Poetry Relating to Music and Using Music to Write Freestyle Poems

How Poetry Relates to Music

Recently I joined twitter.  Somehow, I attracted a lot of followers (I have no idea how).  Many of the followers are musicians.  I am excited about this because music and poetry go hand in hand.  All kinds of music, from songs in every genre (i.e. Pop, Rock, Country, Heavy Metal, etc.,) to the music you make yourself on instruments like flutes and guitars and things is related to poetry.  Some people might say that popular genre music lyrics are not poetry, but I vehemently disagree.  A friend of mine once gave me hand written lyrics of “Name” by Goo Goo Dolls.  I hung it on my wall in my bedroom.  When people came over they often asked if I wrote that poem.  I was constantly replying “Nope, that’s a song they play on the radio.” Poetry relates to music in other ways. Obviously, many songs rhyme just like many poems do.  There is often a chorus in a song, and that can be used in a poem with a stanza that repeats over and over.

How to Write a Poem Freestyle with Music

In a previous blog post (https://authornatashagruss.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-to-start-writing-poetry-freestyle.html) I have written about writing poetry Freestyle.  One of the ways to write a poem freestyle that I didn’t mention that you could do is to listen to music to be inspired and then write a poem about that.  I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want anyone coming up with a poem that could be said to be plagiarized.  To avoid this, refrain from copying the exact words of the song you hear in your poem.  Another sure-fire way to avoid plagiarism is to listen solely to instrumental music, or play music on an instrument yourself.  To put writing poetry freestyle in practice I did a musical exercise in my poetry class.  I took some empty glass bottles and had everyone blow over the bottles to make instrumental music and then had them write a poem about it.  It was really fun, and a lot of great poems came out of it.

Celebrate music in poetry by reading or writing a poem with a chorus in it, or by writing a poem after listening to music, either in a popular genre or instrumentally.  Who knows, you might write lyrics you can sell to a musician for use in their work.

P.S. If you want to follow me on twitter you can go to https://twitter.com/natasha_gruss or follow @natasha_gruss.