The Complete Guide to Poetry on Medium

Your portal to an infinite journey into poetry art!

This is a guest post from the Medium community. Thomas is the editor of Scribe.

I like to say that the world would be better off if poets ran it. One of my favorite quotes comes from my spiritual father, the French writer Sylvain Tesson. He writes:

I would like to rehabilitate this way of going through life in freedom, with a feather in one’s hat, a blade of grass between one’s teeth and poems on one’s lips.

I believe that this sublime thought is the best way to introduce what you can now consider the gateway to everything related to poetry on Medium. Please note that nothing is set in stone, and all suggestions or remarks (as long as they are constructive) are welcome!

You’re not dreaming, the community of poets is perhaps the strongest community of writers on the platform. And that’s worth a look, isn’t it?

For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve been the editor of Scribe for almost six years. Scribe is the most followed poetry publication (although I don’t only publish poems) on Medium so far. I also write poetry, and if you want to know more about me, you can visit my about page or my website.

The idea of this guide, which was suggested to me by Medium’s CEO Tony Stubblebine, is to offer all Medium writers and readers, newcomers or old hands on the platform, a way to deepen their journey around poetry.

You should find here just about everything you need to make your experience as a reader and writer of poetry as enjoyable and rewarding as possible. Of course, this guide will be updated (very) regularly to keep up with everything that’s happening around poetry on Medium. It will also be featured on the platform, but remember to keep it somewhere to refer to whenever you feel the need. Your feedback is very important to improve it, so don’t hesitate for a second to propose your suggestions in the responses, they will all be examined with the greatest care.

Sprinkling poetry in your life will ensure that you experience unforgettable emotions that will stay with you forever. So, let’s not waste any more time and embark on our poetic journey!

Table of Content

1. Some of the Best Poets on Medium
2. Publications That Publish Poetry
3. Resources and Tips To Grow as a Poet
4. Some Beautiful Collections Curated By Poetry Lovers

1. Some of the Best Poets on Medium

Here is a list, not exhaustive of course, of thirty brilliant writers, each accompanied by two of their great poems. To marvel and be inspired!

Caroline Mellor ❁ Dawn ❁ We Need to Teach the Children the Old Words — A Poem

Connie Song ❁ The Encrypted Moon — Poetry loves company ❁ Unfiltered Rhapsody — Enchanted Poetry

Carolyn Riker ❁ This Is Who I Am — I prefer soft landings and slow starts ❁ The Essence of Your Soul — A lesson from a rose

Aparna Singh ❁ The Ballerina’s Consort — A haiku and some thoughts ❁ Ethereal — A poem and some thoughts about Agape

Venessa Yeh ❁ Ex Animo — A love note for the self ❁ Warm Grays — A poem

Bradley J Nordell ❁ Coming of Winter — A poem of death and rebirth ❁ Echoes of Fall — A poem about cycles

Louise Foerster ❁ I Forgot To Fly — Your touch reminded me how ❁ We Wash Up on the Shore — Now the easy part begins

Deborah Barchi ❁ Awakening in a Moon-flooded Room — Feeling simultaneously ancient and young ❁ Words Are Like Cats — We are not in charge

Nanette Schieron ❁ Kinship — Of a most unusual kind ❁ One Summer Night — In memory of my brother

Jonah Lightwhale ❁ It Makes Us Happy the Misinterpretation of Light — A marble stands on a pebble ❁ Many Will Read Your Hand — Even the wind

Artemis Sullivan ❁ Take a Bite Out of the Apple — flip the script poetry ❁ Freefall — surrender is free falling. horrifying but weightless and attached to nothing. wind chimes blowing in the wind. mediums…

Lark Morrigan ❁ Behold the Eminent — Free Verse ❁ Submerged — Free Verse

Sofia Chen ❁ The World Gets Small Sometimes When You’re Sick — A poem ❁ Snow Blood in the Alps — A haiku

Tre L. Loadholt ❁ Coupling of a Different Kind — An Audio Free Verse Poem ❁ I Don’t Want Anything Pumpkin-Spiced — A sijo

Christina M. Ward ❁ Lest We See, a Poem for Biodiversity Lost — Scribe Writing Prompt: A Poem for Wildlife Populations ❁ I Sent Yellow Flowers — A poem for the grieving

Pseu Pending (Seu) ❁ What happened to my teenager? The Blue Whale Story — A poem ❁ Pleasures of a Slightly Complex Life — Gifted Hands Meet Gifted Palate — Culinary poetics

Erika Burkhalter ❁ The Blinking Eyes of Lotuses — Musings on the brevity of life ❁ Conceptions of Perspective — A slice of heaven

Micah Josiah ❁ Trees Dance in Valleys — A haiku ❁ In the Stillness — A Poem

Carlos Garbiras ❁ Mis Ojitos Azabache — The gates to my soul are jet black ❁ Siri, Don’t Interrupt Me — As long as your life is under my roof

