Jocelyn_Uasal
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Hiya! I've posted this elsewhere before but I think it's important for authors to learn more about the economy of words. I'm a poet before anything else, and I really think that learning to write modern poetry will improve anyone's writing. So yeah, here's the basics of what I learned in college, and the tips that have gotten me published across multiple literary journals.
Step by step we’ll go through everything amateur poets do wrong, and I will try to show just what is needed instead. Of course, poetry is a huge topic to handle, but in examining contemporary works there are but a few techniques you can use to bring your poem to the next level.
1. Do not center your poems:
To many, this should seem like an obvious, but to a less informed group maybe not so much. To center a poem is to age it nearly a hundred years and to try to make it look more poetic. When looking at poetry, you can almost feel a sense of professionalism in a left justified piece, and to prove my point, pick up any serious poetry book and find me one good centered poem. Most importantly, a left-justified piece also dramatically ends your lines, a technique we will further discuss as it can drastically alter the meaning of your poem. If you have a real reason, then I suppose I shall let it slide, but to have a purpose is to understand the body and rhythm of a poem otherwise, you risk looking like nothing but an amateur.
2. Do not rhyme:
If you’re coming out to high school or just starting to get into the craft, I understand that this sounds insane. Poetry has been nothing but rhyming for so long? Thousands of years even? But that’s just it, that is precisely why, as contemporary poets, we absolutely cannot rhyme. To put it simply, rhyme is dead. When was these last time you even saw something that rhymed? I can guarantee that it wasn’t poetry, but more likely than not it was some sort of advertising, and once the jaws of capitalism swallow any technique I can guarantee you that it’s not worth getting back. Additionally, why might we want to have rhyme back anyways? When crafting a poem, restricting ourselves to such a small selection of words shall only do us harm. I already have trouble finding the right words, so to disqualify 98% of the English language would be a death sentence.
3. Remember that the title is part of your poem:
This is simple, yet often forgotten. If your poem is about pollution and the title is The Turtles Are Dying, then ABSOLUTELY do not repeat yourself. If you are going to put a line in your title then to put that same line in the poem, or vice versa is to assume your audience dull. We see this too often in poets that enjoy repeating themselves, continually playing on the same phrase over and over again, apparently to make a point yet all it does is bore me. Instead, rather than taking a line from the text and making it your title, you should pick a title that encapsulates the entire feeling. One of my own poems about hating birds is named “Blue Jays,” though I never specifically named any specific species in the piece.
4. End each line with words that matter:
This also goes along with the first bit of advice, but one of the main draws to the left-aligned piece is that it gives you the ability to end each of your lines with a striking word that fits your tone. You never want to end a line with throw-away words such as “and” “it” “me” etc. You can see below in the snippet of Claude McKay’s nature poem “To One Coming North” that each ending word helps to define the tone. (Note: While rhymes are present in this piece, and I said not to do that, this piece was written in the early 20th century, so it isn’t the contemporary poetry we write today.)
“And when the fields and streets are covered white
And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw,
Or underneath a spell of heat and light
The cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw,”
5. Understand your use of enjambment, or end-stopped lines:
Compared to all of the other pieces of advice here this one is a bit more advanced, yet this small change can completely transform how your poem sounds. In short, enjambment is to end your line without any punctuation and to move onto the next line; this creates a fast-paced poem in which each line flows into the next. End-stopped lines, however, are when an author ends her lines with punctuation, whether it be a period, semicolon, comma, what have you. End-stopped lines should be in use whenever each individual line must be stressed, such as the language in poems on grief. These techniques should not be sporadic throughout a single poem, but instead should be used in a majority of lines for whichever method you decide to use.
6. Create a scene:
This should be self-evident in any writing, but you must understand the difference between concrete language and abstract. A reader must be able to understand what is happening in your poem, not just what you are feeling because feelings are subjective and non-descriptive. Concrete language is used to create a visual scene, words like “table,” “desk,” “oak.” Abstract words are words that are most often associated with poetry, yet do nothing to paint any picture, such as “angry,” “depressed,” “excited.” A reader will not care about your work if they can’t tell what it’s about, rather than writing about being sad write about a moment when you were sad. Write the why.
7. Do not hide things from your audience:
What do you gain from putting your meaning behind walls? In the many workshops I have done, there is always too much “Well, you see, the flower is actually my mother, and you would have known that if you knew that in ancient Greek the word ‘mom’ is ‘μήτηρ.’” This does nothing but, and I can promise you this, annoy your audience beyond belief. Your poem should speak for both itself and you, not the other way around. Don’t be afraid to be brute and say what you mean; we’re writing poetry not riddles.
