Need a platform to place my poems on!!!

Hi,

Great question, and one that I'd also quite like to know the answer to. Over the 3 years or so I've been visiting GN I've seen a lot of posters assume that poetry automatically qualifies as song lyrics, which is very often not the case. So it's encouraging that you're making the distinction.

A quick Google threw up a swag of forums for poetry, but I've no idea what the tone or membership quality is like on any of them. If nobody has any direct experience to offer then maybe some of us could check a few out and see what looks good?

Here's what Google came up with Poetry Forums

Anybody know any of them?

Chris

Good grief! :shock:

Did anybody else check out some of those poetry sites? They're all crazy....

The first couple I tried were too shy to let you look at all unless you registered. The next one was chocka with sensitive types banging on about what seemed to be healing and auras and dream visualization through crystal therapy, or something along those lines. Not quite me.

The next one - Poetry Free for All - looked promising. Sample rules:

Sounds reasonable. Lots of subforums for thing like Humor, Love/Erotic Poems, Spiritual, Newbie Stretching Room, etc. (by the way, the intended reference there wasn't to stretching your poetic legs, as I naively thought, but to medieval torture racks.... :o )

So I jump in to the first forum - General Poetry - and sample one called Golden Years. It starts "Hi, this is my first post on the site"... and it rhymes. The first comment, from a 'Super Moderator' says this:
Don't attempt to write another rhyming poem for several decades, or until you've learned and mastered some of the more basic aspects of writing.

Ooops... :)

This turns out to a fairly benign comment compared to some of the razor wire lashings being administered elsewhere. But I have to say it was probably reasonably accurate advice, if the poor devil was able to cop it...

I might just have to buy a flame proof suit and dive in.... :twisted:

Click if you're brave enough

Chris

Well...that's 'zacly how Jim Morrison started out. Got any leather pants???

cat

I might just have to buy a flame proof suit and dive in.... :twisted:

Click if you're brave enough

Chris

:lol: EXTREME critiquing!!! :lol:

I don't visit enough guitar forums to know of any that are as crazy as those poetry sites.

Yes, as you said, there are many places on the net that can do justice to your work and help you to publicize your poetry but recently one of my friends has found a source that not only makes your work known but the members there add a touch of creativity to it. The community members combine the poems with audio, music, motion graphics and other elements to make your poem a visual poem . It is a different thing and I hope that you would love that.

Hi again,

UPDATE:

Well, I tried posting an exploratory ode at the site I mentioned before, in my usual rather old fashioned attempt at humour style. I got tarred and feathered and run out of town in 24 hours flat. :shock:

So I'm still looking around.

The problem seems to be that the supply of budding new poets is huge, but the number of people willing to read their stuff is tiny. The more serious sites apparently get a bit cheesed off with getting a steady flood of bad beginner stuff to cope with. On the other hand, the forums I found that were more accepting often had very low traffic, and the posters struggled to to get anybody to either read or help.

I saw one thread in which the poster was making a 2 for 1 offer - "Read one of mine, and I'll read two of yours"! :)

The general rule seems to be that if your poem is A) By a new poet and B) Mostly about you and your inner struggles and observations , then you'll find it hard to find anybody to read it. Understandably, they're mostly interested in their own inner insights, not yours. Most new poets also appear to only want praise and encouragement, not genuine feedback or critique. That makes it even harder.

TIP:

As always, the best way to go is to find a site that looks promising and do a fair bit of reading there first. Then comment on other people's work and get yourself known. If you just post, sit back and wait for people to say "Hi" and "Wow!" then you will probably not have much luck.

If anybody knows a good site for newbie poets then please post a link. I'll keep looking too, as it would be good to have somewhere to recommend when prospective poets ask.

Chris

Ooops..one more thing...

Over the past couple of decades I've had a fair bit of experience assisting in the areas of intellectual disability, mental illness, and also dementia related conditions (and my wife has over 30 years experience in disability and mental health areas). So we know that many people with various 'conditions' take up creative pursuits such as painting, writing and poetry for therapeutic reasons. Some can be very sensitive and easy to tip over. So it's good to try and tread carefully. If someone seems to behaving like a classic 'mad poet', I would try and give them the benefit of the doubt. For instance, it's good not to make cracks about them being schizophrenic, manic depressive, forgetting to take their medication, or whatever. If someone sounds kind of odd, then maybe they are indeed struggling.

Musicians on the other hand are ALL sane...

Aren't they?.... :mrgreen:

Chris

Click if you're brave enough

Wow! Tough Crowd.

Poetry has the same problem as hiphop: it's just too cheap to make. Everybody thinks he's the next new great poet and entire 'communities' are nothing but a bunch of people posting to themselves. If anyone finds a poetry site like GN let me know! Slightly offtopic but still: if anyone here would like me to work with you on adding music to a recital drop me a PM!

LOL, Arjen, first time I've ever seen poetry and hip-hop mentioned in the same sentence! On reflection, though, there are similarities - not that I'd want to dwell on them too long, I absolutey hate hip hop, rip rap and any other conceiable form of rap.

Poetry CAN be put to music - many musicians, over the last 50 years or so, have tried to do just that. Think "Norwegian Wood" - think "The Wind Cries Mary" - think , well, think any song you want to think of.

What's poetry? A few lines of verse, a bit of imagery....

Same could be said for a lot of rock songs - it's all in the eye (or the EAR) of the beholder.

I've never managed, in all the years I've been writing songs, to succesfully marry poetry and music - that's not to say it can't be done, it HAS been done, and probably will be done again in the future, and the very near future at that....

Then again, aren't all we would-be songwriters just frustrated poets? We have something to say, we want to say it - does it matter if we say it straight (I Just Want To Make Love To You) or whether we dress the same subject up in flowery poetic imagery - we're still saying the same thing?

And don't we always, with a few exceptions, try to make our songs rhyme? Ummm, that's poetry, isn't it?

Awaiting enlightenment....

:D :D :D

Vic

And don't we always, with a few exceptions, try to make our songs rhyme? Ummm, that's poetry, isn't it?

Are you sure you want to discuss the age-old question of 'what is poetry?' :P
I've never managed, in all the years I've been writing songs, to succesfully marry poetry and music - that's not to say it can't be done, it HAS been done, and probably will be done again in the future, and the very near future at that....

Then again, aren't all we would-be songwriters just frustrated poets? We have something to say, we want to say it - does it matter if we say it straight (I Just Want To Make Love To You) or whether we dress the same subject up in flowery poetic imagery - we're still saying the same thing?

The difference is that a songwriter needs to worry about melody and harmony which put considerably limitations on how you can say things. To me that is really a big difference between lyrics and poetry: lyrics have to 'connect' in non-verbal ways whereas poetry relies strictly on rhythm, the meaning of words and how the words sound together. (and in Asian cultures even how the letters look!) It's both with words but totally seperate thing, atleast for me.

Comparing hip-hop and poetry isn't that strange in youth cultrue by the way. Look around, I bet there are 'poetry slams' and 'poetry battles' in Liverpool. To me rap is closer to poetry then melodic vocals. I know you hate rap but I'm pretty sure if you'd check out the horrors of amateur poetry you'll hate that, too. :lol: I tried merging the two in an old song I did with a poem by Poe, check it out if you like: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=361288&songID=5543996

I would have done things differently with the production but the idea could work I guess.

I always thought that "The Peoples' Poet" (AKA: The Young Ones on BBC TV)needed a band for his stuff... :lol:

Cat