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_refugee_  ·  3716 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How would you advise someone to begin writing poetry?

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.