Poetry For Self Expression

1. Introduction: welcome to the course, writing poetry for self expression. In this course, you're going to learn how you can start writing poetry as a way off, getting your thoughts out of your mind and on to the paper. This is a great skill tohave because all of the time we get caught up in our emotions and the past and ruminations and a whole variety things going on in their mind. And we just want to get it out and heal and grow and sort of distance from our mind and our thoughts and what's going on in there. Poetry is great because the act of writing the poem, the act off looking at what's going on in our mind and distilling it into a few choice words and getting those words onto the paper really helps us to process it else's to detach and to see. And then once it's on the page, we can play around with. That whole process is a very therapeutic, so if you want to know how, you can stop turning your the turmoil, the tumult that's going on inside the mind into poetry into a form of self expression so you can grow until you can heal these courses for you, I'm gonna be sharing four of my poems and deep ing dick diving into the way that I wrote them, how I wrote them and the way that you can write poetry off those styles. Everything that I'll be going through is a form of self expression. So this is more the act off writing the poetry as opposed to like a more theoretical look at what poetry is. My name is Zachary Phillips Simon online mental health advocate, author and coach. And in this role, I've helped thousands of people move from a place of surviving to passionately thriving. One of the things that I like to do and my client like to do, is write poetry for self expression, so without further ado, let's get into it. 2. Why Write Poetry: So before we get into the actual act of writing the poetry, let's talk a little bit about why it's important and why I write poetry myself. So I come from a fairly traumatic past. I had an interesting upbringing. I ended up moving out of home at 15 and have been sort of dealing with the mental and practical ramifications of that choice ever since. There's good reasons that I moved out, but one of the things that I've been having to deal with them process is all of the thoughts and the issues that keep bubbling up over time. The mental health concerns the practical lack of understanding, the lack of a father figure in my life, all of these things, and it's very easy. I found to just sort of go from thing to thing to thing, to think things without considering stuff. But the problem is, that is, is that I found myself eventually breaking down Andi. I went on a bit of a journey of self discovery and that involved looking into myself introspect ing, seeing therapists, working at what I actually like looking after myself a whole variety of stuff and one of the things that I found very beneficial was to stop writing about things, writing about my past and how I'm feeling about things and down and then looking at that approach. So the reason I like poetry, particularly, is that you can do it in one sitting. So let's say I'm having a bad day and I'm not sure what I want to do with myself. And you know, there's good choices and bad choices and, you know, some bad choices might be like inebriation old in directing with the wrong people or you're harming whatever we're talking here. Some positive choices could be your forms of self care, like exercising while having a bath. Right? An actor. Poetry could be done in those times when I'm no feeling that great sit down and just free flow my thoughts onto the paper. This acts as a form of self expression, and it gets those thoughts you know, when you talk to a friend or a therapist or a family member of active problems. Ah, little the healing comes just by saying, Ah, lot of that expression is getting it out there. Feels good and, you know, people who play sports and asked of all varieties will have that same sort of feeling they're expressing themselves, They're getting it out. Dances and musicians and people are traceable to any variety will get this same sort of feeling. But I think there's next for benefit to writing with Woods and writing poetry, particularly the benefit live like is the poetry enables you to play with the specific Would that put words to those emotions and puts words to those feelings, And you can really not it down, you know, like maybe this is just the way my brain works and probably how your yours works, considering you're watching this video. But I couldn't move my body in certain ways. But these woods get very, very, very, very, very specific. As to the type of expression that I'm trying to get, You know, I can say that I'm angry or I'm frustrated. Well, im you know, happy or I'm alighted like we can get very specific as to the exact emotionality of how I'm feeling. And I find that the more specific I get when I'm expressing myself the mawr release, the better I feel, the more expression I get, it just it just feels better. And then what I find happens is, as I'm writing on, I'm sort of processing what's happened. And then once it's on the page and I'm playing with the structure and tweaking it around and choosing the best words and all that sort of stuff, it's no longer in my head. Whatever I'm dealing with, it's now on the page and it sort of external to me. I'm looking at it and I'm tweaking with the playing with. And then when I've created this totem, however, the poem sort of fits and we're going to the different times. It's sort of like it's over here now. I'm detached out looking back at it, and I feel great. And the reason I like poetry in particular. It is because you can. You can smash out a real small poem in 30 minutes and Al right, whereas writing a narrative or a book or a diary entry, old some stuff. It's really long fall. Where's the poetry conditionally doing like a couple of lines and you don't you know. So we'll talk about the different depths and levels and all this stuff, but it's quick, it's on the guard and it's hot, so without further it, let's get into it. 3. Misconceptions: So what? I just I want to just sort of deconstructed few misconceptions here. When I'm talking about poetry, I'm not talking about necessarily the stuff that you didn't school. I despise poetry in school because it was presented to me by these external people from years ago. You used words that made no sense to express emotions about, like an adult life that I didn't quite understand. It was just it was alien to me and that really drove me away from poetry for so long because it's like it was all the structures of rules, and it just it made no sense. It was a