How to Write Good Poetry

by A. J. Kramer

I don't know what makes a good article, but I do know what makes a good poem. All poetry tips can be placed into three categories that I believe are essential for a good poem. 1.) The poem must be a meaningful, necessary part of your personal process. 2.)


It must appeal to one's aesthetic senses. 3.) It must be read.

I'll admit it, I've written some bad poetry. Usually this has been a result of stagnation in my spiritual process, when what I have learned no longer provides a mentally orgasmic epiphany, yet I write it anyway, like I have already written before. They may be slightly new words, but they don't take me anywhere new. Someone reading the poem may not know that it is bad, but in the context of my life I know that it is so. So the first rule of writing good poetry is that it must be truly important to you.

The beauty of good poetry flows naturally with the process, in my experience anyway. Rhymes and rhythms are visceral experiences that help the ideas flow. Onomatopoeia becomes all there is as words seem like biological eruptions. The sounds of words, their placement on the page, all the possible ways to play with attention and ambiguities of meaning... There is no need to know what you want to say before you start to write, but if there are no words for part of the experience, it is okay to make them up. Good poetry results from a freedom of expression that has no boundaries but those the poet chooses. Classical forms can be so free; likewise, free form might be limiting.

After a poem has been created it exists on its own. You may live or die. You may tweak some words or never visit it again. If the poem is lucky, someone will find it and read it. It will be interpreted by someone other than the author. They will find in it some of the same things as the author, and some new things as well. If it is a good poem is will inspire something. As the inspiration spreads, poem to poem to action of some kind, to perhaps another poem, another action-- it will live on in some form, perhaps quite removed from the original. But if it inspires, it is good.

Seven R's of Poetry

The Seven Rs

Following is a list of hints compiled by well known Australian writer Libby Hathorn.

Read

Delight in intricate patterns of sounds and sense that intensify meaning. Read silently for yourself, or read aloud for the sheer pleasure of hearing the music of poetry.You'll see the art of poetry is to compress and crystallize ideas. Have a poetry book by your side (at 821 in any library) and dip into it! I promise you'll find something for every mood.

Respond

Excitement is one of the great aims of poetry writing. We can respond in many ways. It's emotional when we feel things the poet expresses. It's sensual when we respond to the music of words. It's intellectual when we think about the ideas the poet expresses. Readers respond to your poems in the same way. So try to excite their minds with honest feelings and ideas expressed thoughtfully.

Reveal

Poetry reveals all of life to you in a succinct and often surprising way.The play, the fun, the gloom and doom, the pain, the joy, the wit, the shock, the cunning, the sense, the truth! But you must give it time. And give yourself time to be still, to be alone and to dream. You can reveal your own ideas and your special feelings by trying to express them in the shortest, most powerful way, always with the very best words you can find. This might mean editing and re-editing to get it just right!

Recollect

Recall the times when you may have felt deeply. Use these emotions in your writing. Remember to tune into your five senses - taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing - and use these to help express your experiences to others. This will make your work more vivid! Learn bits of poetry that strike a chord in you, by heart. Get acquainted with poetical language and then it will flow more easily for you.

Reconnect

Reconnect to the special language of poetry; the three Rs of rhyme, rhythm and repetition.To rhyme or not? Sometimes blank verse suits the subject and honesty is all. It's true that rhyme does have an obvious appeal so experiment with both. Read poems aloud for rhythm. Sometimes breaking the rhythm can give a good dramatic effect. We chant, clap, stamp because rhythm appeals. Make use of the beat. Repetition causes excitement in poetry. Experiment with repeating words or whole lines in your poems.

Revel

Revel in making new connections. Play with language to make these fresh connections to surprise people. (Use the language of metaphor). 'My life is a journey' may not be true in the literal sense – but it's a pleasing comparison and we have to stretch our imaginations a little to understand it. Sometimes unlikely connections or opposing ones make us notice and really think. For example, Alexander Pope talks of humankind. "Create half to rise, and half to fall'/Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all". Opposites can be exciting.

Rejoice

Read poetry often and write it, most of all, for yourself. Poets don't write poetry to pass exams (or to help you pass exams). They write from an inner need to examine the human heart, to look more closely at human emotions and to express ideas in the best possible way. If you read a lot of poetry, it develops your thinking and imaginative abilities.

You'll write better poetry, and in doing so develop the ability to think more deeply and to communicate your thoughts with ease.

Yours in poetry,
Libby Hathorn

Stream of consciousness: how to get ideas for writing

When you are a writer, sometimes you have to dig pretty deep into the bottom of the barrel for ideas. Sometimes, when you reach way down deep into the bottom of the barrel, your hand comes back out with nothing. These are the times when we reach out for help to unclog our weary writer minds and get the ball rolling again. Writer’s block is one of those things you will try anything to remedy. One valuable way for breaking through a block or getting ideas for writing is the stream of consciousness method, or free writing. Stream of consciousness helps you to get your mind rolling and your pen moving, and the best part is, it doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. In fact, it is better if your stream of consciousness writing is not used for anything but the clearing of cobwebs and if you do find a few useable ideas inside, great!

