You love poetry. That’s where we all begin – love of a good poem. Now, it’s time to write your own poems. But you hate what you’ve written. Now what?

1. Free Writing

After you’ve picked an interesting starting point for your poem, which can be as simple as the tree in your front yard, start writing. Write the good, write the bad, write what comes into your head. Soon, with practice, you’ll follow the path from something mundane to something interesting. Keep writing. Even after you think you’re done, keep writing. Magic can happen here and often does. It’s a bit of stream of consciousness, it’s a bit of free association, and it’s a bit of triggering the subsconscious. When you do finish, you’re not finished. See tip number seven.

2. Research

Find a topic that interests you and dive into the research. Whales? The violent crime rate? Farming techniques in the middle ages? Take notes. Learn your topic, so that when you do begin writing your poem, you have a feel for what it is you’re exploring. Although I often take copious notes during my research phase, I rarely use all of my research. It’s a jumping off point. It helps me understand the world that I’m writing about. And when I’m writing, I lean in to what I sense is important or interesting or needed in the poem. But doing your research can so often lend a texture to your poetry that you cannot get without it. It’s not essential, but it can make for rich details and bring your audience into a world that they had not yet explored.

3. Observe

So much good poetry centers around intense observation. Whatever it is you’re writing about, strive to really see it, and see it from all angles. Strip away your biases. Open those peepers and take it all in. Empathize. Observe. Write it all down. Then see tip number seven.

4. The Senses

While a poem does not often rest wholly in the physical realm, I believe it must be grounded there. We experience the world through our senses first. Use them. Most good poets are excellent at painting a strong visual image. But you can go beyond that with descriptions of taste, touch, sound and scent. Scent is such a powerful emotional tool. We connect to scent in subconcious ways that can trigger all kinds of feelings. Don’t underestimate the power of all five senses in your poem. That’s not to say you need to hit every sense in every poem, but only that you should be aware of your full arsenal of language and connection.

5. Metaphor

Oh the metaphor, sweet, sweet metaphor. Don’t let your poems idle in neutral with a single image. Complicate the idea in your poem, explore it, expand it with metaphor. Consider extending your metaphor across the whole poem, or use multiple metaphors to bring out your image/idea and make it feel more connected to the world at large.

6. Get Weird

Please don’t be normal. Writers with normal sensibilities should write essays or stories. (I kid! Sort of.) But in all seriousness, when you are writing poetry, let your mind and imagination take you to weird places. Make strange, and almost non-sensical, connections. You won’t keep every weird tangeant in your poem. But fortunately, it can all be made wonderful with tip number seven.

7. Edit

Once you’ve let your pen run rampant across the page, let it mellow for a day then return. What feels interesting, moving, powerful? As the poet, you get to establish your own criteria for what you think is important. But do have a yardstick. And then start shaping that poem. Yes, we’re cutting words out. But we’re also looking for opportunities to reshape and add to the poem as well. This is not to say that there are no great poems that come out fully baked and ready for publishing. But so much of the best poetry out there has been edited and re-edited. Editing allows us to take the fresh eyes of a new day and hone our poem until it shines. Mary Oliver once said, “In my own work, I usually revise through forty or fifty drafts of a poem before I begin to feel content with it.” Ama Codje writes, “Time is the first ingredient of my approach to revision; it allows me to re-see much more clearly than I’m able to immediately after I’ve drafted a poem.”¹ And of Anne Sexton, the The New Your Times wrote, “It is instructive to learn, for instance, that at certain periods in her life she revised endlessly, taking a poem through 20 or more drafts, while at other periods she wrote in a kind of white heat, two, three, even four poems a day.”²

As you train your measuring tools for what is good poetry in your writing, you’ll get better and better at knowing when a poem is truly done. Or at least done enough. Walt Whitman famously never stopped editing Leaves of Grass. No pressure.

¹https://www.ironhorsereview.com/single-post/7-contemporary-poets-on-revision

²https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/18/books/the-rise-and-fall-of-a-poet.html