relevant to my life. No one really took the time to frame it to me of, like why I should care and the relevancy of it. And, you know, there are traditional poetic structures like, you know, the classic Shakespearean sonnets or all of these other sort of, you know, how coups, this sort of stuff that that you think of when you think of poetry. And yes, they are forms off expression and types of poetry that you can use. And I'm gonna put a couple of links to to show you the different stuff that you can use. But if you want a god that this But what I'm talking about in this video, Siri's is a more Maura sort of personal, subjective form of expression. You can use the structure if you like, and you can use traditional structures. If you look like the Shakespearean, some structure, like a haiku structure what you can create your own. We can go free. You don't have to follow any any of these things. It's It's a form of expression, like if you're watching someone dance and their there and they're just moving their body and they're getting something out of it and then it looks good. You're not going. Ah, well, they're not technically dancing. They stop, you don't care. You just like watching them dance to the music. That's how it wants to approach riding. I don't want you to approach it like I have to fix in destruction unless that approach to writing helps you because in, in terms of creativity, vice, just say to you just right. There's no structure there and some people love the freedom, and we'll talk about that in a later video. But some people prefer a particular structure, as in, you know, right. Used the sort of rhymes a limit yourself to these syllables or whatever. So it's about working out the type off writer. You are on the side of expression you prefer. Personally, I like a little bit of both. Sometimes I like to just free right. Sometimes I like to follow a structure. Sometimes I create a structure that I just make up in my mind. And then I fit the poem to that. I'm gonna give you some examples off my own poetry that operate on those different things. I'm also gonna put a couple of pictures and links down below to the more traditional and conceptual styles off poetry, for example, rhyming schemes. So if you want to go like a baby or a baby toe, work out like you know where which was gonna run with which words all the different tops of poetry like your your hike, Eugene narratives, your lyrics, you your experience. I was told that sort of stuff so you could really have a look down because there's this is so many different options that you can do that people have sort of worked out. And the reason I'm not gonna go into those All of those examples in this video is because one I don't know them all. I'm no, I don't have that level of knowledge. And to its that's more like poetry theory, as opposed to poetry writing. I'm interested in actually doing the self expression as opposed to learning the different tops. Now, Like I said, if you if you like a particular rhyme structure or like a a particular type of poetry and you want to dig deep into those by all means, don't deep looking to them look up examples off them and get really creative and experimental with them. But for the rest of this video, I'm gonna go sort of a bit more free up, show you my process and hopefully allow you to develop your own process. Whether that means you use rhyming structures and particular former, or if it just means you go, you are untied. That's up to you to bad expression on about getting the benefits off that expression 4. Does Quality Matter: Let's talk about quality. Let's talk about the dealing with the inner voice here. When you read a poet's work, it could get very intimidating. It's like I'm trying to write a fiction book right now. And when I read good fiction, I'm like, Oh my God, my writing sucks. Let's just put it into context of why we're riding, riding for self expression. So when you're writing it down, this voice will go. This sucks. This sucks. This sucks right and potentially worth worst thoughts. Don't listen to just writing. Go for one. You don't have to show anyone. You don't have to compare it to anyone because you know tastes, you know, completely subjective. So what you like someone else? Lighten up and we're No, it's not a competition. It's about getting it out. Are pure, are pure self expression, is just that. So when you're writing it, don't listen to. That voice is telling you to stop. You know that there's this. This is a little brightest courses like that little voice that's the voice of the devil. That's the voice off self doubt. That's the voice off atrophy. Ignore that resistance. Whatever, right? Just get down I'm gonna read you a couple of my poems now. And there's a chance that it might intimidate you in the sense of like, Oh, I couldn't do that sort of thing. Okay, fine. I couldn't write the poems that you're gonna run. I don't want you to listen to what I'm going to do and go. Oh, I couldn't do that five years ago. I couldn't do that is not about the skill level. I look at the poetry that I wrote years ago. And like, from a technical perspective, I'm like, Well, I could make that bell. I'm not gonna bother rewriting or anything like that. But I look at him like I could I could I could do it better. No, from a technical riding perspective, my grasp of languages. But the act of writing it when I did for one got me better at writing. But to it it was the form of self expression, those with words that came out in the way that they came out then and if I had have compared it to my future riding or to other people's writing would never start. So, like I said, you don't need to share it with anyone. It's just you ignore that voice and get it out on the page. And you can always fix it in post, right? If you want to get it to a level where you can share it with people don't have to. But if you do, he doesn't have to come out perfect. First time it moment, but likely uses that. You gonna come out and play with it? You're gonna express it, Yeah. 5. Poetry As Expression: all the polls are right, a form of expression, of some sort of internal emotion that I want to just explore, create, develop, investigate or get out. Right? So the poems that I'm going to read to you now are all within that sort of field, so all of them have that self expression aspect. But I'm going to read you four different poems over the next few videos, and they construct the nature of the problem. Is it out set out and why? I chose to write that particular poem, and each problem will give you a different example off possibilities that I use. I use a variety of different ones, like I said, but open you up to