Sylvia Wohlfarth ❁ The Gift of Light — A Comfort in Dark Times ❁ Sounds in Silence — Creating My Oasis

Amy Knight ❁ The Edge of Neverland — A poem ❁ Shortest Night — A summer solstice poem

Q. Imagine ❁ The Whistling Wind — Inspired By Nature ❁ A Silent Loop — Loop Poetry

Michael Madill ❁ I Saw Sunshine Today — It’s never a sure bet ❁ Ashes Make My Flowers Bloom — Move to the country

Sofia Isabel Kavlin ❁ Dancing on Sunlight — Just a little sunshine and gratitude this morning ❁ Lantern Flies — A reflection on transcience

Vivienne Teh ❁ So Can I — A poem ❁ Her — A Tanka

Thomas Plummer ❁ Can You Be Alone? — The lost quiet hours locked within your own mind, that is where you discover the truth of you are ❁ Wading into the Darkness — Soon it will be my turn to enter the stream

Austin Briggman ❁ Floating in Tight Circles — A poem ❁ To Read Her Poems — A poem

David Rudder ❁ Abbreviations — Make it short ❁ The Art — Of Existence

Lindsay Soberano-Wilson ❁ Words Become Me — Thoughts become words ❁ A Hummingbird Sang for Me Today — A poem

Samantha Lazar ❁ More Than Survival — A poem ❁ A Two Week Softening — A Poem

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little journey, but as I’m sure you’ll want more. You can jump straight to the end of this page to discover several collections of poems created by brilliant editors and featuring many other talented poets! 🍃

2. Publications That Publish Poetry

Here are the main (and active) publications on Medium that publish poems and offer writing prompts. These publications have a well-defined editorial line and clear guidelines that make it easy for new writers to submit their work. Their editors are always around and you can contact them easily.

Scribe ✨ Blue Insights ✨ The Lark ✨ The Power of Poetry ✨ Move Me Poetry ✨ iPoetry ✨ Sky Collection ✨ American Haiku ✨ Lit Up ✨ A Cornered Gurl ✨ Loose Words ✨ Put It To Rest ✨ Weeds & Wildflowers ✨ Scuzzbucket

If you know of any other active publications doing serious editorial work that could be added here, let us know in the responses.

As you’ll see in the last part of this guide, there are many different types of poetry. You may be familiar with haiku and tanka, for example. We can also find poets who write about a particular theme, or who are inspired by a particular trend in history.

If you feel like an editor, you could imagine creating a publication on a particular type of poetry, or something like that. It’s an idea!

3. Resources and Tips To Grow as a Poet

I want to say that there is no exact science in writing, even less in poetry. There is no rule that once applied will allow you to be the next Emily Dickinson, Henry Longfellow, or Edgar Allan Poe.

However, it is always interesting to be inspired by the method of some writers and to take ideas from them for your own practice. The following resources and tips will be a good companion on your poetic journey. But the most important and obvious advice is: read as much poetry as you can!

➻ The Poetry Topic Page on Medium is an inexhaustible resource for discovering a lot of writers and reading poetry. On the right side of the screen, you will find the list of “Top Writers” on the theme of poetry.

➻ Topics are extremely important on Medium because they allow stories to be well-referenced on the platform and therefore more easily visible to readers. Here are the topics to follow on Medium and consider when you publish a poem: Poetry, Poem, Poems on Medium, Poetry on Medium, Haiku.

It seems logical, but if your poem is about love or nature, for example, consider adding the topics Love and Nature. On the other hand, you might want to avoid topics that are too vague and not widely used on Medium. You can see if the topic is used a lot when you type the word when defining it. I know it can be tempting to choose a topic that best fits what you’ve written, but if no one uses it as well your poem won’t stand out to readers.

If you don’t know how to add a topic to your poems before publishing them (you can add up to five at the moment, knowing that on desktop it is the first one that is visible to the readers) here is the help.

➻ As I touched on in part 2 on publications, most of them provide clear guidelines for writers to submit their work in the best possible conditions. By submitting a perfectly designed poem, firstly you make it easier for the editor to review your work, and secondly, you significantly increase your chances of getting published quickly and attracting more readers.

To make it clearer for you, you can use Scribe’s guidelines and Christina M. Ward’s article further down in the guide.

If I had to note the most important points:

Illustrate your poem with a featured image. Place it right after your title and subtitle. To ensure perfect image quality, you can use images from Unsplash or other image databases. A well-chosen image can have a strong impact on your poem, so choose it carefully!

Use the title case format for the headline and the sentence case format for the subtitle. If you have any doubts when writing your headlines, you can use this great tool: Title Case Converter. Besides, when you highlight the subtitle, choose the small “T” in the toolbar to apply the “subtitle” format, as Medium does not apply it automatically.

