Nothing is lamer than an attempt to force a narrative, political opinion, or a buzz word topic into your poetry. Unless you are passionate about it and extremely competent, the result will come across as tacky, and importantly, it won’t be impactful to the reader. I care about a multitude of issues, but I only put to paper the poems that come to me naturally. I am never happy with the results of forced poetry. After a month or two away from the piece, I find myself cringing at how obviously contrived my work was. Of course, I am critical of my normal poetry, but it is not in the same way. I had a few ‘forced’ poems that I could have included in my books, but I cut them all as I no longer feel what I supposedly felt when writing them originally, and upon reflection I don’t think I ever felt that way…

Throughout my entire schooling career, I was a left-brain thinker. Math made sense. It had a right and a wrong. It felt like the only solid base in a chaotic world, spawned by a tumultuous home life. This was combined with incompetent and out of touch teachers and terrible examples of poetry that I simply couldn’t relate to. I was left feeling that at best the entire artform was beyond me, and at worst that it was a refuge for pomposity and prose, written by people who have experienced less than they would ever write.…

There is a risk for poets, and all artists, to believe they need to be drunk or high to be creative. And whilst I have had some amazingly creative thoughts whilst stoned, rarely, if ever have, I produced anything of worth in that mental state. Obviously everyone is different, but I prefer to work with the creative energy sober, for two main reasons: health and practicality…

Finding the time to write can be hard and staying focused during that time can be harder still. Whether or not you are like me and want to make money off your art (gasp!), or just write for the sheer pleasure or catharsis of it, you will want to make the most of the limited time you get with the page…

Writing feels akin to a combination of exorcising a demon, giving birth, and the following of a holy calling. There is a reason you are reading this book. It is the reason you want to write. You may not even be able to articulate it, beyond a drive, a push, a force, that seems to be moving you in a certain direction. You know when you hold the negative poles of two magnets, how one is compelled to move? You can hold it back, but there will forever be tension…

Communication, either via words on a page, or spoken, is not perfect. The speaker formulates a concept in their mind (imagery, feelings, sensations, memories, emotions) and condenses all of that down into words and expresses it…

Communication, either via words on a page, or spoken, is not perfect. The complexities of communication can mean that people will not truly understand your writing in the exact way that you earnt it. The speaker formulates a concept in their mind (imagery, feelings, sensations, memories, emotions) and condenses all of that down into words and expresses it….

To sell anything, you need two things: a product people want and the awareness of its existence. To sell your self-published poetry is no different.

Your muse may balk at the suggestion, but your book is a product like everything else. So, if you want people beyond just your close friends and family to purchase it, you need to reconcile that fact.

Success will come when you learn how to move people’s emotions…

When I write, I lose myself in the present moment. I tap into the muse, put pen to paper, and all else disappears.

Then, some indeterminant time later, it ends. I don’t exactly know what it is: inspiration, flow, creativity, but all of a sudden I wake up to myself, finding the present moment, along with some words on a page expressing a moment in time, or a thought, or beauty.

That, or a palimpsest of healing. Words written by myself, about myself, for myself about finding myself…

Pro tip: write what you know, not what you think will sell.

One of the main problems creatives of all persuasions have, is that they attempt to replicate the current trends. They see what is working and then try to do it themselves, only to get discouraged when they fail to see similar results…

Not all poetry feedback is equal, nor is it equally appreciated. It depends on what you write, who is offering the feedback, and the type of relationship you share.

I write poems about sex, sadness, and spirituality, thus my audience is broad and eclectic. I want to be read wildly by most everyone, except perhaps by my family, colleagues, neighbours, and acquaintances who may (read have) raised a few eyebrows at my work…

Evocative poetry, like all good art moves people. It changes their emotional state – usually from neutral or mellow, towards any extreme. This change isn’t always in the positive direction. Good horror will terrify you, a masterful comedy will have you in hysterics, and any existential thriller worth its salt will leave you questioning the very nature of reality and the people within it…

Poetry is just words on a page.

Anything beyond that definition risks falling into a philosophical or literary debate that would amount to such an abstraction of the beauty of the artform as to render it pointless. There are no rules. No restrictions. No limits to what you can and can’t, or to what you should and shouldn’t do.

A lot of this book will help you to hone that expression, giving you tips, tools, and tricks to make it more evocative. But that is all just make up and window dressing. Expression is the key. Some people gravitate towards rhymes and structure, others to free-flowing verse, others still, to long form paragraphs or books, crafting each line with meticulous care. It is all just writing. It is all just words on a page. It is all just poetry…