the different world of possibilities that you could potentially explore . Okay, so the next few videos I'll be sharing and then deconstructing each poem 6. Eg 1: Simple Structure: Okay, so the first poem is called Choose wisely, and this one is a simple narrative structure that's four lines and the second and the fourth line, the last word of those to rhyme, and it's a form of self expression, so choose wisely. What do you think it will be Okay, Because thinking. So take your anxiety away. How do you know what happened to you? Because knowing so is all you can do. What makes you certain it wouldn't be a bad day? Because you get down on your knees and pray you don't even believe in the power of positive thought. If it was someone else you'd say they methods wrote that they had just is likely as another to undergo pain, loss and all. Yes, to suffer yet for you. You commit yourself this one kind of fiction because it allows yourself to function with renewed conviction. But what happens when the charms and mind games failed? What will happen with a lot of courses, you know, while don't go thinking that was the lies that the message here is something to despise. It's merely a warning to get your house in order because eventually life will throw it into disorder. Look up the numbers applying to your life. Statistically speaking, you'll go through civilised rough. But it doesn't feel this way. You were somehow special. That's just your eager talking. With the words of the devil, you will reap what you sow. You'll get what you deserve. The actions you take now detail what life will serve. Looking at past and trace life back what you did then put you on this track, so choose wisely. So the background sort of feeling that I was feeling at the time of writing this was bad stuff was happening. And I felt myself wishing that I had more faith wishing that I had a religious conviction that I could fall upon and believe. And that was like the other part of me was looking at that going, Yeah, but if you were to do that, you'd be living inherently in contradiction, because when you see other people doing that, it doesn't make sense to you, you know, talking about this idea off, wanting to get down and pray and have that positive thought, because that's all I can do. That's all I felt that I could do at the time, and I had that desire to get I equally saw at the same time that were I to have someone else doing that. It wouldn't make sense to me. It would seem like they're just trying to trick themselves. It would seem that, you know, like I address that later. What would happen when the mind games failed? What would happen when those prayers don't work? Then what do you let with left with so sort of in this this dark space of going that's that's happening? I want something to fix it. I want hope. I want faith. I want you know, it's something to come on. And if it did work, what happens when that failed? Buddha, would I have that renewed convictions? I was trying to express that sort of mess, all feelings onto the page. Now I should say, when I'm writing these problems and I'll put a link down below total the poem so you can read this one as I'm going. When I was riding that I didn't choose destruction, it sort of had this idea, and then it sort of came to me that I wanted to do in that simple rhyme structure. Why do you think? Why do you think it will be okay? Because thinking So take your anxiety away. Very simple. And I decided to just write it in that full man. Now, how did I practically do this? I wrote down Just just got generally down on the page. And rather than going for the rhyme straight up, sometimes they come straight up. Sometimes it's just the thoughts and the feelings that I'm like. OK, well, I want a thought I want I want a word that rhymes with okay, that that that suggests getting rid of something And the matches Write it down. And then when I'm thinking about that as I come back to it, as I've written, the whole problem might come back to was like, OK, I need a word that rhymes. Okay, He and then I'll substitute a way in those two words wrong. Or if I couldn't figure that out of my change, it will be okay. I could change. It will be okay to being What makes you think it will be fine Now the last word has to run with Fine. Does that sort of makes sense that Oh, get the idea and the expression down. They don't come up with the top of structural poem to have. Then I'll play with Woods, particularly now. Sometimes the poem just comes. Sometimes I'm playing with the word. Sometimes the structure comes sometimes. Don't go. I want to put this thought into destruction. But for this poem it was I was feeling all of those chaotic thoughts. I wanted to express it out, and then I write it down. So, like I said, click the link and you can actually read the poem and follow along. Replay this video if you need to tow watch the As I'm saying it to read through, I'll just read through it yourself and have a little go at that sile simple rhyming structure. Now, obviously, this poem goes for quite a while. You could just do the one the 1st 4 lines. That's good. Stop right. You don't have to get it to any level of standard 7. Eg 2: Flow: So the next top off poetry that I'm going to share with you, I call it sort of flood. They might be technical names, but what? I'm gonna go with Flow. And this this poem is called Tripping Now. Basically, I was feeling quite dissociated at the time. I was not quite prison, and I just felt my mind tripping and slipping away. And I felt like the oneness tripping and slipping came I just flowed And there is a lot of rhyming structure, but it sort of twists and tweaks. I encourage you to pull up the, you know, click the link down below. That's got this poll so you can read along as you go, because it will sound like I'm just saying one big, long sentence. But I've got a structure that each few words is another line breaks is like banging, naming May Maimane down the page. So open it up. Have a read with me True My days of slipping I be tripping over myself over my words Sentimental thoughts I'm mental mental state lost forms of bait Can't wait. They have a compensate. I'm lost searching for you searching for new in a preview in Lewis success. I'm a mess. Such stress, much duress brains compressed into something different. I'm indifferent, Maleficent A power against the world against myself. I'm self destructive, created in chaos, constructing it in how persuasive self pity I'd be tripping this day. Be slipping Now I'm living my thoughts onto paper. No sense, just nonsense. Ah, floor a recompense from the memories from the pain. So I start off my days a trip and I'll be