Tips for writing in your own voice/style

[hushed urchin]

Write. And write. And write. We learn more from our mistakes than a perfect product.

Then see how you can break up your poetry.

I am a big believer that a single word can change the feeling of a poem.

Something that can help is seeing how you can break up your poetry structure based on meaning. It will start shaping your style.

For example.

Breaking and returning we thrashed into opposite shores. But mine were sharper and more jagged. And then — silence.

becomes

Breaking and returning—
we thrashed
into opposite shores,

but mine—
was sharper,
more jagged—
like bones
hitting broken stones.

And then…

silence.

Here we can see my sentence begin to break down to incorporate breaks for breaths, meaning, and additional lines for flow (great opportunities to incorporate rhetorics/literacy devices) creating the final product.

[twin valley]

@hushed urchin I’ve been writing probably one poem per day, and stylistically it’s a lot like your latter example, but I still feel like it’s super similar to Neruda/Taplin (like him, but I think that’s a little controversial haha). The prose is easy to match these two, but I think it still kinda just feels like I’m copying them because I’m too influenced by them.

Do you maybe have a good poet you could recommend that’s like vastly different than those two?

Also appreciate your feedback already, super helpful 🙂‍↕️

[hushed urchin]

Honestly, I don’t know enough established poets to suggest someone totally opposite to Neruda or Taplin. I mostly write from feeling, so my style ends up being very different from theirs anyway.

For example, here’s another short piece I wrote:

Take my lungs so you can breathe,
for you have died for me.

Of all the things I have seen,
I’ve seen skies you wouldn’t believe.

I want nothing in this life but to be with you…
I wished it was you…

You
||—dead—||
are so much better alive.

For you stood in the way
of me ever loving anyone else…

It doesn’t really resemble Neruda or Taplin because I naturally lean towards more elegy-like imagery rather than nature metaphors or soft, minimalist lines.

And that’s the point I was trying to make earlier: when you write often, your own emotional patterns start to surface on their own. You don’t have to force it. Your voice develops as you pay attention to the choices you make subconsciously — tone, rhythm, the images you reach for, the emotions you return to.

Reading widely can help, but your voice ultimately comes from the patterns you naturally repeat, not from trying to escape influence entirely.

[slow verge]

oh my goodness

this is beautiful

[hushed urchin]

thank you

[slow verge]

I would love to read more of ur pieces

[hushed urchin]

I am happy to share them

[twin valley]

ohh this is really good advice

Your voice develops as you pay attention to the choices you make subconsciously — tone, rhythm, the images you reach for, the emotions you return to.

[hushed urchin]

though i would have to repost them again 😅

[twin valley]

maybe i've just been too self-conscious of my voice sounding too much like them, but i guess if my voice resonates with their writing it's ok anyways

maybe i just needa move away from the same metaphors then, cause neruda loves nature metaphors lmao

i guess i tend to do the same thing, here's an excerpt

Your tenderness was sunlight
on a man who had lived too long in the dark.
Your softness terrified me
because I did not know
how to be touched
without preparing for the blow.
Each time you reached for me,
I tightened,
braced,
choked on the belief
that nothing so warm
could belong to me for long.

needa move away from comparing it to the sea, sun, nature, etc. i guess lmao

[hushed urchin]

i say it's definitely okay as resonance is literally defined when two separate things meet at the same wavelength and personally i think it's not a bad thing.

[twin valley]

yeah that's definitely fair

was too much in my head about it i guess haha

[hushed urchin]

It's relatable. I was in that phase for awhile too.

[hushed urchin]

i think there is somethings really nice about writing mythic poetry
perhaps its not not really about comparing it but using it as is

i call it "upgrade"

[twin valley]

romance is just the easiest to me because i just think about past relationships and draw from that haha

by mythic do you mean like mythology mythic?

[hushed urchin]

guiltyyyy

but also because i use a fair amount in mine

i also think it is widely used because everyone hasa some understanding of it

[twin valley]

lover boy performative male era fr 🙂‍↕️

[hushed urchin]

so true my most recent work was about "Poseidon"

[twin valley]

ohhh is there somewhere i can read it?

i tried writing about nature once but it was so bad so i threw it away lmfao

[hushed urchin]

I'll dm you ladies about it

[twin valley]

wait i'm a man

[hushed urchin]

ahhhhhh I'm so sorry 😖 i need to read tags more

but yes, as I was saying. rather than using metaphors to tell something use it to show