Login
|
Join PoetrySoup
Home
Submit Poems
Login
Sign Up
Member Home
My Poems
My Quotes
My Profile & Settings
My Inboxes
My Outboxes
Soup Mail
Contests
Poems
Poets
Famous Poems
Famous Poets
Dictionary
Types of Poems
Quotes
Short Stories
Articles
Forum
Blogs
Poem of the Day
New Poems
Resources
Syllable Counter
Anthology
Grammar Check
Greeting Card Maker
Classifieds
☰
Member Area
Member Home
My Profile and Settings
My Poems
My Quotes
My Short Stories
My Articles
My Comments Inboxes
My Comments Outboxes
Soup Mail
Poetry Contests
Contest Results/Status
Followers
Poems of Poets I Follow
Friend Builder
Soup Social
Poetry Forum
New/Upcoming Features
The Wall
Soup Facebook Page
Who is Online
Link to Us
Member Poems
Poems - Best New
Poems - Best
Poems - by Topic
Poems - Top 100
Poems - New (All)
Poems - New (PM)
Poems - New by Poet
Poems - Random
Poems - Read
Poems - Unread
Member Poets
Poets - Best New
Poets - New
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems
Poets - Top 100 Most Poems Recent
Poets - Top 100 Community
Poets - Top 100 Contest
Famous Poems
Famous Poems - African American
Famous Poems - Best
Famous Poems - Classical
Famous Poems - English
Famous Poems - Haiku
Famous Poems - Love
Famous Poems - Short
Famous Poems - Top 100
Famous Poets
Famous Poets - Most Popular
Famous Poets - Top 100
Famous Poets - Best
Famous Poets - Women
Famous Poets - African American
Famous Poets - Beat
Famous Poets - Cinquain
Famous Poets - Classical
Famous Poets - English
Famous Poets - Haiku
Famous Poets - Hindi
Famous Poets - Jewish
Famous Poets - Love
Famous Poets - Metaphysical
Famous Poets - Modern
Famous Poets - Punjabi
Famous Poets - Romantic
Famous Poets - Spanish
Famous Poets - Suicidal
Famous Poets - Urdu
Famous Poets - War
Poetry Resources
Anagrams
Bible
Character Counter
Cliché Finder
Common Words
Copyright Information
Grammar
Grammar Checker
Homonym
Homophones
How to Write a Poem
Lyrics
Love Poem Generator
New Poetic Forms
Plagiarism Checker
Poetics
Poetry Art
Poetry News (World )
Publishing
Random Word Generator
SodaCoffee Magazine
Spell Checker
Store
What is Good Poetry?
Word Counter
Home
»
Articles
»
Is poetry messing up with your writing skills?
Is poetry messing up with your writing skills?
by
Vicky Tsiluma
I
love
poetry
and I have been engaging in it since I was twelve. Discovering the haven that is PoetrySoup greatly increased my curiosity and enabled me to try out different forms and styles of writing. The first time I wrote a Villanelle, I almost gave up in tears. It was such a foreign concept to me. However, a couple of writes later, and suddenly it is no longer overwhelming. Rhyme is still a headache as I prefer writing down my thoughts as they come and that is a hard thing to do when I have to place certain words in certain places. I love the freedom that is Free verse. It enables me manipulate words and device my own sentence structure, which is all good except when it starts encroaching on my daily writing.
I love writing articles and I thought I was fairly good at it. That is until people started pointing out my ‘weird sentence structures’ and ‘unusual word formations’. Apparently you are not allowed to
form
your own words when it comes to formal writing. Words like ‘aurafixation’ and ‘misinformizing’ cannot be placed in articles. The thing with poetry is that it affords you a freedom to express yourself and break the rules of convention. It is this freedom that lacks in structured formal writing. However, when the lines of poetry and article writing get blurred, then you are in trouble. How then can you rectify the situation so to speak?
First of all, forget about freedom when it comes to article writing. Go back to the basics of writing and ensure you follow the rules. Unless you are a superstar, forget about forming your own words. If the words get highlighted by a spell checker, do not ignore the correction. If you are like me and you don’t like going over work you have already written, get someone else to do it for you. Ensure that your phrases are not symbolic in meaning. Phrases such as ‘stomp on my heart’ or ‘birthing oblivion’ should not be used lightly especially in scientific forums. Learn to differentiate between creativity and blatantly ignoring writing rules.
Of course, you can use unusual expressions in your articles; you just need to be sure to frame them as illustrations. This will enrich your writing and still enable you to use your creativity without breaking standard rules. Poetry should not be seen as exclusive to article writing. As a matter of fact, being conscious of what you write and your audience, should make your writing better. As you learn to reconcile your poetry to your other forms of writing, you will arrive at a ‘voice’ that is uniquely yours. And that is what will make you a great poet and writer.