How I Write - Poetry

One of my favourite things to do is write poetry, to the point that I have an Instagram account - @holliesspoetry - specifically dedicated to my poetry. The amazing things for new writers about trying poetry is that you can finish a poem fairly quickly and share it for feedback. Especially with communities such as the poetry and writing community that can be found on Instagram.

I started to write poetry because poetry is a way for me to work through the things I don't understand in an eloquent and metaphorical way that means I process events and feelings without necessarily facing them head on. From there I fell in love with it and I still love it even though I've been writing as often as possible for over a year.

What I have developed, however, is knowledge of my process.

Getting Started

The way that I start every poem is without meaning to. If you sit down and think, "I'm going to write a poem now," then you're just going to meet a brick wall that you can't punch through. What is much better for me is to sit down with an image, a word, a phrase, a line or just a theme in my head already. Instead of trying to find something to write about, I already have my starting point, and usually at least a world that I know is going to be central to the poem.

That has become a very natural process for me, and it allows me to make links between an image and specific adjective or metaphor that I want to use. Until your brain starts to automatically do that, one of the best things to do is to mind map, and I'm aware that sounds very much like something a Year 8 English teacher would suggest, but it's because it works.

By correlating not only your theme but also a bank of other words and phrases that you associate with it, all you have left to do is to string all of the words on your page together. It also makes it easier to present your ideas in a coherent manner.

Your Style

When you're just starting out with poetry, you won't necessarily know your style but if you're someone who has been writing for a while then you probably will. You just have to write a lot and also read a lot of poetry to determine what you like.

Do you like rhyme? Do you prefer a more narrative style? Do you write in first person?

These are all very important questions to ask yourself. But even if you know the style you usually write it, don't become reliant on it. Branch out, try new things. It is the only way you will grow as a writer.

Personally, I enjoy to write within a ABCB rhyme scheme, where only the second and fourth lines of each rhyme set actually rhyme. However, specifically while looking at spoken word poetry rather than more traditional page poetry, I do also enjoy writing list poems as well as poems that have more of a narrative structure. The intention of the poem can be just as important as the style, sometimes even more so as it can impact your style of writing for a particular poem.

Honestly, Just Write

To be perfectly honest, there's only a certain amount about poetry that you can know before you take the plunge and put pen to paper. The less you're caught up about trying to make it sound like a poem, and the more you focus on trying to articulate your thoughts using the images you've already developed, the most success you will find in completing a poem.

The beautiful thing about poetry is that every poet has complete freedom. Constantly people are changing and reinventing what makes a poem, a poem. By worrying less about how your writing sounds, and worrying more about if you're going to write by hand or typing, you will finish a poem so much sooner, and you will also start to develop as a poet quicker.

Every poem will be interpreted a thousand different ways, but they are all as beautiful, harrowing, uplifting or euphoric as the writer intends them to be, and as the readers perceives them to be. Reflect what you don't understand, want to know more about, or preserve about the world through your poetry. Not only does it help people to understand what is around them, but even if you aren't writing about yourself, you will begin to understand yourself better as a result.

I really hope this encourages some people to take the plunge into poetry. But on top of that, I'm glad to share something that I am extremely passionate about.

Your stage is waiting.

Hollie x

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