Write Award-Winning Poems-Great Tips!

R U A Poet? Me, too. Here are some tips for those of you who are just starting out... and those who are already experts in your craft. One of the greatest things about being a writer - and one of the most freeing - is the fact that you'll never be perfect, but you'll always be getting better! Hope gets us through the day. Hope and hard work, and the ability to look at what we wrote today and realize that it may be just a little bit better than what we wrote yesterday.

 

Anyway, back to POETRY. These tips are guaranteed to improve your work significantly!

 

1. First of all, remember that in poetry, the NOUNS carry the weight. They convey the semantic force of your sentences. Nouns are the wheelbarrows that carry the blossoming flowers of your verbs. Use active verbs, but focus even more on using surprising and relevant nouns. (All of you prose writers know that in prose, the VERBS carry the weight.) To be a successful poet, you have to change your thinking about the way words work. 

 

2. Get a thesaurus or synonym finder and use it. As Mark Twain said, "The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."

 

3. Read as much contemporary poetry as you can. Some of my fave modern poets are Louise Gluck, Li-Young Lee, Marianne Boruch, Kathleen Peirce, Linda Pastan, Mary Oliver, John Hodgen, and Robert Bly.

 

4. Don't rhyme. If you must rhyme, write the poem in free verse first, and then go back and rhyme it.  Make the sense of the poem serve the rhyme, not the other way around. Use a rhyming dictionary to help you come up with good rhymes that aren't forced.

 

5. Avoid connecting words. In a poem, you aren't telling a story. Leave some elements to the imagination. Don't explain why someone did something or qualify their acts, and don't use time modifiers. For example, instead of saying (and I know this is totally random):

  

        Freedom is its own harvest

        because it knows what it wants.  

 

You would say:

 

        Freedom is its own harvest.

        It knows what it wants.

 

See the difference?

 

7. Take associative leaps. Don't censor yourself too much. Once you know your subject, try putting together new combinations of words. Say, my subject is my desk, and on my desk are the following objects:

 

-paper with clouds printed on it

-speakers

-paper clips and binder clips

-a razor knife

-a cross carved of faux stone

-a can of dust remover

-a flashlight

-a book called "Wild Mind"

 

So, from the objects on my desk, I could use free association to come up with something like this: 

      My desk is a clean sheet of paper. The wild mind speaks

      like a razor in the clouds. A cross carved from dust.

      A stone, a flash, unbound.

 

Cheesy example, but you get the idea! And it really works. I hope these tips are useful to all you poets out there.