Comments on: Make Sweet Poetry With Us

By: Lone Wolf

Lone Wolf — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:08:12 +0000

I like the mystery! I’d love to see your work in print one day!

By: llamatheist

llamatheist — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:44:16 +0000

I legitimately wrote a slam poem about toast when I was in high school. So many feelings.

By: Samantha

Samantha — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 04:42:33 +0000

I tried blackout poetry once, but I couldn’t figure out if I was supposed to already know what I wanted to say or not, and how I could black out words I might decide I want later! But I think I’ll try it again and try also not to be so uptight about it.

By: hematopoietry

hematopoietry — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 20:46:34 +0000

For the longest time (well, until I got to the pictures) I thought you were writing poetry as you were blacking out, and I was all: BRILLIANT. No, but after, you know, reading comprehension happened, blackout poetry made me think of Jonathan Safran-Foer’s Tree of Codes. Have you read it? He basically took Street of Crocodiles and literally cut out words to create a new story. I liked it. Anyway, with regards to poetry, I remember we once wrote found poems in 7th grade, from Elie Wiesel’s Night, and I remember how amazing it was to uncover poetry. Then I stopped having anything to do with poetry. But I might try this blackout poetry of which you speak. I’m pretty sharpie happy.

By: krf1117

krf1117 — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 04:35:01 +0000

tonight i sent a girl love notes across the table at a birthday party for someone i didn’t know and got her to take me to her house. we made suggestive blackout poetry from a car review article then went to her room and cuddled. it was probably one of the best nights of my life.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 03:19:45 +0000

Autostraddle, I really appreciate this article–it is really truly awesome–but I feel the need to point out that “slam poetry” isn’t really a form of poetry. I think the term Whitney is looking for is “spoken word,” which is any sort of poetry that is performed for an audience/out loud. Slam (as in “poetry slam”) is “a competition at which poets read or recite original work. These performances are then judged on a numeric scale by previously selected members of the audience” (concise definition via Wikipedia). I work with a lot of poets and as far as I know, slam poetry isn’t its own form–that term would just denote any sort of spoken word poetry performed in the context of a competition, specifically. But spoken word is the broader category I believe this article is referring to, and it doesn’t have to be competitive. And I LOVE spoken word and highly recommend that everyone get to a reading/open mic/slam at the first opportunity.

OKAY sorry to be nitpicky, I just hear a lot of confusion surrounding the meaning of “slam” so I wanted to clarify to the best of my knowledge…. but please correct me if I’m wrong!

Thanks again for the great article

By: Chandra

Chandra — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 01:55:32 +0000

I just said to someone the other day that I’m so over haikus, but these are great.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:53:35 +0000

Ahem.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Some poems don’t rhyme.
This is one of them.

Roses are orange,
Violets are green,
But nobody believes in
the flowers I’ve seen!

By: bookbound

bookbound — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 22:38:46 +0000

so I’m a fan of sarcastic haikus and wrote a series of queer ones (hai-Q’s?), including these:

If Rachel Maddow
was an action-movie star
she’d totes get the girl

Neil Patrick Harris
I fucking love your style
skinny ties, always

Actually, the clothes
don’t make the man. Neither
does having a dick.

Congratulations
on your marriage. Enjoy all
those rights I can’t have.

By: Beez

Beez — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 22:09:32 +0000

Also Andrea Gibson. Also feelings.

By: smohr

smohr — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 20:32:23 +0000

i’m putting this here bc i don’t know where else to put it

i can loose myself in your face
in each lovely curl of your hair
your smile keeps me awake
even when they all seem to care
too much. about what we do
how we do and where.

why would i want freedom
or walking hand in hand everywhere
with a lover that’s random
when i can be with you,
the only one true
to my heart and soul
when i can find in you
happiness i never thought
would one day be mine
today dear it’s ours, it’s yours.

i can’t desire a white dress
or some stranger in a suit
i’d have you in my bed
mine only mine your hand in mine
tight. sleeping tight
sneaking around and pretending to be friends
making the nights ours while the days
are consumed in laughters and endless
walks for no precise end

they say life can’t be constant
and in the dark they all smiled
i cried for a second but then remembered
that since you’re mine and the future is ours
nothing can define it or defy us
we don’t aim for survival.
in life we can only thrive.

i’m thirsty for your scent, your mouth
it’s not much hunger since food is disposable
it’s water thirst, by nature imposable
if one day in the desert, when the weather is way too hot
and there’s no one around and you know
the only thing coming your way is death
you think of water.
imagine it. embrace it. eat it. drown in it
to me love, you are it
my water, in a hot day, lost and alone in the desert.

they all hate the cold
i tend to miss it, this loneliness
that reminds me of what i was before us
so no day will pass
without me cherishing
the best thing in me,
You dear.

By: Beez

Beez — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 18:16:16 +0000

I spent my Friday night melting my brain and feeling it drip out of my ears trying to plan a short unit on Shakespearean sonnets for my freshmen. And THEN I learned about a man named Claude McKay who wrote a bunch of amazing sonnets who wrote amazing sonnets in the 1910′s and 20′s and my brain melted from bliss.

Subway Wind – Claude McKay

Far down, down through the city’s great gaunt gut
The gray train rushing bears the weary wind;
In the packed cars the fans the crowd’s breath cut,
Leaving the sick and heavy air behind.
And pale-cheeked children seek the upper door
To give their summer jackets to the breeze;
Their laugh is swallowed in the deafening roar
Of captive wind that moans for fields and seas;
Seas cooling warm where native schooners drift
Through sleepy waters, while gulls wheel and sweep,
Waiting for windy waves the keels to lift
Lightly among the islands of the deep;
Islands of lofy palm trees blooming white
That led their perfume to the tropic sea,
Where fields lie idle in the dew-drenched night,
And the Trades float above them fresh and free.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/claude-mckay#about