sleeping. I'm sort of talking about how I'm feeling as I'm riding it. It's like trying to get my brain onto the paint right now, bank. And then sort of feeling how I'm feeling. I'm talking about it, saying that I'm a mass. I'm in stress. I'm feeling these self destructive all of this stuff. And then as I keep riding, it's like I stopped writing about the fact that I'm writing. I'd be tripping, I'm slipping. Now I'm living my thoughts onto paper, so it's like it started with how I was feeling. And then the act of writing this poetry brought me back into the present moment. I'm no longer tripping. I'm no longest feeling like I'm slipping. I'm in the moment I'm now. And that was part of the self expression part of that healing part of that that journey, that writing these put me out now once again, it didn't come out like this. It came out pretty. This one Lets sort of just came out as I was writing, because it just got into that flow, ignored all of the other stuff and was able to get it out. Now it's it's it's something, this style of poetry, this sort of flow poetry. I mean, I'm exploring because it's it's just about just getting stuff out onto the page. Now there is some rhyming structure is going on here, but it's not like I'm going a B A B. I'm not doing a certain amount of words per line. I'm just getting it out there and sort of loosely connecting each thing to tell a story Journey to tell each little little bit. Now I sort of there are rhymes and there's also thematic connections, but once again, it's no quiet planned. I prefer that sort of free flowing structure in this for this sort of style of thing. So for this, if you want to try this style of poem. Just you feel that overwhelming connection but overwhelming emotion, that overwhelming sort of feeling I just describe and you can you can get very basic with it. I feel bad now I'm feeling sad like I'm going super basic. You, you know, I don't want to get mad, De stop Just expressing how you're feeling now. Those are just very basic rhyme structure there. But you could see how you could just take that down a path, right? No matter what you're feeling started with, you know I'm feeling this way or I started it with my days of slipping because I felt like I was just watching the days just slip away. Now I tweaked it slipping, tripping, You know, you could stop playing with taking the words often have your rhyme structure there, but it's just about going well, what's in my brain right now? Starting a flow and not caring about the end. When I first wrote those first words, I didn't know where this problem is going to end. Give it a try 8. Eg 3: Restrictions: So some of my poetry. I like to be very constrictive with the structure. So the previous poem, the float home No structure. Just right this next home. I'm gonna show you an example of when I was very restrictive, very restrictive and try to fit into a specific form. So pull up the poem called Pandemic so you can read along and you can see what I'm doing now, once again, all my poetry's about how I'm feeling in the moment or over time, the pandemic palm things courses recorded during the coronavirus outbreak. I wanted to express Helen personally feeling about the outbreak in the impacts, but also about how I'm seeing other people relate to the outbreaks and impact. So that was my sort of intentional want to express that, But in terms of the actual structure, if you look at it, I've chosen this structure just once again. The structure sort of popped into my mind And what that would be fun to try. It's fairly complex, so you don't have to try such challenging structures, but by all means go for if you look, I start off with four words in the line. Then three then true, then one, then one word in two words and three words than forwards. So that's the lines, the number of words per line and each word. The end off the line rhymes with the next word. So 4321 all of the last words arriving 1234 all of those words arriving and the whole thing is telling a story now. I don't know if that's a technical structure, Might bay. It's just something that I thought would be fun to play with. The challenge of putting it into that structure was fun, so I pull up the poem called Pandemic and that's really our minds were racing. Our minds were racing Amoud, oscillating endlessly, contemplating ruminating, anxiety and insert variety spreading through society. Bored with no variety. Stay home and wait. Call you mate. Think straight commiserates. Pretend online. Spend. Try to comprehend how this ever happened. Presidents be acting competent, their faces prominent acting dominant, imminent. What? Moving slow just for sure, Really Don't know. Still, the CONTINUOUSLY interview. Securing their revenue sweet run debut. The other two corruption, excess consumption designed to function, greed and false assumption. Poor little down destroy the crown and town drown free. We be living in glee. If we just agree to act as one, make it dumb. Leave no out run, no in terms off the story structure here I started off with sort of how I'm personally feeling my mind's racing on your contemplating, ruminating. I see a lot of people feeling anxiety. People talking to me online there, they drinking a lot there, getting inebriated a lot. They're not sure what to do. This the chaos. And then you look externally and you see world leaders not really acting that competently in some countries and depending on your your personal public politics. But the point isn't the politik political views its people feel like that. So people are feeling that some leaders on acting that confident that they just filling up their coffers, that they're acting corrupted. And then there's a further push that it's like, Hey, this whole structure isn't working This drive to anarchy, Let's pull it all down. Let's let's start over and you know, a global pendant instead of being is pushed to like, Hey, we need to make a change. So I wanted to try and express all of that to this idea that how we are a society and personally, individually feeling, you know, like when you're feeling internally upsets like Well, let's strange something. So I had all those feelings running through my mind, and then I'm like, Let's put it onto the page now I could have chosen to do this is a flowing problem. I could have chose to do it with less structure. But for whatever reason, the structure of 43211234 and someone with the last words rhyming seem to fit now. The first draft of this poem was less structured. I didn't have it fully worked out. A lot of it just sort of came. And that comes with practice and skill. But a lot of it no love. Some of it waas a very hard challenge