Since I wrote in the another thread a while ago about my interest in writing some more music with lyrics, I have been trying to write something, and well, im not coming out with much. I don't really understand how to write poetry, I mean I was told once that a random rambling that I did one time about pizza was poetry, but it didn't seem like it at all, so its gotten me confused. What do would you recommend I do? I listen to a lot of music, but I don't pick up words and such majority of the time...
I would say that you should read poems and lyrics of all different sorts, including those you wouldn't normally read. Then, you might want to try freewriting, where you write whatever comes into your head for about a minute without pausing or rubbing out. As you're setting words to music, try and find a rhythm and research different song structures. But most importantly, just go for it and write about anything and everthing. Good luck! :icon_bigg
I'd use your favourite poets as style models; try to write how you think they would write a poem. Use your environment as your stimuli and write the first thing that comes into your head and keep going with it until you like what you've written. There are books on how to write poetry, too.
Just start by writing down anything that you want to write about and then refine it. Don't use words that you don't really understand or feel. Try and remove any words that don't add to what you're trying to say. Poetry and lyrics are a great way to play with words so say each word out loud and listen to each line you write. Once you have a few building blocks of words, lines, paragraphs, play around with them to create something with more structure. Then it's just a case of fine tuning, taking breaks from the writing to avoid getting frustrated or writers block. That's how I do it anyway. Hope it helps.
