Tips For The Novice

It's an all-too common occurrence on my periodic forays into the world of internet poetry - writing weakened by a lack of fundamental knowledge concerning the essence of poetry writing. There are no rules set in stone about creative writing. The writer that strikes new trails can make a lasting impact on the world of poetry, but the chances of a writer stumbling upon golden words without a solid knowledge base are slim to none. The following tips for novice writers are intended to help shore up those fundamentals, to help the young writer breathe the essence of life into their poems, and to better share that essence with the reader.

The most important element you can inject into your poetry is imagery.  Imagery is made up of sense data: color, sound, smell, temperature, the feeling of physical contact.  When we remember anything with any vividness, we remember in images.  When we fantasize or hallucinate, it is in imagery.  Our dreams are made wholly of them.  Just ponder the word imagine for a minute.  Remember a particularly painful argument you had with someone in the past.  Do you remember only the words spoken, or can you close your eyes and picture the person's face, or details of the scene of the incident, or the harsh edge of their voice?  Maybe a breeze was blowing.  Maybe there was a siren in the distance.  Or maybe it happened in the kitchen, over the phone (which felt hot against your ear), while you absent-mindedly rearranged the magnets on the fridge.  These are the kinds of things you should include in your poetry to enrich the experience for the reader.  Try to avoid the use of abstract imagery or cliches.  Our senses note only particulars: we don't see color, we see red, or green, or yellow.  We don't just touch, we touch something.  We smell hamburgers, curry, hot tar, pine and lilacs.

If you think poetry is about "self expression," "emotion," or "the truth," then you are missing the point.  It is about well-written expression and emotion. The truth is inconsequential.  Before you hop up and down and debate me on this point, allow me to elaborate.  A lot of novice writers labor under the misconception that poetry stems from deep emotional truths and therefore all poetry must comply with "the way it really happened."  The act of poetry writing is a creative writing exercise.  Without the creativity, you are merely writing a report.  Breaking it into stanzas doesn't magically transform the report into a poem.  It's nice when poems do correlate to the truth, but quite often I find weak stanzas in poems and, after suggesting a change, I am told "but that's the way it happened."  Ugh.  If a poem could be improved by altering your past reality (at least on paper), then go for it.  If you broke up with someone on a sunny day but rain would better suit the mood of the poem, make it rain.  Make it night instead of day.  In poems we can have the courage that we lack in real life, we can ride off into the sunset, or be wealthy, or poor, or dead.  Imagination and creativity count for as much in poetry as they do in prose, painting, sculpting, screenwriting, business, recreation, and virtually every other human endeavor.  If you still feel like it is necessary to stick to the truth, then I wish you success.   But you'd better start living one hell of an interesting life - at least one a lot more interesting than mine, and mine thus far has been pretty damned interesting.

Words are incredibly powerful - not just for the meanings associated with them, but for their shape, their sound, their length, and the way they fit together.  Take note of syllables and vowel sounds.  Multi-syllabic words or long vowel sounds impart a connotation of fluid movement.  They have a way of softening the impact of language and are often used to show compassion, tenderness, tranquility.  Short words and vowel sounds can be used for emphasis or punctuation, and often show rigidity, honesty, toughness.  Single-syllable words can go off sharp like the crack of a fist, or as slow and round as the blush of a rose, depending upon the type of vowel sounds chosen.  Don't forget about the impact of hard and soft consonants - re-read the previous sentence to see what I'm talking about.

Never shy away from editing and revision.  Some young writers feel that to revise is to kill the spirit of the poem.  Again, this practice serves to sacrifice the potential of a poem for an ideal that really has nothing to do with the poem or with poetry.  It's a romanticized myth.  A skilled writer can revise a poem many times without the revisions being apparent in the final draft.  All writing should seem as if it flowed from the writer's mind, or soul, directly onto the page.  The process should be regarded as secondary to the finished piece because, after all, the reader sees only the final piece, not the struggle or ease that went along with its creation.  Does anyone seriously believe that Keats, Yeats, Wordsworth, Frost or anyone more contemporary never underwent the revision process?  Extant manuscripts prove otherwise.  Hell, Frost reveled in revision.

After your poem is ready for submission, what follows is an essential lesson: Disassociate your ego from your poem.  Workshops are often brutal and scathing affairs.  If you bring in a poem to which you have some kind of emotional attachment, when the critiques start flying you will feel as if it is you that is being critiqued, not the poem. You will feel hurt and insulted.  In the wake of this you will lose sight of the purpose of the workshop: the poem.  If someone shreds your poem, they are not making any judgment on you, but rather the poem.  If you can disassociate, you can learn.  And learning is something we should never refuse to do.