Advice to myself on the subject of writing poetry after a number of years trying to write poetry

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Advice to myself on the subject of writing poetry after a number of years trying to write poetry

Avoid the polemic, the rant,
the bromide
be all you can be
avoid the hackneyed phrase
the weak-kneed phrase
the self-consciously poetic line
the moon, a pale orb in the evening sky
never call the moon “an orb”
never call the sun “a fiery ball”
your waves should not
crash on the shore
they should collapse
like marathon runners
avoid foliage
excessive leafiness
too many trees
the reader needs to see the poem
and remember it’s unlikely
that your poem
will be an agent of change
no one is going to march through the streets
chanting your poem
unless your poem is a three word slogan
but your poem can chronicle change
and  the lines should resonate
should generate heat
meanwhile concentrate on
impressing yourself
avoid lines and rhymes ending in “ution”
the rest will take care of itself.

The prompt from Brendan over at Desperate Poets is as follows:

“For this challenge, write a poem about your creative process.”

” Is it a different animal now than when you first decided to make writing poetry a vocation?”

This poem is an edit of another poem which was a response to another prompt from Brendan, back in the earthweal days . That man is The Prompt Master!

33 thoughts on “Advice to myself on the subject of writing poetry after a number of years trying to write poetry”

  1. Lisa or Li's avatarmsjadeli

    JIM, I can’t keep the does and the don’ts separated, they keep wanting to breed with each other.
    Love this part:
    “no one is going to march through the streets
    chanting your poem
    unless your poem is a three word slogan”
    and
    “avoid lines and rhymes ending in “ution” “

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  2. Rajani Radhakrishnan's avatarRajani Radhakrishnan

    remember it’s unlikely
    that your poem
    will be an agent of change – this is a true struggle and I often wonder about where poetry (especially my own) fits into the larger scheme of things, if at all it does. The only thing it will (may) change is the poet, and perhaps that is enough. ‘Avoid foliage’ should be on a placard, marching down the streets.

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  10. Oloriel's avatarOloriel

    Avoid the foliage, I agree, because my poems hoard them!
    I love the voice that you used in the poem, it makes me think how sometimes we are hard on ourselves , and the discipline we try and go through to make our poems “be more” in some way.

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  12. scotthastiepoet's avatarscotthastiepoet

    Like both the touch of good-natured humour in this and the wisdom too… But, more than that, you also demonstrate, as Sanaa indicates above, what a fuent and confident writer you are yourself now, which gives th eoiece a great sense of symmetry.

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