What? You Thought Poetry Writing Was Easy?
People have some pretty strange ideas about poetry writing: It’s supposed to be easy. Poems arrive fully formed out of thin air. Poetry doesn’t require revision. All poems should rhyme. No poems should rhyme. Writing in form is old-fashioned, lazy, or unoriginal. A poet doesn’t have to understand grammar… The list of misconceptions about poetry writing goes on and on. My personal favorite? I don’t read poetry. I just write it.
Oh what fools young writers can be.
The Truth About Poetry Writing
I remember when I was a young poet, scratching my innermost thoughts and deepest feelings into a cliché-riddled notebook, complete with heart doodles and painfully bad rhymes. I thought poetry writing was fun and easy. I thought it had nothing to do with hard work or skill and everything to do with talent. Raw, natural, unbridled and uninformed talent. Like I said, young writers can be such fools. Part of the magic of poetry writing is that poems do sometimes come completely formed, arriving out of nowhere and landing on your page in full glory. Once in awhile, a cliché belongs in a poem. And sometimes, breaching the rules of good grammar will give a poem more impact. But these are all exceptions to the rules of poetry writing. The only rule without exception? To be a good poet, you must read poetry.
Reading Poetry and Writing
When I first started writing poetry, I didn’t read it, ever. But I was only thirteen years old. Now, I can’t imagine why anyone would write something that they don’t enjoy reading. Can you imagine a jazz singer who doesn’t listen to jazz? An actor who doesn’t watch films? A writer who doesn’t read? It just doesn’t make sense. I know that poets are often filled with fears about reading. What if another poet’s style leaks into our own? What if my head becomes so filled with other poems that I lose my originality, my voice? How can I write when I’m busy reading? There’s only so much time in a day! This is all nonsense, of course. One sure way to make sure you don’t mimic the styles of other poets is to become familiar with them. And if your originality can be lost just by reading a few poems written by someone else, well, maybe you’re not as original as you thought you were. And time? Please. It only takes a few minutes to read a poem.
Why Do You Think They Call it “Work?”
Like all artists, writers refer to their material as “work.” That’s because it is. Poetry writing is a condensed form. If anything, it’s harder than writing prose. You have less space to work with and yet often a poem says more than an entire novel. Every word is precious so you must choose each one carefully. The imagery, the rhythm, the voice, and the style. The language, the emotion, and the way it looks on the page or sounds when read aloud. In poetry writing, everything matters and there is no room for error. Sure, we all get lucky. Every so often, a perfect gem rolls out of our pen and graces the page. That’s pretty random, and it’s rare, too. Usually, a poem arrives in a jumbled heap of words that need to be examined, rearranged, cut, switched around, rearranged again, and then the real revisions begin. Poetry writing is work. It’s hard work, but it’s fun work too. What is it that drives us to poetry if not a love for language, words, and the fantastic things we can construct out of them? The things we love best are rarely easy, and it’s impossible to be a poet if you don’t have love for the craft. So, let it be work. Gritty, exhausting, and hard, real work. After all, what writer doesn’t want to toil in words? How’s your poetry writing going? Do you have any tips to share? Struggles you want to discuss? Leave a comment.
Poems are really hard for me to write, so much that I tell people I can’t write poetry even though I’ve written several poems. Sometimes I’ll just get this idea in my head and the words start flowing down onto paper–just a few lines. I’ll touch it up, post it on my blog, and shove it in a drawer.
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Hi AravisGirl, Have you tried reading poetry? It sounds like you’re called to poetry writing, and reading some might boost your confidence and give you some concrete ideas about what makes a poem work.
Most of my poetry comes 80% fully formed. Granted, I don’t have too many styles. Everything pretty much follows the same rhyme scheme. With all of it though, taking it from 80 to 100 is hard work. Those last few lines that really tighten it up and make it sing take way longer for me than everything before.
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For me, the hard work of poetry writing has always been the revision process. There always seem to be a couple of lines that don’t fit, a few words that are wrong, or an offbeat to the rhythm. They usually arrive in full, but tweaking them is a job. Fortunately, I enjoy revising
When I read the sentence “I know that poets are often filled with fears about reading” for the first time, instead of “fears”, I read “tears”. I thought to myself, “Oh really? That is so sad!” And then I realized that it was my eyes playing tricks on me.
