Writing Poetry Well: Improving Your Prose

Writing poetry, in most cases, is not a way to make a living. It can be fulfilling to those who appreciate poetry, though, and seeing your own poetry published is always exciting. While what constitutes "good" poetry will always be subjective, there are qualities for which a poet should strive. In particular, a poem should be vivid, and it should move the reader in some way. Further, in poetry, every word, mark of punctuation, and line break should have a purpose. This article explores how to improve poetry as a writer.

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Often novice writers seek to write about something abstract: love, freedom, melancholy, and the like. There is nothing inherently wrong with writing about ideas. The problem, though, is that without some concrete image backing up the idea, the poem will not show anything in particular to any given reader. An initial step in conceiving a poem, then, is to brainstorm on images one connects to feelings. Rather than explicitly writing about an emotion, describe metaphorically what one might associate with that emotion.

Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" may be about sadness and the loss of certitude, but it sets up these ideas with an image of moonlight gleaming over a beach, with the rush of waves crashing over rocks adding the audio. Every reader can see the image, hear the grating roar of the sea. This creates a point of connection, something a reader can see and hear and feel. From that point of common understanding, Arnold can then describe emotions in a way that does not sever the connection between writer and reader. While not every poem is going to exhibit Arnold's mastery, providing something a reader can see, touch, hear, smell, or taste is a good start.

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