How to write poetry

[Dedalus]

The title of this thread is a lie. There is no “How to write poetry”, because with modern literature it has come about that there are no parameters to what makes a work good or bad based on technicalities of a set style. How good or bad a piece may be is based upon the reader’s own subjective response to the poem. So on this grounding the guide I am writing is void.

However, I would have killed for a guide on how to write poetry when I was younger. All of this below is from my own autonomous learning and from talking to other writers. I haven’t sat in a class and been taught so any creative writing students are at liberty to correct me on any points or omissions.

To go against the grain of the first paragraph of this guide, I found my poetry to improve immensely when I began to write according to certain guidelines. Well written poetry (if we assume published poetry to be well written and those greats, viz. Bryon, Donne, Spencer, Coleridge, &c.; has a rhythmic units and conventions of which the metre of a piece is based. The metre is perhaps the most important part of a poem and lends it its flow, not radically different from musical scales.

I’ll set an example of poetry from myself, which is incorrect, to demonstrate:

"Heavy on our backs, an unwieldy
Burden to the flux of literature, Which"

I hear this as ;
X - - X - - X -
"Heavy on our backs, an unwieldy
X - - - X - X - - - -
Burden to the flux of literature, Which"

Taking X as a stressed syllable and - for an unstressed syllable. To my ear, this sounds rather strange, because when you look at the syllables you're stressing, they don't follow in the patterns of sound that give the poetry a distinctive 'movement': "Heavy/Backs/Wiel/Bur/Flux/Lit"

Say them to yourself. Is there a connection?

Let’s look at Bryon:

- X - X - X - X - X
"And when, at length, the mind shall be all free
- - - X - X - X - X
From what it hates in this degraded form"

When/ Len/ Mind/ Be/ Free
Hates/ Grade/ Form.

Or Tennyson;
X - - X - X
"Flash'd all their sabres bare,
X - - X - X
Flash'd as they turned in air,
X - - X - X
Sabring the gunners there"

Flash'd/sa/bare
Flash'd/turned/air
Sa/gun/there

See the connection? The syllables rhyme with each other in soft/harsh giving it a flow. You’ll also find that there is the same amount of syllables in each rhyming line which purchases it a stronger flow. It allows you to build tension and/or peace.

You can look up the different metres that poets use to achieve certain flows and moods in their poetry, e.g. elegiac metre is associated with mourning.

I’m not sure how well I have described this and how many of you will believe that poetry should be written within a framework, but I have found that with the use of a framework my poetry has become more creative, because I have certain parameters to meet.

[Kaisada]

I have certainly felt that with some form of guideline and restriction, my own writing would turn out much better than otherwise. Perhaps not so strict as traditional forms of poetry, but definitely not so free-flowing as to resemble casual speech broken into many lines.

However, I am sure that there are plenty of people who would feel differently - after all, a distinctive characteristic of poetry that makes it so attractive, is its lack of compulsory conventions.

Thank you for taking the time to write this, and I hope someone out there will find it helpful!