In this post I share the progress that some of my poems took to reach their final form. I will share with you how they originally formed, as well as some of the changes that they went through along the way, finishing with the final form of the poem that I settled on…

What follows are some activities to help you begin or enhance your writing process. I suggest that you don’t just read what follows, but actually give the activities a try. I have put these here for a reason – they work. They won’t all work for you, but some certainly will…

Sometimes I will ‘finish’ a poem, but I won’t be totally satisfied with the result. Something feels off. Incomplete. Forced. Contrived. Or just not ‘me’. When this happens, I sleep on it – literally. I will save the poem and return to it the next day and take another go at it…

Sometimes we are simply too close to our work to be able to see it for what it is. Perhaps the subject matter is too emotional, or the writing process was too taxing…

You want to carefully consider the name of your poem. Often the name will come from a word or a line within the poem that best exemplifies its meaning. You want to choose a word or phrase that is catchy and symbolic. Consider the names of most of the poems presented in this book and you will see that I usually adhere to this rule. …

Consider how you want the poem to ‘look’ on the page. Make an active choice about its alignment, paragraph structure, title, and the use of capitalizations and grammar (or lack thereof). You are the artist and therefore you will want the words on the page to transmit to the reader in a certain way. These choices help to make that happen – of course, the reader is free to take your work however they like! Just be internally consistent within the poem…

Extending on the previous section, the repetition of words, rhymes, sounds, meanings, and symbolism can make a piece pop. Experiment with groups of three as they tend to sound extra enticing.

In Seed I repeatedly use the dual rhyme endings of ‘eed’ and ‘urt’, the symbolism of seeds and pain, as well as the use of the same words in the penultimate paragraph in a different context from their first mention to evoke an alternative meaning. Finally, I also ‘tie the loop’ with a reintroduction of ‘seed’ at the end.…

There is a nice feeling of closure that can arise when you end a poem by bringing the reader back to the beginning – this is a common factor in short fiction writing that can also be used to enhance your poetry…

All words are valid, but some words are more appropriate to use than others. Our goal is to write evocative poetry, not to showcase our impressive vocabulary. It may make you feel smarter, but if it unintentionally goes over the reader’s head, or worse still, is used incorrectly, it will have the opposite of the desired effect…

The human mind evolved to conserve energy. It doesn’t want to waste time trying to interpret ambiguity or confusion. When faced with such, most will give up and move on. This isn’t to say that we don’t want to be challenged, but rather we want to be challenged in a way that we desire. If the grammar and spelling in this book was off, you wouldn’t have read this far, the effort would have been too much. If I used a weird/borderline illegible font to present my poetry, it would never be read. You would take one look at it and move on…

Probably the most clichéd and widely spouted piece of writing advice comes in the form of ‘show don’t tell’ - Rather than saying how you feel, instead you should show that emotion with imagery, comparison, symbolism, analogy, or specificity of word choice - This is because in general, people respond far more to emotions felt than emotions told…

One way to leave a lasting impression on the reader is to play with opposites and subvert expectations. This will take many different forms, but the basic suggestion would be to twist tried and tested tropes. Turning them on their head and making them mean the opposite of their original meaning, or something new entirely. Surprises, when pulled off well, have added impact due to the shock value…

Your poetry can be anything you like. Yes there are technical ways to write traditional poetry, but ultimately the most evocative poetry comes from pure expression. You can use the poetic space to express a thought, a feeling, or a confusing complex bundle of emotions. You could also use it to tell a story…

I don’t often adhere to the traditional poetic rules and structures. I prefer to write what comes as it comes. However, there is something to be said about writing with restrictions. Restrictions, be they self-imposed, or derived because of the kind of poetry that you are writing, can boost creativity. I think that one of the largest factors causing ‘writers block’ is having too much choice. When faced with a blank page and no prompts or guidance, most newer writers stumble and become overwhelmed. But when they are told to write a haiku on the topic of a cloudy sunrise, suddenly they get some inspiration – the result may or may not be ‘good’ but something is infinitely better than nothing.…

There is a concept in writers circles known as ‘voice’. This is an almost ethereal, hard to pin down sound that established writers seem to have. Pick a random paragraph from one of the greats and you can just tell that they wrote it without ever knowing it was from them. Perhaps their poetry all has as similar feel, or maybe their pieces have a consistent style. You know how each song from your favourite musician is unique but somehow still sounds like them in a way that you cannot quite explain, yet you nonetheless know when another artist is desperately trying, and failing, to emulate it?…

If you want to write good poetry, you need to read more than just good poetry. Don’t get me wrong, it pays to analyse and enjoy the greats. But don’t limit your options for inspiration. Read some ‘bad’ poetry and question why you don’t like it…

Poems have a way of just appearing. Often they come unannounced, bursting out of the silence, screaming to be heard and written down then and there. They are brutal. They don’t negotiate. And they rarely give a second chance. Thus, I have learnt too always be open and ready. I always have something to write on with me; I sleep with a notepad under my pillow, and exercise with another close at hand. I have had the conversation with my family, letting them know that there will be times when I simply must stop whatever it is I am doing to go and write…

I write for myself and while I care what my readers think of my work and want them all to love it, I have learnt to ignore all feedback that I didn’t ask for directly. This is an act of self-preservation. In the past, I have completely altered projects, or worse still, discontinued or destroyed them, based on unasked for feedback. Most of the time it was unintentional…

Good writing involves two versions of yourself working on the one piece of work: Artist-You and Editor-You. These two versions of you, must work alone as it is almost impossible to write and edit at the same time.

Firstly, Artist-You gets into the zone, isolates themselves from the world, drinks copious amounts of coffee, does a five-minute headstand, prays to the gods, then does the myriad of other things they feel is necessary for them to get the words going goodly. They write until spent, then they put the piece aside and write something else.…

If you haven’t lost a loved one, it will be exceedingly hard to capture the complexities that such a loss would entail. Life is full of different emotional experiences, some of which will have happened to you. I’d advise, at least in the beginning, to focus your efforts there. This doesn’t mean you have to limit your poetry to those life events, but rather to using the emotions that you have experienced to inform and colour your work. With some introspection and imagination, you can extrapolate the emotional state that may arise from a more extreme version of a situation you have lived through…