Ten Steps to Better Poetry

We've all seen (and some of us surely have been) the fool with the notebook full of bloated, sorry verse. It's the person no one wants to be. Almost no one gets a worse rap than a Bad Poet, and even good poets shy away for fear of association. Bad poetry is pernicious. It ruins the credibility of good poets, and makes new poets skittish and embarrassed at what they do. It's a shame, as many of the worst crimes are avoidable with a bit of practice and effort.

So how can you avoid being the Bad Poet? Read on and learn.

Take a class

Writing poetry is a craft. There are skills involved in doing it well, and fundamentals to learn. Workshops and creative writing courses can help you build a solid foundation, as well as being a great place to share feedback and get pointers from instructors and other poets.

Read more poetry

Skilled writers tend to be readers. Pick up a good anthology, or a handful of chapbooks. Find a literary or poetry journal that you like and subscribe to it. The more you read and learn about poetry, the better you'll be at understanding technique, and picking out tips and tricks by example.

Practice

In his book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell speculates that exceptionally successful people in any field become successful through practice. Lots of it. In fact, the number he settles on is about 10,000 hours. Whether or not you happen to have 10,000 hours to spend, making time to write regularly will make writing poetry easier and more familiar.

Experiment with form

While formal poetry went somewhat out of vogue midway through the 20^th Century, there's still a place for it in every poet's toolbox. Writing to form is excellent practice because it forces a poet to experiment with language. Even if you never intend to publish a sonnet or a villanelle, writing one can be just the right sort of literary calisthenics to strengthen your literary muscles and keep your verse limber.

Experiment with language

Poetic syntax is not like prose syntax. Some rules - like conventions regarding word order - relax. Techniques that don't get used much in everyday speech and writing, like rhyme and meter, take center stage. Syllables become significant. In written poetry, the position of a word can be a signpost. Be creative, let yourself play. Obviously, this means you should avoid cliché. Common comparisons and turns of phrase make for very bland poetry.

Experiment with imagery

Good poetry evokes images that stay in your mind for a long time. One marvelous example might be William Carlos Williams's poem, "The Red Wheelbarrow." Stark and sparse, it still elicits a strong response, and even years later, I still remember reading it in class. The image is quite vivid. Embrace the senses. Give your readers pungent smells and vibrant colors, pierce their ears with sounds, and make them feel the tree bark beneath their fingers or taste the chilies in their mouths.

Be direct

What does poetry have to do with post cards, baseballs, and trains? It's supposed to go somewhere. That means being courageous in your writing and telling the reader - through imagery and creative language - where to go when they read it. Neither flexible syntax nor symbol is an excuse for being vague.

Which brings us, inevitably, to the topic of sentimentality.

While poetry is all about evoking feelings and images, there's a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this. You may be tempted, in your writing, to go on at length about love-this and love-that, to tell us all about your tear-stained letters or the heights your heart soars to, and to otherwise succumb to fits of soppy twee nonsense or bleak mopes.

Do not. Resist the urge. Sentimentality is lazy writing. Your poetry should make your readers feel things more or less spontaneously. It's like a magic trick or a joke; it loses its power to amaze or delight when it comes with instructions. Sentimentality is telling rather than showing, and it spoils the illusion. It is the turgid, bathos-ridden hallmark of the Bad Poet. Approach it at your peril.

Expand your vocabulary

Don't be shy about keeping a dictionary nearby, or using a thesaurus. Poets are word nerds who take great pleasure in learning more about the languages they write in. When you have a great vocabulary, you have more ways of saying things. Not only does this keep things fresh, but it makes writing to form easier when you need the right word or idea, but in a limited number of syllables.

Read it aloud

Poetry can look fantastic on the page. Some poems, including e e cummings's "l(a," rely on a visual cue, or punctuation, to be effective or comprehensible. Poetry in English, though, evolved from our oral tradition. Whether or not you write poetry with the intent that it should be read aloud, it's useful to know this. Lovers of poetry like to speak it, and to feel the words well up in their mouths. Reading your poetry aloud will also help you discover difficulties in rhyme, meter, and flow that might not be apparent on the page. This is another tool in your poet's toolbox. Use it.

Revise

Non-writers, as well as inexperienced writers, tend to think that writing a poem is easy. You sit down, write a bunch of lines of words down, et voila, you're finished. It's a charming fantasy, and once in a great while a poem may come out mostly right the first time around. In general, though, good poetry is made, not born. It goes through drafts. Just like essayists and authors, poets change words, try things out, and edit all the time. Revising isn't sexy or spontaneous, though writing a good first draft is one heck of a rush. It is, however, doing yourself and your words a service to ensure that they are the best words possible, and in the best possible order. Poetry is special, and good poetry is one of the most permanent things in the world. Shoddily-crafted poetry is like a bad tattoo. You don't want to get stuck with it.

So what else can you do? What other resources are available?
Check out magazines like Writer's Digest and Poetry. These are packed with great advice, as well as advertisements for books and workshops focused on making people better writers.

Dummies.com has an article on writing poetry that covers some of what I've said here, but has some other advice you may find useful.

Find and talk with local poets, especially if you can find someone who's been published in print, or someone active in your local poetry scene. Attend slam nights and readings. These are people who can share experiences and help you when you get stuck.