Poetry 101: A Beginner's Guide to Poetry

What is Poetry?

According to Merriam-Webster, it says – “writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.”

That is a mouthful, isn’t it? To shorten it out, Poetry is a form of literature. It is not a mere word-by-word writing, but one that brings out emotions and awareness to the reader. Thus, it makes you feel as though you are soaring high above the skies in the confines of your home. Something that seems simple, yet profound that it can express the same emotions variously. It helps to share your thoughts, create imagery or express an idea that the reader can see or experience.

So, if writing a poem is simple, why don’t most poems cross the road? There are two reasons why your poems are stuck the way they are.

Careless in quality.
Care-less for the community.

Careless in quality

A poem is your thought. If your thought is like a string, so intertwined, that you don’t know where the knots are, it’s going to be tough to understand what you are thinking. Similarly, a poem should be in a flow. Find all the knots that you can and untwine them, showcasing the graceful flow of that string.

There can be instances that people came to read your poems, didn’t enjoy it and never came back ever again. So, to hook your readers to your poem, make sure you tell the story as it is supposed to.

Care-less for the community

The other reason why your poems are not known to the masses is that the masses don’t know you. If you’re like – “I can become a great writer on my own,” you might need a miracle (well, miracles do happen as well.)

The community can help you have a better writing career. The more involved you are, the better you become – both in terms of writing and as a person. It’s not a competition, it’s a collaborative environment, where one helps the other, thus, in turn, helping themselves. These people will be the ones who will support you apart from your loved ones because their interests are the same. So instead of going to your peers who like motorbikes, dresses or partying, try finding people who have a common interest, and gradually grow from there.

There will be times where your poems were loved by some, whereas despised by others. Sometimes, your readers perceived the theme differently from what you intended. Instead of worrying about that, understand what the reason was. Was the imagery or emotion different or similar to something else? If so, how could you change the expression without changing the theme you want the readers to experience? Think in terms of how you could write better poems, instead of dwelling in the depths of mistook perceptions.

What is stopping you now? Start with one word and continue. Polishing comes later on.