Poetry: Tips and Tricks

I haven't made much progress on Camp Nano this month yet because I'm gearing up for a major push by reading and rereading some books about writing techniques. So here are some tips on writing and improving your poetry. A lot of these tips also apply to other genres, most notably flash fiction.

The book I'm taking these notes from is Ted Kooser's Poetry Home Repair Manual, a wonderful guide and book about writing with a lot of example texts.

• Think about your audience. Don't pander, but if you're the only person to which the poem makes sense, there's a problem.
• Putting exposition in the title can be a handy way to sidestep grounding your reader within the text.
• Find the true beginning of the piece--it might be buried in the middle after a lot of "clearing the throat"-type writing.
• Make sure that the first line hooks readers (and publicists!)
• Don't make readers wonder why you made the choices you did, because this will take them out of the piece.  While they are reading your work, the experience should be seamless and intuitive within the work's parameters.
• Generalities make for weaker writing in short forms. Be specific.
• Adjectives should be used only when they help you shape the images you want your readers to see.
• Play with content. Try last lines first. Try starting with prose and moving to poetic form, or vice versa, to see what happens.
• Relax and wait (this is the subject of the final chapter). Kooser says he gives his poems a month or so of 'drawer time' before he goes into revisions.
• Revise...a lot. Just because it's a short work doesn't mean that you shouldn't spend adequate time with it. Rather, it means that you can put it under a lot of stress. Kooser says some drafts shift him closer to what he wants, and some carry him away.

I haven't read this book since I started writing more poetry and any flash fiction at all, but the advice within has general applications to all writing, and remains a solid reminder of some good principles. It's easy to lose sight of what you already know when you're revising or working on a piece. I'll certainly be using my notes as reference.