Top Five Ways to Make Your Poems Fly

Of late I’ve been offering a great deal of criticism and advice to newly emerging poets and the fantastic writers and artists, Discord channel, Scribes and Scribblers. I love working with developing writers, especially poets, and it’s fantastic to see how many people are getting a taste for writing and reading great poetry.

Over the past few months I’ve found that I’ve often been handing out the same advice. So what I present here is a checklist and solutions for the five most common problems which are holding back people’s poems.

Number One: Conservation of Language

One of the key ways to make your poetry stronger is cut out as many unnecessary words as you can while still keeping the same meaning. To offer an analogy, writing a poem is a lot like making yourself a whiskey and soda – the more soda you add, the weaker the drink.

Take this couplet:

I think that you look very nice in red.
I see your new dress flare as you spin around.

Right away I can see there are a ton of words in there of which we can rid ourselves and keep the exact same meaning:

You look very nice in red.
Your new dress flares as you spin.

That’s a good start but we’re not done yet. That very nice in the first line can be turned into a better adjective. How about:

You look phenomenal in red.

We could go even further and take it down to:

You’re phenomenal in red.

But I don’t like the change to the rhythm that produces. However, I do like the change from look to are, so…

You are phenomenal in red.

With the second line we could edit it down with a rewrite and keep the meaning:

You spin – the new dress flares.

So lets compare the original to the edited version and see which you think is stronger:

I think that you look very nice in red.
I see your new dress flare as you spin around.

You are phenomenal in red.
You spin – the new dress flares.


Number Two: Rhyme-Led

When writing in rhyme you’re essentially restricting the words you’re able to use. Getting a rhyming poem to work can mean hours and hours of effort. It’s a little like doing a Rubik’s Cube: you make a change to one line and all of a sudden you find you have to adjust two more.

The upshot of this is that many new writers trying to work in rhyme sacrifice meaning for the sake of making the rhyming scheme work. Or, alternately, you end up using incorrect word orders and end up making your poem sound as if it were written by Yoda. It gets even harder to do if you’re writing in form. Take this terrible example:

Every night I land upon your stair
For you I want to say I really care.
What I left behind is always there.
I wonder if you like my new cut hair.

Eurgh – don’t do it.

The easiest solution to this is not to work in rhyme until you have mastered it. Keep practising it as you’re producing free verse.

Number Three: End Words

As a form, prose is based on the paragraph, poetry – on the line. Quentin Crisp once gave advice on how to be witty. He said something like, “Leave the most interesting part of the sentence to last.”

There’s a great deal of truth to this and you’ll spot it clearly when looking at a poem. In poetry the weight of each line is with the final word. This means you want to edit your poem to make the greatest use of this, either by rewriting or clever use of enjambments. Take this example:

I take the scrambling rodent in
as Jamey slams the door behind me.
I don’t know where to run or go
or what measures to avoid
the biting teeth and scratching claws.

We can rewrite this to make as much use of end words as possible.

I take the scrambling
rodent in as Jamey slams
the door behind.
Where to run,
or go, or what measures
to avoid the biting
teeth and scratching claws.

Number Four: Unpacking the Abstract

Thinking about it, I should probably have placed this at number one.

Let’s start off by talking about the most common problem and that’s the use of words which describe abstract emotions: fear, hate, jealousy, pain, anger – the list goes on and on. Using these words is a key way to turn off a reader and it’s also lazy writing. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be writing about these things in our poetry, we should, we just have to be clever about it.

Take this stanza:

I really hate you
You take what you need and
then you're through.

If I read that as a first line I’m probably not going to read the rest of the poem. It sounds like teen angst, all bitchy and complaining, and my critical faculties reject it as soon as it’s been read. When you’re trying to get stuff like this across you need to deploy it in a way that subverts the readers critical faculties and force them to create the emotion you want to deliver. You can do this with imagery and tropes. So if we rewrite that line:

Your love is a dead cigarette.
I am your ashtray:
filled and forgotten.

The reader now has to resolve the image and they’ll provide the emotion. So look for those emotion words in your poems and target them for rewriting.

That’s one small part of the equation though. We should be rewriting most anything that’s abstract. Take this line:

The state of the girl makes him sorry.

Here, the reader isn’t going to get much from this abstract statement. If you find something like this in your poem you should look at unpacking it so you really represent and convey the meaning.

Her vest is torn and stained with blood.
The bruises on her face reveal
the vicious hands of mum and dad.
He turns his eyes away.


Number Five: Cliches

Avoid them like the plague. Your poems need them like a hole in the head.

The sky is as black as night
and we fight the good fight.

Rewrite it and it will make your poem stronger.

The sky is now an inky bruise.
Together, we will fight for cause.

Honourable Mention: Antique Language

To be honest I’m glad I don’t see much of this. However, there does remain, for some new poets, an idea that you have to make poetry sound like John Donne.

Just don’t do it. We’re modern poets and we should use out modern vernacular. If thoust breaketh this rule I shall gaol thee and smite thee with the pox.