Is my style of poetry good or too ordinary?

Question

In my life some of my hearts desires were beauty and wisdom. It took a long time for me to see the aging me as beautiful. As my wisdom grew beauty became more than that slender shape or youthfullness but the beauty of the wisdom that has made me see all of lifes colors.

Answer 1

Depends on your age and maturity.
Words like "beauty" and "wisdom" don't have the same emotional impact as other images you might choose, simply because they are ordinary words that you are using in ordinary ways (except for the last line).

That being said, you are your own audience. If you find that your poetry speaks to you, that's all you need. Don't write poetry just to impress others (in other words, disregard every answer you get to this question).

Answer 2

Well, I am not going to be quite as harsh as others, but I must agree that it took me a while before I realized you posted a sample. It looked like a paragraph.
I am a writer, but not a poet. However, I have done some poetry classes, and I can tell that you didn't put enough work into this. You really need to make the adjectives UNUSUAL. In the utmost. And use personification. In one poem I wrote in my class (it was about a little, forgotten corner ina cupboard), I wrote that the cracks on the surface were tears of anguish, and dust settled in waves of white, to settle there and say goodnight. Now, I got some good praise for that, but I am not here to show off. I am showing something unusual, describing something in way that strikes the reader as different, and they will remember. Although i enjoy writing novels better than poetry, if you write a extraordinary poem, that is the purest and most beautiful form of the English language. Poets strive to conquer their language and use it in a beautiful, pure and interlocking manner. If you strive for that, then you are well on your way.

Answer 3

I think it's a little ordinary, to be honest. The idea is quite obvious and the language isn't good. Heavy on the cliches - heart's desires, life's colours etc. It also reads as prose rather than poetry, incidentally.

If I can offer a positive suggestion, perhaps you could try thinking about how to *show* your reader what you're thinking, rather than *telling* him or her. Poetry often works by setting up an image or a situation and allowing the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.

I've put a couple of links below to a selection of famous poems on aging and the body. I hope you might find them inspiring. :)

Answer 4

If what you posted is a sample, it doesn't even qualify as poetry, let alone good or ordinary. It doesn't even resemble any poetic form. It appears to be more a vaguely punctuated stream of consciousness paragraph.

I suggest that if you are serious about learning how to write poetry, you spend more time reading it (not the crap on the web, actual books).

Answer 5

It's too ordinary. I suggest that you read more contemporary poetry and poetry that you barely understand. Poetry isn't about being deliberately flowery. It's about genuine expression, not generic expressions and images that everyone has read before.

Answer 6

Good.