There are as many ways to write a poem as there are poets. By sharing these steps, I offer readers an insight into my process not in the arrogance that it is the right or only way to craft a poem but in the hope that it may serve as a guideline for poets. For those about to write, I salute you!
Step 1: Seizing Inspiration
Roadkill. Existentialism. Hair clogging a drain. A word, an idea, an image, it could be anything – anything that captures my attention and acts as a trigger for a poem. When that happens I carry the ‘trigger’ around in my head for a few days, even months, musing over it, thinking about it from different angles, collecting information on it before even coming to the page.
Step 2: Fleshing it Out
Now that I’ve turned the idea over in my head, I am ready to expand on it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in verse form at this point. Just me fleshing out whatever it is in a paragraph. I jot down the concept, any key words, images, metaphors that come to mind. I spend time exploring feelings associated with the subject.
Step 3: Structure and form
Now I start giving the idea structure, playing around with what form would suit the subject of the poem. A single block of unrhymed, free verse? Fragmented verse? A terza rima? Couplets? Sonnet?
Step 4: Content
At this stage, it becomes clearer what I want to convey in the poem. I have an opening line or a beginning verse and loosely, a sense of progression for it. The sequence or narrative arc, if any, becomes clearer. Poems can surprise you by becoming something different than what you had originally envisioned. The ending might not be what you thought it might be. Therefore, I focus on a strong beginning and let the end float free, eager to see where the poem takes me.
Step 5: Voice and Imagery
I pay attention to the poetic devices that I wish to employ. Who is the voice of my poem? How do they speak? What is the point of the view, the perspective? Is flowery language suited to the poem? A matter-of-fact tone? Also, is the poem anchored in strong images?
Step 6: Word Choice
The poem, after all, is conveyed by the language it is couched in. Word choice is critical, they have to be precise and evocative. Never say “she walked to the door” when you can be so much more precise and tell us if she staggered, stumbled, loped, glided, sauntered, sashayed…
Step 7: Concept and Clarity
At this point I examine my word choices and how they communicate the subject of the poem. Am I clear or obtuse? I remove superfluous words. The idea is to render the poem in the least amount of words possible without compromising the style and subject. It is my advice for any writer: practice an economy of words as much as possible. A good poem is tightly-woven brevity.
Step 8: Line Lengths
Ah, I’m up to my eyeballs in it now! With a formal, fixed structure like a sonnet or villanelle, for example, line lengths are built into the form. With free verse, there is more room to play around but they still have to be in harmony with your poem to reflect the mood and subject. E.g. a faster-paced poem will have short, terse lines. A pastoral poem may use long, flowing lines (I’m thinking of Wordworth’s “Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” right now). Line lengths play directly into the rhythm and sound of a poem as well as the message of a poem. We end a line on a word we want to draw attention to, or we can end on a word that segues smoothly or keeps or builds momentum for the second line.
Step 9: Rhythm and Sound
Even free verse is rhythmic and poets achieve effect by using words for auditory effect. Monosyllabic terseness. Multisyllabic flow. At this point in poem writing, I examine the stresses, the pauses, the repetition of sounds, progression and movement in the poem. How does our word choice contribute by establishing rhythms and sounds that best convey the heart, mood, tenor of the poem? Does alliteration help the poem? Slant rhymes? Near rhymes? Exact rhymes? Assonance?
Step 10: Read it Aloud
Poetry is spoken art. When I read my poem aloud, it exposes its strengths and weaknesses in a way that no amount of visual analysis does. I can tell where it is flowing well and where it is halting. Where I am most engaged and where I am not. What word choices seem off. Where I run out of breath, where I build momentum. What needs revision.
By now, I have a first draft of a poem. Just a first draft, mind you. I still have many, many more hours to put into revising it and polishing it to a shine. Maybe I’ll discuss my checklist for revision one of these days.
Write on. Until next week!
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