Poetry Inspiration

I don’t have much experience writing poetry (or any, really), so when I signed up for this class one of my biggest questions was, well, what am I going to write about? A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a wikipedia article about Turritopsis Dohrnii, a jellyfish that has the ability to revert itself back to sexual immaturity after it progresses in age–basically, the freaking thing is immortal. I wrote a really rough draft of a poem about this jellyfish for our second poetry exercise, and that’s when I realized: weird, random facts can be a good source of inspiration for poetry.

A few other oddities I’ve stumbled across since this semester started: ducks quack in accents dependent on the region they live in, people living in Sardinia consider a cheese with live maggots a black-market delicacy, and in 2008 a penguin was knighted in Norway. Sometimes, just googling “weird facts” will uncover a whole hoard of poetry ideas, while other times I’ll look through random articles on Wikipedia in hopes of stumbling across something interesting enough to write about.

I know a lot of people rely on their own personal experience or history for writing ideas, but I always think it’s fun to create an entire poem/story/essay off of whatever random thing you happen to trip across on the internet.

I’d love to hear what you guys think! Where does everyone else find poetry inspiration?

5 Replies to “Poetry Inspiration”

  1. I loved what your second to last paragraph said! I feel that a lot of times I try to write poetry as if it’s nonfiction. I think back to certain events, people, or emotions that have shaped me. But for this class so far I’ve been trying to just write . I’m trying to find random topics and perspectives to write about. I actually just wrote a poem about a woman who was being abused by her husband, just to honestly see if I could. I don’t know how well it came out, however, it was so interesting to push myself out of my comfort zone.

    I like your idea of just googling weird facts! I think perhaps for our next assignment I’ll do that! Thanks!

  2. I completely agree that weird facts can make great poems. However, as someone who will continue to write poems on the same three topics until I feel like I’ve somehow resolved a part of myself through them, I prefer to use weird facts as images. I’m not very good at writing about things I have no true emotional attachment too (good or bad) but some weird facts can be used as killer images or extensive metaphors for things that are personal (or just personal to the poem).

    1. I’m with you on this, Savannah. Sometimes I hear really weird facts and think ” that would go really well in a poem about my childhood bike,” or something like that. I find it pretty hard to see a factoid and think about writing a poem based solely on that. I do see a lot of things that I think would make really good metaphors though. I sometimes browse through bird books or star guides or glean things from geology friends that I think might fit as commentaries on life or human nature or what have you. Did you know that something like 90% of bats in New York State are dead of White Nose Fungus? There’s a poem in there somewhere.

  3. Weird facts = the best poems.
    Tumblr is a goldmine for weird/random facts & I have a whole document of bizarre facts on my computer. I had about eight tabs open on my computer the other day, trying to write a poem based on decellurization, etc. I also thieve (to link back to Erin’s post about Poetry Thievery) a lot of stuff from books–there’s a fictional newspaper title from a manuscript I read during my internship that I want to turn into a poem.

  4. I find that when I’m struggling, I often look at artwork or photographs to help me find more inspiration. I used to write a lot of ekphrastic poetry which is always just a fun exercise to do.

    Nowadays I find inspiration in really odd places: doing the dishes, washing my hair, etc. I think the domesticity of these items have been influencing the domesticity in my work too.

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