Remember to remove the automatic line breaks. For a poem, it is better if there is no white space between each line. When you are at the end of a line, hold down the shift key and press Enter. You can only do this on the web. If you are on the app without the ability to edit your poem on your laptop and still want to publish it, you can try using the code blocks feature.

Choose the right topics as mentioned above to make your poem go a long way on Medium (and off).

➻ Fija Callaghan has published on Scribophile a comprehensive guide to the different types of poetry. It’s an absolute gold mine to improve your knowledge and practice and know the many styles of poetry.

➻ Thomas Plummer is an accomplished writer and poet who not only offers words from the heart but also provides advice for aspiring writers. He wrote an article that might interest you.

I especially like when he advises you to let your text rest for a while before coming back to it later or to read your poem aloud to feel the rhythm and sounds of the text. Thomas also shares links to interesting books and poems for inspiration published by the Poetry Foundation.

➻ Poetry on Medium is like a pillow fort of happy friends, really. This lovely phrase was written by Jenny Justice some time ago, but I find it still relevant today. It comes from a valuable poetry guide in which the poet talks enthusiastically about poetry and shares her own experience with poetry. Even though some of the points about Medium are no longer relevant, everything about poetry is a diamond in the rough to read and reread. Find Jenny’s guide just below.

You’ll learn why Jenny writes poetry, how she goes about writing her poems, and how to get your readers to find your poems.

Excerpts:

I write poetry because it is fun. It is so so so much deep level soul joy. It is creative fun. It is like play. It is serious fun. It is like meaningful work. It is spiritual fun. It is like church and zen and healing and prayer.

— Jenny Justice, Why I Write Poetry

Poetry is magic because it takes the unnoticed and taken for granted stuff of every day of life and transforms it into something like a dove that you can hold in your hands — nothing was there before, now, birds are released to fly freely into the air, and you, and hopefully many others, are amazed at the simplicity and beauty of the trick.

— Jenny Justice, How I Write Poetry

Be creative. Listen to your inner voice. Write what flows from you, naturally. Yes improve, yes read more, yes grow. But I am a firm believer in once you let go of this idea of an “outcome” and start to cherish and trust and enjoy the process as meaning in and of itself, this is when the best work comes, this is when the powerful paths to connection appear, this is when you have the greatest potential to touch the hearts and minds and souls of another, a reader.

— Jenny Justice, How to Get People to Read Your Poetry

➻ If you are used to reading or writing poems, you know how the form is just as important as the content. Christina M. Ward has written a comprehensive guide about formatting in poetry and how to make your poems look good when published on the Internet. She also distills valuable tips on how to structure your poem, and how to play with metaphors and imagery to make your poems stand out.

➻ Austin Briggman is a poet I love. He tells us in the story below how his encounter with Charles Bukowski led him to literally fall in love with poetry and writing poems.

➻ My old memories about my writing practice are not yet faded and I remember really starting to write regularly to ease my head of all the aches and pains that were going through me at the time. This is still the case today, although now I can also write when I feel wonderful!

If you were to ask me if poetry can heal, or at least make you feel better, I would say thousand times yes. In the story that follows, Lindsay Soberano-Wilson tells of her relationship with poetry and how it helps her through some painful times. What is interesting is that she also explains how she constructed some of her poems by connecting them to the emotions that were going through her at that time.

➻ This well-researched and inspiring story by Marc Smith also shows the psychological benefits of reading and writing poetry.

➻ As I said at the beginning of this guide, the poet community is one of the most active and robust communities on Medium. Why are we talking about this kind of community here? I want to talk about my own experience as editor of the publication Scribe. I am sure that most of the editors of the above-mentioned publications will share my thoughts.

What I have noticed for several years is the richness of the interaction between writers within the publication. Writers not only publish their own work and read the work of others, but they also spend a lot of time writing responses and sharing their thoughts and feelings about writing their own poems or reading the work of others.

This may seem normal, but it is what makes all the difference. Thanks to everyone’s effort, creativity is elevated to a level rarely achieved. Everyone learns from each other and deepens their experience of poetry, and perhaps even of life. Maybe some will say I’m exaggerating, but writing and reading poetry is a fabulous and nourishing experience that we should all enjoy throughout our lives. We have an extraordinary place to create and experience emotions through poetry here.

Some writers have magical ideas, like Sofia Isabel Kavlin for example, who proposes to imagine poetry threads where multiple poets are responding to an initial thought and taking it further and further. In fact, poetry is such a rich and unlimited field that one could imagine anything. It is not a scoop: Life is made of emotions, and poetry is emotion. So let’s live poetry!

4. Beautiful Collections Curated by Poetry Lovers

➻ You will find just below some collections of wonderful poems written by talented writers. A great way to wonder and find inspiration for your next verse! Other collections will be added.

Feel free to comment if you would like to find collections of poems on particular themes or writers or propose your own collection!

Thank you for reading, hoping it will enchant your journey into the world of poetry! Come back often, the article will be regularly updated. 🍃