to get the story flowing with the individual words in that 1234321 structure that were also rhyming. So you can see that like I put a lot of restrictions on myself. No, that's it is restrictive, obviously is very hard to go to to do that. But that was quite challenging and the challenge was doable from me. So I said that challenge for myself. That was hard but possible now that that that challenge made the form of expression fun, it made me really focus in the moment brought into the president was like I was like, going Okay, how can I get to these next part of stories if you notice if you go to the line that says presents be acting confident, they faces prominent acting dominant, imminent, one moving slow if you notice. I'm sort of using the line gap to jump to a different, uh, end rhyme sound to be able to continue the story on. So I had to really think about how I was gonna go break down each individual right and then put it into be able to flow into the next room. So it's not like the sort of with such a structural approach, it just comes out. But once again, in terms of actual practically writing it, get as much of it down as possible, work out the thoughts, think about it, get it down and then tweak review re review until I made a perfect well, no, not perfect. But like as good as I could do it. It's funny. I feel like on the topic of being perfection, right? You're never gonna get the perfect thing no matter what you do. Number. What happens? You know, player place. The perfect game. No book is perfect. No, art is perfect. No expressions. Perfect. But you can get true. I level of perfection. That is enough. If you if you get a 90% done, that's great. Because the thing is, let's say you make it perfect. Now, in a year's time with practice, that's no longer going to be perfect in the sense that I went back and looked at my old poems. They suck by my current standards. Should I read? Brought them. Should be constantly looking back over tweaking between him taking intriguing them to make them perfect. It would be being in and left messages provision. Instead, I got okay. This is as good as I could get it. Now full stop. Move on. I accept it. Yeah, if you're worried about trying to tweak play with it as much as you like, that part of the fun. But there comes a time where you have to just put that final full stop on it and just move on. Yeah, 9. Eg 4: Pure Expression 1: the final sort of poetry that I want to suggest to you is I like to call it true expression or pure expression. And this sort of poetry is really the only sort of poetry that I actually like to read myself. I don't read much poetry. I like to write it, but I find that when I'm reading, it has to be by someone that's a master of the craft. And and it has to be a particular type of poetry that I like and the sort of poetry that I like to read. Is this more sort of telling a story, telling a narrative as as succinctly as possible with, you know, like perfect word choice. Like we said in the previous video, As perfect as I get it, Um, but not really caring for rhyme or structure, just expressing like a piece of reality, a moment of time, a pure thought. That's what I'm sort of going for. Now. I want to read you this with that build up, and you feel like it doesn't quite match that it's never going to. It's what I'm aiming for. I'm not trying in this in this sort of project, is this sort of pure expression. Ensure expression, property. I'm not trying to be perfect trying to get out as best as I can this moment, this event, this idea on my head onto the page and have it there now in terms of structure, it's free flowing in terms of the words it's free flowing. But I'm trying to be a succinct and clear with my words so that the person reads it and it's as brief as possible and evocative as possible with the weather I'm trying to get across. So it pull up the poem that says I am constant change Now the back story to this is I saw a mean pop up on on Instagram that's basically said I delete. You know, I delete my posts because I'm not who I was four minutes ago. The idea being that you post something on and then you move changes and you don't feel like that person anymore. I can I can I can work with this and then thank this thought just came. I am constant change. Who am I other than constant change? Thoughts come and go. Same with emotion, memory and desire. I'm not who I am. I'm no who I was a moment ago and who I am. I lost. I am caused that change. I am the threat of time. Birth to death, Ever changing, ever growing never the same. I am constant change. I accept this change. Embrace it, lean into it. Therefore, I want to leave my past. It was may just as much as my decision to just as much as my desire to delete it. Who knows what I will think in four minutes? I am constant change. The idea being that I know that a part of me knows that the feelings, the emotions, the words the things that I'm doing right now is one version of me in in the future. In four minutes, in a day, in a week, in a year I'll look back and go. Oh, that's what I need to like that That's not May, but a different part of me knows that I am all of that. I am me in this moment I'm me Then I am me In the future I am the flow of change. I am the change. So the stuff that I've done in the parts back to the poetry. Why don't rave, Revisit And I didn't know lets the stuff he's found in this poem because that was me. Then this is me now I will be different in the future if I made a bad mental state who I feel I am is different to who? I who I waas when I'm posting something happy, right? I am that change I am. All of those things will once so one of this poem to express the idea that I am change And then that's projecting that message across Andi. I wanted to basically sort of solidified for myself that when I am in a bad state that weren't lost, you know, this too shall pass. But also what? I'm in a good state that were lost. This too shall pass. I am constant change with this poem with this style of politics, this sort of pure expression style Have an idea in your mind on just let it come Let a floor get down on the page. Just don't worry about being as brief as possible And once you got it on the page, you look at it and they might be a few thoughts Focus on one sort of four off that free riding that you did and drill down on that. You're really gonna buy structure now. Okay. Can you pull some words out? Can you check? Replace a sentence with one word, Can you? Can you can you make a paragraph of four like a whole concept into a couple of sentences or one sentence or one word? Right. So, for example, I'm constant change. I'm the threat of time. Birth to