Nifty use for bad poetry:--)

A few weeks ago, I talked about using everything. When we write we have to draw on everything about life that we know. Then we have to add the stuff we don’t know, but that’s another post. I was going through the junk on my desk this morning and I ran across several poems. I wrote them while I was sitting here, lost as to what to add next to my juicy novel.

I was trying to set a romantic tone in my story and needed a little help. I don’t know about you but I don’t feel too sexy in my husband’s sweats and my old black slippers. I don’t want to change my clothes, so instead I try to change the mood. Writing love poems helps set the mood I need to write believable love scenes.

Use everything, including your poetry.

It adds to the story…or it can. Weaving your own poetry into a story gives you one more way to express yourself. You might be working on a character who needs something, but you aren’t sure what. Make that character a poet. It can be the MC or a bit player, it doesn’t matter. Now, find a way to write in the poetry. Maybe the character keeps a journal or maybe he writes it on bathroom walls.

I recently read Garrison Kiellor’s Love Me. It was great fun; he’s a funny guy. One of his supporting cast is a poet. At least in her mind she is. She is trying to unlock the deeper meanings of life through her poetry. She spends most of her time in the story bordering on suicide. If I wrote the kind of crap she did, I would be suicidal too.

The point is that Mr. Keillor made up some bad, bad verse and used it to his advantage. The scraps of paper stacked beside my laptop are dripping with bad poetry. I know just what to do with them too. Her name is Kay and she writes bad poetry for her fantasy lover…or something like that


Sherry Heidelberger-Blackburn (aka) Gwanny

Titled and posted by Speck cause blogger gremlins have invaded Gwanny's puter.