Listen as I read poetry from my latest book, Inhale the Night. Available on Amazon.
Listen as I read poetry from my latest book, Inhale the Night. Available on Amazon.
Last week I shared another edition of my poetry workshop Joy of Writing. The topic was love poems, and I had some great responses . Here is an incredible poem written from the exercise by Kim Stapf.
.
You kiss my lips
I tremble down deep
I can feel my heart pumping
With every touch I burn
I’m trapped with no way out
It is my firm belief that anyone can write poetry. It is not an art reserved for the learned or the few. Much like painting it can be taught. I want to walk you through a process today much like Bob Ross did in his series, Joy of Painting. We will have colors on our palette much the same comprising nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Follow along, express yourself, and above all, have fun.
The Joy of Writing
It’s another fantastic day and I’m happy you’re here to write with me. Remember, we can all be poets and express ourselves. Because that’s what it’s really about: expressing ourselves. Just stay confident and stay writing.
Today we’re going to try something a little different. I’m going to walk you through writing a love poem. First off, we have some basic nouns, or body parts:
Face; lips; hands; hearts
Now, that you’ve got those, let’s consider what we might do to these different body parts by looking at verbs:
Brush; kiss; burn; break
And finally, I’d like you to imagine how you will describe these body parts with adjectives:
Pale; dark; trembling; firm
The first thing you’ll want to do with these nouns is pair them with verbs. Think: how will I interact with the person I love? I’ll give examples but you can put them anyway you like.
Brush face
Kiss lips
Burn hands
Break hearts
After this we can determine who is kissing lips and breaking hearts.
The simplest form to take for all of these is you, the writer:
I brush your face
I kiss your lips
I burn your hands
I break your heart
But you can just as easily enjoy these things with the person you love:
We brush faces
We kiss lips
We burn hands
We break hearts
Remember your adjectives? We haven’t forgotten them. Take them from the list and pair them up: pale, dark, trembling, firm.
I brush pale faces
I kiss dark lips
I burn trembling hands
I break firm hearts
I hope you’re writing along because there’s one more step. Let’s try different perspectives in the same poem: I, you, or we.
We brush dark faces
We kiss pale lips
I burn trembling hands
You break firm hearts
Feel free to change and rearrange these in any way you see fit. Every line doesn’t necessarily need an adjective.
I burn your hands
as we kiss lips
brushing dark faces and
breaking pale hearts
That’s it for today. Thank you so much for writing with me.
Remember to believe in your abilities and let me know how it turned out. I encourage you to share poems in the comment section or on your own blogs. Email me with any questions or concerns: beeditty@gmail.com
Until next time: stay confident and stay writing!
I read every piece of
inspiration about love
sipping wine like
verbal courage from
your hands but still
the honest truth of you
remains in every sigh
and daydream as the
hours feel like minutes:
I am less afraid of
plunging into unknown
depths and melting with
my hands on your horizon.
© Ben Ditmars 2014
Darling, I have seen
a golden light
blind better men
than me…
all that glitters
isn’t gold and
poets take the
long road home.
© Ben Ditmars 2014
Image by: Flickr
I haven’t written very many love poems lately. I used to write a fair amount, but for whatever reason I stopped. Tonight, I thought I’d give them another try.
****
the scent of linen
and a confidante are
cures for superannuated
hearts – and she is more
than radiant.
© Ben Ditmars 2014
Image by Flickr
Prompt No. 231 by “HeartSoup“