death. Birth to death implies every instance over the lifetime. Johnny, Johnny. Out of like it's it's a deep. There's a lot of words that you could replace birth to death with the birth death works for So it's about getting a smallest possible. Now you could go. I'm threat of time life because life is from birth to death. But for me, the word life doesn't quite do the justice over the journey. Birth to death tells me something different to the world life. See how I'm making those choices to go, Okay? Life life sort of encapsulates what I'm meaning, But birth death is the better word for that. Okay, even just looking back over this now, as I'm reading it, I'm like I could change a tweak it. I couldn't I could reduce it. I couldn't think. Think it a bit better, right? And that's that constant editing mind. Now am I gonna go back and tweet this? No, Um, I'm gonna record this video to t change, you know, to to make it. So it's used the bear version or delayed the a little bit. Where I made a mistake. No, that's me. Sometimes I misread sometimes I would look back over and I want to tweak it. All of that's me. That whole four process is expressed in the words I am constant change. 10. Naming Poems: Let's talk a little bit of that naming the poem. Now I've given you four of my poems and a lot of time. The name I like to just sort of look through the pole and sort of pull the name of the poem from the VB words in the poem tripping right. I'd be tripping etcetera with the with the I'm constant changes its in there, right, but the one pandemic. That's one word that it describes the whole thing, and the title serves a purpose to explain what I'm doing in the whole poem. This whole problem is about pandemic, even though in that problem I didn't use that word, right? So there's a couple of purchase he if you're struggling, but you don't have to name it first up, I like the idea of naming it because, like that, the act of naming it is like a meaning poem itself. What is the smallest amount of words I can use to express this thought? True pandemic, right? I am constant change. Yeah, I'm trying to get a smaller words possible to express the thought that the whole problem accepts Don't have to name, but if you do play around with it often times I name it after I've written it. Yeah, so you'll write the poem than you look over. But other times the name comes to me and I'll be like, huh? Okay, that's a cool name. And then the then I want to do a poem down that path. It doesn't really matter either way, but naming it conserve a couple of purpose is to give the reader a context of what you're gonna talk about in the sense of pandemic. Okay, I get it. I know what I know what this problem is about. Or it could be the summary or doesn't need to be there. Don't stress too much about it. Okay? You don't have to worry about the names. Other times I'll have the poem, and then I'll leave it and then I'll come back to it the next day with a fresh eyes will review it and go. OK, cool. This is the name. And then it just comes. Yeah. Don't stress about the night 11. Practical Tips: Okay, so let's talk about how to actually practically get the time in space to do the poetry. Where you gonna ride it? How you gonna get the time? How do you What do you do? I've done a few courses on establishing hats and morning routines and daily rituals and all this other stuff. So I strongly encourage you to check out those courses on skills that I got on those on those things. Because if you establish a routine with rotting me personally, I find that if I get up and do the same thing, it helps me to No, that, you know, like doing my exercise in the morning during my meditation. Then I sit down to write that it sort of primes me for success. You will have different things you want to do. But I can't suggest strongly enough developing a morning routine because if you go, I wake up. I do this. I do this. I do this now. Your morning routine will be different. Mind you Might. 18 1st coffee. You might want to Naughty. I don't know. It's up to you. But work out what works best for you and start trying to incorporate that into your day because the more you do this, the more you write, the more you'll start writing. It's like it's like a flexing a muscle. It's like you're you're working out the writing part of your brain. Establish it into your routine In terms of a practical sense, I like to I actually had to practically write the poem. There's a few different options. The notes function on your phone is great, but with a caveat. It's great because it's just it always on you and you can scroll down and you can sort of format and you can play with it. That's what I typically use. And then I email it to myself. Look at it on the laptop and tweak. I don't like handwritten notes because my handwriting is atrocious. But that being said, sometimes I will take a pin and nope, Ed and do it and then rewrite it up on the laptop. Now, the reason why I had the ass tricks with the phone is that your phone is very destructive. If you're trying to write poetry and you click Facebook or a notification pop sample, whatever else you're no longer writing. You're not doing these other things. That's not conducive to creativity That's not conducive to connecting to that flow state. So you sort of have to have the discipline to not do anything else other than that. So that's you. Maybe switch your phone to airplane mode, maybe pin a note pad. It's up to you. Shred onto your laptop. But once again, the Internets there, that finding what works for you if you think you'll be struggle by distractions. No cannon pen. Okay, Um, I also like to write. Sometimes I'll take the petting pen or a voice recorder or my phone on go for a walk and I'll just my brain flow. Let my brain sit, and then I'll just squat where I am and start riding. That could work to some people. Also find that having a dedic designated space, you know, a room, a little sort of shell for Hubble, the desk, whatever that they're writing space to be good. They might have a particular ritual that they do before they write, you know, put particular intense in the room or particular showed or say an affirmation of themselves . You might find that doing that like I sort of a ritual laid into riding works for you. People might just helping. And they just gonna start riding now because that's when it's time experiment. Try different things. I would also suggest that you have the conversation with the family members of the people living with you and being like, Hey, when I'm in this place when I'm doing this thing when I'm in my writing, Hubble were some sort of sign. When I'm doing this, please understand