To start a stream of consciousness exercise, sit quietly in a room with nothing but a pen and paper. Put your pen to the page and start writing whatever comes to your mind. Now it doesn’t matter if it makes sense, if you write in complete sentences, if you use correct grammar, complete a thought or just make noises! Just keep writing, no matter what it is that comes to your mind. If your mind becomes totally blank, just write something like, ‘my mind is blank, my mind is blank’, just keep writing that until something else pops into your head. This is a good way to clear junk out of your head, you know, the day to day minutia that clouds our thinking from time to time. Do this exercise for at least thirty minutes and save your writings in a journal. You can go back and look through your stream of consciousness exercise to glean writing ideas from them later on.

If you are having a lot of trouble with this exercise you may need to focus in on something to help you out. Pick a topic to stream on, for example, fishing, and write everything you can think of on this subject whether it be a trip with your dad when you were young or a commercial about a singing bass that hangs on your wall. Fill a page with things about fishing. Focused stream of consciousness writing can be a great help when you are working on a project that requires more exploration of a subject. If you are so blocked that you can’t even think of a topic to stream on, just turn on the television and write about the first subject you see.

Focused stream of consciousness writing can be saved in another journal and when you are working on projects that involve any of your themes, you can look to them for a little insight. The best way to open your stream of consciousness is to just start writing and write about anything, don’t worry about how good or bad it is because no one is going to read it except for you. This is your one chance to just hang loose with yourself and not worry if you have all of your I’s dotted and T’s crossed, have fun with it!

10 Tips for Writing Poetry

1. Pay attention to the world around you—little things, big things, people, animals, buildings, events, etc. What do you see, hear, taste, smell, feel?

2. Listen to words and sentences. What kind of music do they have? How is the music of poetry different from the music of songs?



3. Read all kinds of poetry. Which poems do you like and why?



4. Read what you write out loud. How does it sound? How could it sound better?



5. Ask yourself: does this poem have to rhyme? Would it be good or better if it didn’t? If it should rhyme, what kind of rhyme would be best? (For example, 1st and 2nd lines rhyme; 3rd and 4th lines rhyme—“Roses are red/So is your head/Violets are blue/So is your shoe"; or 1st and 3rd lines rhyme; 2nd and 4th lines rhyme—“What is your name?/Who is your mother?/This poem is quite lame/I should try another.”

6. Ask yourself: does this poem sound phoney? Don’t stick in big words or extra words just because you think a poem ought to have them.



7. A title is part of a poem. It can tell you what the poem is about. It can even be another line of the poem. 



8. Before you write, think about what you want your whole poem to say.



9. If you end up saying something else, that’s okay, too. Poet X.J. Kennedy says, “You intend to write a poem about dogs, say, and poodle is the first word you’re going to find a rhyme for. You might want to talk about police dogs, Saint Bernards, and terriers, but your need for a rhyme will lead you to noodle and strudel. The darned poem will make you forget about dogs and write about food instead.”



10. Go wild. Be funny. Be serious. Be whatever you want! Use your imagination, your own way of seeing.

Marilyn Singer Home Page

A Bit About Meter

by Eric

Ever wonder why some rhyming poems just seem to be forced, or the flow starts out well and then goes bad?

Remember: It's the meter that matters.

I think it's helpful to begin by talking about music meter.

In standard 4/4 music, we have four beats per measure.

Say the following out loud:

one two three four / one two three four

Often, the first beat will be accentuated:

ONE two three four / ONE two three four

Sometimes, other beats will be accentuated:

one TWO three four / one TWO three four
or:
one two THREE four / one two THREE four

It doesn't matter which beats are accentuated, so long as it is consistent thruout.


Now let's extrapolate this to poetry:

The boy woke up at eight o'clock
He found his shoes but not his socks

There are 8 syllables in each line, corresponding to the eight musical beats I just discussed.

the BOY woke up / at EIGHT o'clock
one TWO three four / one TWO three four

he FOUND his shoes / but NOT his socks
one TWO three four / one TWO three four

This gets slightly more complicated for longer lines:

T'was the night before Christmas and all through the house.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse

In this case, there are 12 syllables or (beats) in each line: It is easiest to use + for accentuated syllables and - for non-accentuated syllables.

t'was the NIGHT be-fore CHRIST-mas and ALL through the HOUSE,
--+--+--+--+
not a CREA-ture was STIR-ring, not E-ven a MOUSE
--+--+--+--+

Notice how the + and - line up perfectly in these two lines.

Try tapping the beats (syllables) on a desk and you'll quickly notice a rhythm developing.

