had to create the work. And if you think poetry is only about the emotional impetus of relating to the world, then you have seriously put yourself into a box. Adding emotion to a piece is entirely acceptable, and on several accounts there needs to be emotion. But a persons heart has nothing to do with it. People need to start seeing the world through other people, no themselves. Emotions and feelings don't connect anything without tying them tangibly to the world, and the thought, reason, andactions that take place in the world. Why do people not like alot of highschool poetry? because it is an overlayment of hat people think comes from their heart. A amalgamation of feeling and emotion without much solid ground behind it.

I do practice emotional detachment. I do more thinking than feeling in my poetry. Truthfully, I try not to feel any of my own emotions while writing. What I do sometimes, if the poem is a story or requires it, I say to myself, how would I react in that situation. Think about what I would do, then use that. I try to stay emotionally detached from the piece though, as in my own experiences, emotions, and feelings are not the emphasis or the goal of expression. I try to concentrate on what would help the world, or just realism, capturing humanity in its purest form, mainly because I believe too there is a way too just overfill poetry with emotion. The best thing I can explain is through music. U2 has great music that one can say has lots of emotion in it, but their best songs combine emotion with some questioning, , or observations, or statements about life.

I don't think I make much sense in the last post. Anyways, All I wanted to make known is that everybody says this phrase Write what comes from the heart, or write from the heart, or whatever. I just think it is the most overused saying on this whole site. People think if it comes from the heart is is good, but that isn't true. I just try to break people's thought patterns to try and get them creatively thinking about poetry in a different light.

"Adding emotion to a piece is entirely acceptable, and on several accounts there needs to be emotion. But a persons heart has nothing to do with it. People need to start seeing the world through other people, no themselves. "

This is a very good point, in the last sentence. I do agree that good poetry sometimes requires that a person step outside their normal selves, in order to perceive the world in a new and fresh way. I have to say I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of "adding emotion to a piece," however. It's one thing to be rational and objective, but quite another to cross over into artifice and... empty words without heart.

In the end, I suppose there are as many ways to write poetry as there are people who write it. I think you can be either a good or terrible "detached" writer, or a good or terrible "emotional writer."

Finally.. heh. The phrase "write what's in your heart!" I have to agree with you fellows. If you're just writing for yourself, privately, then whatever. But it's generally only a justification for writing crap poetry.

I dont agree with that b/c if it comes from the heart then it means something special to some one or some thing

Yes, I agree that it means something, and people should be allowed to write like that. But it doesn't make it good poetry.

U have to have some emotion if your going to write poety though isnt't that at least true. if you have no emotion while writing, why are you writing it??

I think that all poetry is coming from the heart. Most of us don't just sit down and write the first thing that comes to mind. I write about my everyday life and the emotion that I go through.

ON the contrary, Stephanie. Like any genre fiction, plays, or other literature and art in general, Poetry conforms to certain rules. For all of those people out there who strive so hard to write sonnets, haikus, or any other particular style of poetry, they must think about word placement, rhyme, meter, and so forth. The patterns that occur in poetry are a matter of thought, and mental struggle for some. When things become formulaic it comes from the mind. It becomes like math, plug and chug. Good story tellers don't sit down and try to find completely and utterly new ideas to put into stories; they know the formulas for good stories and change them slightly with the different plots, characters, etc. Poetry is the same. Whenever you read a writer's poems and they are all about teh same thing, yet vary slightly, then that writer has a formula that they follow whether they know it or not.

I actually do write down what comes to the mind. I don't write consistently like others, or about the randomness in my day. I've tried that a few times and didn't like it. I wait until a new idea comes to mind. Then I mull it over, figuring out whether it would fit best into poetry, or story form. And whther it should rhyme or not, be a short story or longer one. I continually mull it over, and if I come to the conclusion that the story won't fit any of these forms, or if that I can't write it like I want to, with any depth or meaning, I throw it out until the next idea comes to mind.

I would say the best poetry encompasses both the emotional and rational. One has to use both sides of the brain to write a meaningful poem. The judgemental, side should enter the picture once the germ of the poem has been considered and written. THen you can go back and make it grammatical, or "concrete."Poetry isn't meant to be concrete only. Then that is a crafted poem - but not necessarily an inspired poem. It should be one that touches the heart. It may be a realization, a truth one has that connects the writer to the reader. But the mind and heart should work in concert.