me. And then you justify that by saying, if you just like this is an act off healing aura therapy expression after this half an hour hour, whatever, I'm gonna come out a better person. I'm gonna come out common, nicer, more relaxed. Howdy. Howdy, actually, in other people's best interests to give you this space, Put a sign on your door. Do not disturb. Treat it like therapy treated like work. Treat it like it's important because it is. There's really wash this whole video. It would suck to have this get into the zone. Just have someone coming into trapped you as a side note. From a creativity perspective, there's some argument that suggests that takes a good half an hour, 45 minutes to get into his own. You know what this is for people writing novels, for example. So if you're writing a novel, for example, and you were an hour in and someone comes in and interrupts you for five minutes just super quick, they have now set you back that happen out of 45 minutes, right? Founded poetry from in the middle of sort of flowing. And then something happened. That home is gone. I don't like I could sort of feel like wanting to sort of dreaded back up, and occasionally I can. But most of the time it's gone, and I'm just It makes me upset because that's like a form of expression that sort of lost to the void, like without getting to sort of metaphysical on you. It's like That's now gone. I can no longer like that form of expression is just dump now might cycle back around. It's never gonna come out the way it was gonna come out, so I put some on the door, tell the people what you're doing, go for the walk, practically work out so you could not distract yourself with the Internet. And that's all stuff 12. Class Project: Okay. So, unsurprisingly, the class project will be for you to write a poem. Now look at all the different styles and approaches and methods that I suggested. Get a structure will have no structure. It doesn't matter. Okay, but I'm gonna put a time limit on it. All right? As in spend no more than 30 minutes. I mean, older, I would say five. But if this is your first time riding upon fire, spend no more than 30 minutes and just get something down. It could be just a simple four line palm with line number two in line number four. Romney. It could be a simple expression. Okay, get it down on the page. Now, By all means, if you get just get into the groove and you're going longer than 30 minutes. Just just keep going. Now, what to do with this with this project? If you want to share the poem that you end up writing or even if it's just the scary of 1/2 dumb thing, whatever it is, by all means, feel free to share. So you'll be like my poem, and then you'll share the palm. That's like you can skip that part. And if you do, just leave that blank. Oh, so you know, I'm choosing them to shed a poem When I want you to write Is after you've written that poem . If you choose to share it. How you felt? Dure ing the writing off the poem? What came up in your mind? Where did you have doubts? Did it feel good? Do you want to play with something? Did it make you inspire you to do more? Did you hate the process? Tell me about how it made you feel during the act of writing. Write that down. And then also under that, if you've got any questions or queries or concerns because he is the price to do it in the class project section you'll share your home. If you want to tell me about the process of how it felt any other sort of stuff and then any questions you've got for me, I'm technically all conceptually. Just ask them there and I'll respond to you again. Have a little bit of dollar about your pope or about the questions about how you feeling. Yeah, Give it a try. Unless you Actually it's very easy to look at all of these projects on Skill show. Where were you doing? I'm going. Oh, give it a shot. What's the point of wasting this whole using this whole time that you've committed to this video? If you're not gonna try, I know it's intimidating. I know it's daunting, but give it a shot you may enjoy. 13. What Now: Okay, So what should you do with your poems once you've got them multiple options. Now, given what I do as an online middle of that decade and all the stuff I'm doing online, I take an effort to share basically all the stuff that I create. For whatever reason, I'm comfortable sharing Mina World and the sort of the depths of the darkness. However, I'm hyper aware that that's not normal. Most people wanna hold onto it or hide from it or push it away or they're ashamed and all this other stuff. And I'm not saying I'm not. All of those things, I guess, is a combination of my past. I'm able to more easily move beyond that, and and this is a won't process. The longer I do this, the more comfortable I am sharing. I found personally that there's a benefit from sharing it because then I can connect him related. I can talk about it more, and by giving it to the world and sort of letting it go, it sort of steps me back from it. So if may I find that how it helps to share now, if you are that way inclined by all means. You know, start off a medium blow and shape poetry. Put it on the Facebook wool, write a book and share it with people. What? You can choose to share this if you like, but you don't have to. I know other people that write poetry that no one ever sees, and it's like they've got this book, that it's basically like a private journal, under lock and key sort of thing that only they say only they look at, Well, maybe they run, and they never looked back at it again. It's your choice. There's a couple of options and choose to share. You could just share it widely to the world could choose to share it to people in your life . You can choose to keep it privately, fear that no one even sees. No one even knows that you're writing poetry. There are options. Ah, lot of noble people. Some people choose to write the poem, and the act of writing is the good feelings is the therapy is the hell right is the expression must have got that poem will choose to like, almost ritually destroyed ritually remove it in the sense off they will make like a fire and but breathe poem and sort of let it go into the fire. All you throw it into the waves sort of thing will be flushed down the toilet. Berry, right? The idea penises that they've gotten it out, the processing, all that sort of stuff, and they're letting it go literally burning it. That's a great approach if if if that's what you need to do to get that expression, if you write about something that's really emotional, and you, like this needs to be out of me and just go great, I like to have them to look back over because I personally find them looking back over