Notice how every third beat is accentuated. That is very similar to a waltz in music: 3/4 time.

Once you get the idea of meter, you can easily learn about iambic pentameter and other rhyming metered forms.

Poetry inspiration: making your life experiences into poems

So, you want to write poetry but you don’t know where to start or what to write about? Where did most of the great poets take their inspiration for poetry from? –LIFE! If you base your poetry on your life experiences, your options are endless! Now, you may be thinking that your life is not that exciting and you may not be able to see much in the way of inspiring writings coming forth from your personal experiences. Life is THE experience. Everyday you see things and experience things and it is these experiences that can be put into your poetry.

Poetry can be about anything, it can take many different forms and it certainly doesn’t need to rhyme! When we think of poetry we tend to think of beautiful phrases and flowing verses. We think of “windy willows” and “cascading mountains”, the things that are usually out of reach of our everyday lifestyle. Poetry doesn’t just have to be about great wonders; it can be about the simplest of things. Don’t aim for eloquent wording and imaginative details; focus more on what you know. Now obviously writing about doing your laundry doesn’t sound like anything worth reading, but if it was something you really felt compelled to write about, you could make it something fantastic. The idea is to write about things that you know, things that you have experienced, and things that you feel. Feelings and emotions are often the best source of inspiration for poetry and we can write about them well because WE HAVE experienced them. Too often we overlook many of our life experiences when searching for inspiration for writings because them seem unexciting and uneventful, but it is very often these so called “unexciting” experiences that create the best inspiration.

Try taking a different perspective at the things in your life. Look upon the everyday things you do as experiences and you will be surprised at what inspires you to write. Something you saw yesterday, or something your child said, or something you are feeling, could bring forth the most imaginative piece of writing. It is all in how you look at your experiences. The poems that really touch people with their depth and honesty are the poems written by people who had experienced what they wrote about. They wrote from the heart. They wrote about what the saw, smeled, touched and most importantly felt and this is the key to remember when writing poetry. Whether good or bad, life is one great experience and it is every great poet’s inspiration!

Pick up your pen, and just write about something you saw or felt today. Just place a few ideas on the paper and take a look a how poetical than can sound! You will be surprised at what you can achieve. If you write about you and your feelings and your experiences, it will become simpler to find inspiration for your poetry and your poems will take on a new depth. Your experiences will be able to make the most eloquent poetry even if you are not necessarily a natural born writer. This is possible because if you are the one that has had the experience, you will know just how to explain and share your experience and feelings about it in your poetry. That is something that no one else will be able to do the same way as you!

eassortment.com

Productivity Pointers — From a Poet?

I remember starting a new job abut 10 years ago and being introduced to an employee who was plugging away in his cubicle. As we moved out of earshot, the manager who was showing me around remarked, "Good guy, but a bit of a poet."

"I'm not sure I follow you," I replied, bristling internally at the insult to poetry (and to my new coworker).

"Not very productive," the manager said, "but easy to work with."

I've always had a reputation for being highly productive at work, but I also write poetry in my spare time. And, unlike this manager, I don't consider them entirely separate enterprises. Indeed, a well-channeled poetic sensibility is part of what makes me efficient. I joked about that dynamic in one of my first blog posts, "The Art of the Self-Imposed Deadline," which was about personal scheduling. But the relevance goes beyond that. Productive endeavors of all kinds — from getting through a rote task, to organizing your workday, to pacing a project, to crafting a big presentation or report — are not unlike well-executed poems. Here, I believe, are the commonalities:

1. A compelling opener. No matter what work lies ahead of you, an engaging first step sets the right tone. Start out with something intriguing that's intrinsic to, not distracting from, the task. I often choose a peculiar element that has the potential to inject humor (however dark) into the mission.

2. Elements of surprise. Too much predictability is deadly, even though it can appear to go hand-in-hand with brevity and efficiency. Let yourself make discoveries along the way rather than follow a rigid script. Just remember that there's a difference between a detour, which can derail you, and what poets sometimes call a "happy accident," which actually speeds you along despite the surprise.

3. Repetition as pleasure, not drudgery. To be sure, almost any endeavor requires some redundancy. The key is to feel like you're on a roll. Doing things in threes sometimes works, as I've discussed before in this blog. Or sometimes it helps to make certain parts into a game.

4. Endings that are new beginnings. Being exhausted and being energized are not mutually exclusive — the right balance is what athletes call "the good kind of tired." Similarly, effective poems tax you as they take you somewhere, but they also make you appreciate the journey and want to explore the next horizon. It might be a stretch for your job-related task to reach the same level of artistic edification, but if you build personal challenges into your plan, you'll feel like you've grown. And, chances are, the audience for your work will feel like that, too.

How do you find the poetry in your productive endeavors?

STEVEN DEMAIO