One thing I am wondering is, what makes poetry poetry? For example, I can write something that’s definitely not prose, but do I call it poetry? Sometimes, I am not so sure.
For example, if I write:
I walked around the block.
And I kicked a rock.
Hurting were my feet,
so I took a seat.
Then I realized I was wearing no sock.
Was that prose? Not quite. Was that poetry? I am not sure I can call that poetry. Did I just make it up in two minutes? Yes.
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I think many poets are also filled with tears. Tears and fears. What is poetry? That’s a good question. I think that the answer is subjective, and depends both on the author of a poem as well as the readers.
I’ve written poetry since I was a child. I’ve always had more trouble sharing my poetry, though, than my writing. It took me forever to let people read my writing but with poetry… I don’t know… It just seems even harder to open up and share it–for me, anyway.
Great post on poetry, Melissa!
*smiles*
Michele
Micheles last blog post..Profiled as a Green Job Hunter on Green Gigs!
Thanks Michele. Poetry can be very personal, so it makes sense that sharing it would be difficult. Part of being a writer is taking risks though, right?
You’re welcome! And… you are right. Part of being a writer is taking risks. *tiptoes away*
*smiles*
Michele
Micheles last blog post..Profiled as a Green Job Hunter on Green Gigs!
I think you put a fine point on lucking into success.
Talent can get you so far, but skills take you further.
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Yes, I find it both amusing and frustrating when new writers feel that all they need is talent or when they believe that great writing involves no study or work. Grr.
Hi Melissa: I’m definitely not under the impression that writing poetry is easy; you have to be even more careful of what you write because you’re working with a much shorter format than when writing a short story or some other sort of prose. I think it was Winston Churchill who said that he could write a two hour speech in ten minutes; but it would take him a couple of hours to write a 15 minute speech
The less you have to work with the harder it gets.
Marelisa, Well said! It’s much harder to write short pieces than longer ones – I absolutely agree.
I think I”m the opposite: I don’t write poetry but I read it! I’ve been trying this month and it’s fun. But I think I need to keep reading and experimenting!
Thanks for this post. I don’t think writing should ever be easy. If we think it is, we’re probably don’t something wrong.
I agree, Rebecca. Writing is supposed to be challenging. That’s part of the fun, right?
Great article!
I write mostly very short poetry so perhaps more than average arrive on the page very close to complete!
Final edits can still take a lot of work though. Actually I often find my editing process goes full circle and my final edit is very close to my first draft, although the process is totally necessary.
Sometimes I write 80 – 90% of a poem and then leave it, either to come back to it again soon after or to just let it sit for however long until it finds me again. I review my notebooks every now and then to rediscover incomplete work – sometimes I even finish one or two then!
I have found my reading and writing poetry parallel each other. When I read more I write more and vice versa.
Thank you! I actually prefer short poetry, but you’re right – even shorter pieces can take awhile to edit. In fact, the more condensed any piece of writing is, the more concise it needs to be, and therefore, the more editing it needs.
I never really considered poetry to be easy or hard. But I must confess, I don’t actively read a lot of poem. I may come across one here or there, written by some unknown in an email, or Hallmark cards, or plaques on a wall showing appreciation to whomever it was given. I said it before but I consider song lyrics to be a form of poetry. So some days I pick apart the lyrics, write them down, see what makes them work and why I feel a connection to them. Then they may set me in a direction to write my own poem inspired by the thoughts or feelings of the original content. I also take into account who I might be talking to (if it’s even me that’s talking), if that person will hear/read this, if it’s something I plan to perform, if it will later be adapted to music, etc. And you’re right, it can be fun, and it is work. So I’ll come up with pieces to this “puzzle” but it might not be complete for a few weeks. Sometimes I’ll work on a poem for a few hours in my head, chewing on it like cows do with curd, eventually I write it out (usually in pieces in my wee notebook), then revise it the next day. It’s definitely a different process than when I was a wee poet back in the day.
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I bet you’d like slam poetry. Have you ever had a chance to view or listen to slam poetry? If you’re interested, email me and I’ll send you some links, or just check out the slam section on Writing Forward.