I'd love to see any poetry you create using these methods!!
Step by step we’ll go through everything amateur poets do wrong, and I will try to show just what is needed instead. Of course, poetry is a huge topic to handle, but in examining contemporary works there are but a few techniques you can use to bring your poem to the next level.
1. Do not center your poems:
To many, this should seem like an obvious, but to a less informed group maybe not so much. To center a poem is to age it nearly a hundred years and to try to make it look more poetic. When looking at poetry, you can almost feel a sense of professionalism in a left justified piece, and to prove my point, pick up any serious poetry book and find me one good centered poem. Most importantly, a left-justified piece also dramatically ends your lines, a technique we will further discuss as it can drastically alter the meaning of your poem. If you have a real reason, then I suppose I shall let it slide, but to have a purpose is to understand the body and rhythm of a poem otherwise, you risk looking like nothing but an amateur.
2. Do not rhyme:
If you’re coming out to high school or just starting to get into the craft, I understand that this sounds insane. Poetry has been nothing but rhyming for so long? Thousands of years even? But that’s just it, that is precisely why, as contemporary poets, we absolutely cannot rhyme. To put it simply, rhyme is dead. When was these last time you even saw something that rhymed? I can guarantee that it wasn’t poetry, but more likely than not it was some sort of advertising, and once the jaws of capitalism swallow any technique I can guarantee you that it’s not worth getting back. Additionally, why might we want to have rhyme back anyways? When crafting a poem, restricting ourselves to such a small selection of words shall only do us harm. I already have trouble finding the right words, so to disqualify 98% of the English language would be a death sentence.
3. Remember that the title is part of your poem:
This is simple, yet often forgotten. If your poem is about pollution and the title is The Turtles Are Dying, then ABSOLUTELY do not repeat yourself. If you are going to put a line in your title then to put that same line in the poem, or vice versa is to assume your audience dull. We see this too often in poets that enjoy repeating themselves, continually playing on the same phrase over and over again, apparently to make a point yet all it does is bore me. Instead, rather than taking a line from the text and making it your title, you should pick a title that encapsulates the entire feeling. One of my own poems about hating birds is named “Blue Jays,” though I never specifically named any specific species in the piece.
4. End each line with words that matter:
This also goes along with the first bit of advice, but one of the main draws to the left-aligned piece is that it gives you the ability to end each of your lines with a striking word that fits your tone. You never want to end a line with throw-away words such as “and” “it” “me” etc. You can see below in the snippet of Claude McKay’s nature poem “To One Coming North” that each ending word helps to define the tone. (Note: While rhymes are present in this piece, and I said not to do that, this piece was written in the early 20th century, so it isn’t the contemporary poetry we write today.)
“And when the fields and streets are covered white
And the wind-worried void is chilly, raw,
Or underneath a spell of heat and light
The cheerless frozen spots begin to thaw,”
5. Understand your use of enjambment, or end-stopped lines:
Compared to all of the other pieces of advice here this one is a bit more advanced, yet this small change can completely transform how your poem sounds. In short, enjambment is to end your line without any punctuation and to move onto the next line; this creates a fast-paced poem in which each line flows into the next. End-stopped lines, however, are when an author ends her lines with punctuation, whether it be a period, semicolon, comma, what have you. End-stopped lines should be in use whenever each individual line must be stressed, such as the language in poems on grief. These techniques should not be sporadic throughout a single poem, but instead should be used in a majority of lines for whichever method you decide to use.
6. Create a scene:
This should be self-evident in any writing, but you must understand the difference between concrete language and abstract. A reader must be able to understand what is happening in your poem, not just what you are feeling because feelings are subjective and non-descriptive. Concrete language is used to create a visual scene, words like “table,” “desk,” “oak.” Abstract words are words that are most often associated with poetry, yet do nothing to paint any picture, such as “angry,” “depressed,” “excited.” A reader will not care about your work if they can’t tell what it’s about, rather than writing about being sad write about a moment when you were sad. Write the why.
7. Do not hide things from your audience:
What do you gain from putting your meaning behind walls? In the many workshops I have done, there is always too much “Well, you see, the flower is actually my mother, and you would have known that if you knew that in ancient Greek the word ‘mom’ is ‘μήτηρ.’” This does nothing but, and I can promise you this, annoy your audience beyond belief. Your poem should speak for both itself and you, not the other way around. Don’t be afraid to be brute and say what you mean; we’re writing poetry not riddles.
I'd love to see any poetry you create using these methods!!
No rhymes... Such injustice unheard. What about alliterations? 
