Before I started studying the Open University's A215 Creative Writing course I had never tried to write poetry, even though I've written several short stories and novellas. For TMA3 of A215 I had to write 40 lines of poetry. How I write poetry With one exception, which was my first attempt, all of my poems start as a freewrite on the subject, title or prompt. Normally I discard the first paragraph of the freewrite because it is overly literal, I use words and phrases from the remainder to form the basis of the first draft of a poem. Unlike my prose, where I typically draft in scrivener, the poetry starts on paper or a basic text editor. Subsequent drafts use the track changes feaure in a word processor. This allows me to see how each poem develops. Each draft is its…
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