ChatGPT is a hot topic, but is it relevant to Creative Writing? Creative Writing is a craft that requires inspiration, imagination, and a lot of hard work. But would writers embrace a tool that could help them generate ideas, overcome writer’s block, and even write entire scenes? ChatGPT offers to do just that. In this…
Tag: poetry
How to Write Poetry: A Step-by-Step Guide.
Writing poetry is a great way to express yourself through language, imagery and emotion. While there are many different forms of poetry, each with its own unique rules and guidelines, there are also common principles that all poets should learn to write compelling poetry. This article will provide readers with step-by-step instructions on how to…
On Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.
Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry is notoriously difficult to translate. For non-German speakers, Rilke’s writing in Letters to a Young Poet is the closest we can get to the poet. It doesn’t only bring us closer to his writing style, but also the man and the general nature of poetry and writing. In Letters to a…
What’s the difference between poetry and prose?
The difference between poetry and prose sounds like a superfluous question until you’re a writer with a bunch of words on a page (or still in your head) and you don’t know if you’re writing a poem or a story. The difference isn’t in the length, for there’s that famous six-word story that Hemingway wrote…
Can Poetry be Taught?
I enrolled on a Creative Writing degree with a passion for poetry, several full notebooks of practice, and the hope that the place would show me how to become a poet. I knew it would take work, and I also knew that not everyone could learn. If a student didn’t have any interest and talent…
On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry.
In his book On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry, Friedrich Schiller made a distinction between ‘naive’ and ‘sentimental’ poets. Schiller’s categorization is not about the poetry itself, the themes within the poems, or the content, but about the poets themselves. He views them as contrasting personalities who represent two opposing sides of creativity like Kant’s antinomies. If you’ve heard this before, you’ll…
What is Iambic Pentameter? (what every writer must know)
The first thing I want to say here is that, on some level, every English speaker is already familiar with iambic meter. There’s a reason that great poets have used it for centuries. It’s natural and human. The tones and rhythm resemble our everyday speaking voice, so you could find yourself speaking in iambic meter,…