avatarZachary Burres

Summary

The website content provides a guide on how to start writing poetry by focusing on storytelling with imagery, imperfect rhyming, reading aloud for rhythm, and considering visual aesthetics.

Abstract

The guide outlines four steps for beginners to start crafting poetry. First, it emphasizes the importance of telling a story through vivid imagery that paints a mental picture and evokes reader empathy. Second, it suggests using imperfect rhyme schemes to create excitement and avoid monotony. Third, it recommends reading poetry out loud to refine rhythm and flow. Lastly, the guide advises on improving the visual presentation of a poem by managing line breaks and stanza structure. The article also includes examples and invites readers to explore the author's poetry for further inspiration.

Opinions

  • The author believes that the best poetry tells a story and uses imagery effectively to engage readers.
  • The author expresses that a story in poetry is characterized by a character's pursuit of a value, which can create emotional resonance with the audience.
  • Rhyming should be varied and not too perfect to maintain reader interest and excitement.
  • Alliteration and similar sounding words are preferred over perfect rhymes to add complexity and musicality to the poem.
  • Reading poetry aloud is a crucial step in refining its rhythm and ensuring it flows naturally.
  • Visual aesthetics are important in poetry; the layout on the page should be appealing and aid in the readability of the poem.
  • The author values reader feedback and engagement, inviting comments and offering additional resources in the form of personal poetry collections.

How to Start Writing Poetry

All the basics, in 4 easy steps.

1. Tell a story with images

Well, you could just describe images. That can be poetry too. But I think the best poetry also tells a story, and uses imagery to do that.

What is imagery?

In a poem, would you rather read this very boring story: Bob went to the store

Or this one full of imagery: A young fellow in old worn boots marched down a dirt path to get fresh milk

The first one informs, but the second one paints a picture too. Providing concrete images, sounds, tastes — sensory details in general — is how you paint a mental picture for the reader.

Hint: use nouns. Nouns are things we can picture.

But also think about what those nouns are doing — notice how in my mini-story above, Bob marched to the store rather than just walked or sauntered.

Imagery details like that make you wonder — what’s up with him? Maybe he’s pissed that his kid spilled milk everywhere, and that’s why he’s headed to the store to replace it.

What is a story?

On that note, let’s define story. To me, a story is what happens when a character goes after a value. A character is something that wants and acts, and a value is the thing they want to achieve or accomplish.

In our mini-story above, Bob is the character who wants and acts, and milk from the store is what his goal is.

Everything that happens related to that is his story, which is important because readers tend to empathize with characters. As they surmount obstacles and either succeed or fail in relation to their goal, we feel their excitement or frustration with them.

2. Rhyme, but not perfectly

Rhyming happens when two words sound similar to each other. If they often sound extremely similar and in a perfect pattern, like alternating rhyme and time, you’ll sound like Dr. Seuss writing for kids.

“One fish two fish, red fish blue fish…” It’s TOO perfect and organized to be exciting. Excitement happens when you set up a comfortably complex pattern and then occasionally break it. Imagine if all of my sentences were the same length with no pauses — it would get monotonous.

Use alliterations and similar sounds

Try rhyme and rhythm. Or comfortably complex. Rather than rhyming perfectly, they are just very similar. In the first pair you have both a repeated R, I, and M sounds. In the second pair you have a repeated C and M sounds, plus the S sound is a soft contrast to the harsh C sound.

It’s a game of music. Try to get sounds within and around words to repeat, and then contrast them with other repeating sounds.

Sounds within and around is another good example. Sounds rhymes heavily (but not perfectly due to the S sound) with around, and they are contrasted by the words between them.

3. Improve rhythm by reading it out loud

Let’s say you’ve written a poem that includes elements of story, imagery, and rhyming. One thing you can do next to improve it is to read it out loud.

It may look great on the page, and it may be a fantastic poem to contemplate mentally. But if you read it out loud, does it flow like natural language? Or are there parts that are hard to say or unnecessary pauses due to the line breaks?

Maybe you’ll notice a line or two that need more or less syllables. You don’t need to think too hard for this one — just read it out loud and ask yourself if it “flows.” If it doesn’t, fiddle with the syllables and line breaks until it does.

4. Pay attention to the visual aesthetic

While you’re editing the line breaks, consider: does it look good on the page?

Consider this article. Would you have read it if it were one giant dense paragraph with no headings? I know I wouldn’t. Just like good blog posts should be skim-able, good poetry should look beautiful.

Try to keep the lines shorter rather than longer, unless you’re going for full sentences and grammar. Break the poem up into stanzas. Fiddle with your line breaks so that there’s not just one line sticking out three times longer than the rest.

That’s my general advice on the mechanics of poetry. If you have further questions about how to write poetry, I’d love to hear them in the comments.

If you haven’t already read any of my poetry, here’s a few links:

If you really like all of those poems, let me know in the comments about that too. I’m releasing a little poetry book on Amazon soon :)

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