reviewing it. You know, if you remember the change, Paul, I'm over here now. I'm the new person. When I look back at my old poetry, I can remember that I was in that mental state. But I'm over here now so that I can look at it from a more adult, more safer, more detached, more secure perspective. Knowing that I'm no longer this person, it helps me to reframe those events, so I like toe. If you check out the writing course, that I'll put a link down below on school share. I talked about this process off. You're reviewing and looking back and re read doing your work, really looking over it. To get that feeling. That's just me. Personally. Do whatever you like. It's completely up to you. You don't have to share it. You don't have to do anything with it in terms of just pure expression. You could literally just write down stuff on the page. Throw it out. We're talking about self expression. I mean, if you think about it, if you use a dancing example, you know, people dance the self expression under deaths, but you wouldn't film and record and re watch. Every dance that you did doesn't make sense, so you don't have to keep in record and watch and share every poll. Me do it. It's up to you. Okay, whatever works better to give you what you're wanting to get from it. Choose that 14. Quick Recap & Resources: Okay, so let's talk some further resources. The first one I want to, I want to suggest that you check out is my website exactly how King Philip's dot com. And from there you'll see a poetry tab and you can check out all the poems that I'm posting online. I haven't uploaded all of the poems that I have written on slowly getting through them. But from there you'll be able to check out and read some of the poetry that I've got just to give you a different ideas of those sort of options for self-expression if you wanted to look into it more. On the topic of that, I've got a book code words on a page. It's actually called words on a page, killing your inner demons. Third, poetry, killing Reagan and demonstrate puncture. The idea being that all of these filtering my mind, get them onto the page and expresses. So there's, I think maybe 15 to £20 plus a little bit about the book and why you're doing all that sort of stuff. And if you're interested in looking into my poetry and a bit more depth instead of the y. That's a great resource to just check out because it's all of these different styles of poems on the page as a form of expression. I would also suggest that you hit over to medium, Medium.com. It's a place that people put a whole bunch of writing of a variety of topics up. And from there, you can either use that as a place to post your own poetry. Is growing poetry community there. Or you can search and read poetry of a variety of different types. So it's great for reading and checking out, but also posting your own. There's a couple of books that I would suggest that you checkout now in terms of poetry books by other people, the only poet that I can recommend to you off the top of my head. And this is like I said, personal preference is David White. Now he's got a few different books, but David whites, the bell on the blackboard is a poem that I really like. And he's got a collection of different poetry and books that I connect to quite well. You might be different in terms of an actual like resources of professional poets that really famous. That's up to you to discover and search. If you search on medium, if you search, you know, other people that talk about poetry by all means I recommend David. Why don't put a link down to one of his books down below. But it's all personal preference. Like I said in the start, I'm not a fan of a whole Shakespearian old school stuff. I did. Just unconnected to it. Find stuff that you connect to if you want that inspiration. But like I said, I started writing poetry before I started reading it. So you don't necessarily need to look into it. It's up to you. The monetary resources will be the War of app by Steven Pressfield. Now this is more about if you're wanting to get a creative project up and running. If you've got like a, you want to write erotic poetry book here, I just want to write poetry in general. This book will help you to clarify did Claudia life and get it on the page and get stuck down and work out all the different reasons why you can't do the work. Get the poetry onto the page, check it out more about the final book is daily rituals, how lawsuits work. So I'll put a link down below to this one. But basically this covers a whole variety of different artist's, of a variety of different styles. And it sort of gives you the daily rituals as to how they write. Because this is more about talking about how to actually get the practical time to do the writing. Checkup those books, if you look down in the Resources tab or in the introduction section, there'll be a thing that says Further Resources and I'll put links to all of my poetry that I read out in this course, as well as my website and my book, as well as all of those books that I just mentioned. So check them out and have an explorer. Little quick recap here. We do poetry as a way to express ourselves. I don't want you to get too caught up in the structural styles or the traditional approaches or whatever. Get a pin, get a page, and start writing. The act of doing the writing is the expression. You can choose to be very restrictive in your structure and you'll style and you're running patterns. You can choose to be very free. It's up to you and experiment with both and play with some old use the structures that I've suggested use the traditional structures. Look at famous poems and sort of look at their, how they, how they doing it. Create your own. It doesn't matter. The idea is get it onto the page. I encourage you to check out all the resources that I suggested and I encourage you to give it a try. Do the class project wrought upon the share, talk about it. Let's get this happening. Above us. You'll see a thing that says Write and reviewed. Click that it really does help me let me know what you thought of this, of this course. Well, if you prefer more poems, would have you preferred less. What do you want me to talk about? Do you want me to do a second follow-up to this where I sort of go deeper into my, into my poetry. Let me know. If you look what I'm doing here on Skillshare, follow me and you'll get the notifications for all of the stuff that I'm doing moving forward. And if you want to see what I'm doing, my podcasts, my books, all that sort of stuff, hit over to my website at Zachary Hoffman Phillips.com, or follow me on social media to connect at Zak III fields everywhere. Chief