Poetry

 

A guide to writing poetry by someone who is not a poet.

1. Begin to nurture a voice the poetry can inhabit.

2. Just like fiction, write what you know.

3. Just as anyone can make art, anyone can write poetry.

But not everybody can make good art, nor can everybody write good poetry.

4. Every good poem has its own noise, maybe music, maybe not. Read your poem out loud. 

5. It helps to get dirt under your nails if you want to write nature poetry.

6. You can learn something from listening to poetry in a foreign language, even if you don’t understand the language.

7. If you’re serious about poetry, you’ll realize that the poems are already inside you.

8. Not that many people read poetry. Even fewer would read poems about. If your poetry is autobiographical, it needs to also be a biography of the human experience as well.

9. Writing good stuff requires acknowledging the bad stuff.

10. Don’t pay attention to me.