What's Your Poetry Signature?

I think my signature is more at the subtext level. Or should I say that is what I would like to believe about it. I was trying to express what I thought that subtext was but the sentence wasn't intelligible. I will work on it

I went to write a elegy today and happened upon two visual ones I find myself inclined to keep using;

Graveyards become stone gardens,

And spirits represented through bubbles.

Hmmm. I don't know that I have a signature. I try many poetic devices and styles. Perhaps that's a clue.

• Like Adam mentioned above I too have been using a lot of refrains. I like to use syllabic.

• One trait I know I do and it pisses me off but I can't break the habbit is my lines don't really flow on well. I need to work on enjambments.

• I use very inconsistant inversions, about every fourth or fifth line.

• I'm not good at long running metaphors, that is something I'd like to improve on too. Mine only last a line or two, not a whole poem.

That is about all I can think of that defines a 'me' style of poem.

Recently I’ve found myself using a lot of refrains and mirroring! I don’t even notice I am doing it until I read my recent poems back in one sitting and realised I’ve adopted a new favourite technique 😅

I write in rhyme as a general but not always. I usually have either a theme of dark poetry, love and romance or society. I tend to write about my experiences or other peoples at times, but normally my own.

I call my poetry style 'diaristic' (I'm aware this isn't a real thing😂) I generally only write about my own experiences and memories.

In terms of structure style, I like to play with sentence structure, so the end of one line can be the beginning of, or contradict the next. I'm sure there's a term for it, I just don't know it.

A lot of the metaphors etc I use come from past careers, or areas I'm interested in. And my poem titles are often obscure references that you'll only figure out by looking up the word - or if you were privvy to the experience being discussed.

I am not sure that I have any tells because I have many styles. I have shared that I have integrated after years of living with disassociative identity disorder. Before I started healing, I had written a few poems, but during the rigors of therapy, I became prolific and my styles varied depending on which part of ME was out. Poetry gave me a voice, a way to put words to bottled up feelings. So many of my pieces are tough truths through which I expressed feelings of anger, fear, and heartbreak. Interspersed a pieces for children, humorous pieces (from the part of me I call Lizzie), poems for my departed father, life in NYC, and nature pieces. In short, I'm all over the place. Now that I am more integrated, I don't write as much, but I still love it.

I don't think I have any tells per se (or at least I wouldn't know because I don't observe that sort of thing myself) but I have been told that my poetry is reminiscent of the style of the Romantics/Pre-Raphaelites and have been compared to other writers such as Swinburne and Rossetti by a fellow colleague.

@Shen Friebe I guess you got it right. Most of my poems don't go past 10 or 12 lines. I don't know if it's because I'm lazy or it's my signature. TBH I don't really like the idea of a signature so I better start changing my style. Maybe write an epic or something. Probably not...

I use the words “broken” and “bleeding” a lot lol. As far as a ”signature” goes, I have been told I write very descriptive poems so maybe that’s it

I don’t know if I have a signature. I’m told time and time again my poetry has personality, but I’m not even sure I know what that means 😂

As a fan of your work, I can definitely spot a Rachel poem as soon as I see one. They typically begin with a single observation or a description of an event that goes on to indicate something more significant in the speaker's life. They also come across as very personal, like diary entries or stream-of-consciousness about similar topics. So I think it is safe to say you have your own style for sure, but it all depends on if you are content with having a streamlined style and tone that recurs throughout all your work, and if you are also content with not going down another avenue of style and experimenting with your craft, which as an artist, you are not obliged to do but it's the sort of thing we're encouraged to do. Ultimately, it's up to you, though, and you shouldn't have to re-invent yourself or your craft if that just isn't you. With someone as talented as yourself, i think you can certainly excel at both.

Having said that, I think we all have our own distinctive styles, too: Mark's poems tend to be descriptive and concise, Rob has his sonnets written in the old English style, Bendy his unique use of language and subject matters, Ken his use of very refined and romantic language, and I think I use the same tone and rhythm in many of my poems. I believe Mark told me at one point that my rhyming poems have a 'distinctive style' to them. But I think for the most part, it's important that we preserve a bit of ourselves in our poetry. Poetry is personal even if what we are writing about is abstract, because it expresses a part of ourselves that we choose to distinguish, or can't help but distinguish. Just like the poems themselves, we can also reveal a lot about ourselves by the way we write.