By Kassidy Boles
Writing poetry doesn’t have to be hard… but it is, isn’t it? The words don’t always flow, and we find ourselves unable to convey the emotion that poetry should so powerfully emphasis. What poetry comes down to is its structure, use of language, and whether or not to rhyme. To write from the heart can get lost in translation and my goal here is to help you, dear reader and perspective writer, understand why your poetry might be feeling a little… flat.
So, you’ve got your poem written out, but is it conveying what you want it to? Well, take a look at the poem’s structure. Is it consistent? This is important as a poem that is all over the place can lose a reader quickly and a poem without structure is just a blurb on the page. If you are writing poetry about a happy topic, long drawn out, deep lines will cut the reader to the core instead of uplifting them. It’s important to play around with your poem after you’ve gotten ink on the page so to speak. Here is where you as the author can experiment on your creation such as a mad scientist, crazed and needing that creative fix only you can create. You have the time now to play with your pace and diction, what concept you wish to emphasize.
But what is the language like in your poem? Are you using flowery words and telling someone how they should feel, or are you creating an image within the mind’s eye? Concrete language can make or break a poem. Avoiding abstract words and conveying meaning using literal terms will emphasize your poem in every way you want it to. Instead of saying, “She was happy,” try, “She shone from ear to ear brighter than the sun.” Words that are literal are vivid as they can be seen, felt, touched, or heard. You can use literal terms such as night, weeping, frigid, to convey mystery and unease while words like, cinnamon, violet, coffee, or tea could be worked together to talk about someone special. Even sensations can be produced through your poetry such as “hot like a summer day, the cacophonous roar of a hurricane, the smell of fresh baked apple pie,” are all examples of things someone can sense in a veritable way. Though poetry is to be interpreted by the reader, you don’t want your reader to get lost in those interpretations. The last thing you want is for the poem to be too vague. Specific details paint a picture and that’s what makes poetry so desirable. Comparisons will be your friend, events are relatable, objects are tangible. Never tell the reader how to feel, instead show them what it means to feel.
But what about rhyming? It’s easy to feel like a poem should rhyme as we are hit with it all the time in the media. We’ve all heard nursery rhymes and the whimsical tone they have. But poetry is not limited to such things and really, rhyming your poem can distract your reader from the poem itself. Make no mistake, to have a rhythm in your poetry and to rhyme are very different things. Take great caution as rhyming tends to feel forced if not used properly and the poem itself loses the momentum as you spend your time searching for the word that fits, instead of the right word. Instead of forcing your poem to rhyme, focus instead on how you want it to sound when spoken aloud. Practicing around friends and family will help with perfecting the sound of your poem. Focus on your syllables and which words will be stressed. Action words like nouns and verbs will have the stressed sound you’ll be looking for, while shorter words such as “a, I, the” will flow in between. Meter is used to refer to the sound pattern of a poem, it’s stressed and unstressed beat, and will give your poem the rhythm without the rhyme.