Everybody’s trick to writing is their own – this is mine. It may or may not work for you just like sitting alone for hours over a blank sheet may or may not help you. This is written to help people in my position (that is, new to poetry) get off their feet. Like Richard Hugo says in The Triggering Town, keep your crap detector on at all times. If nothing I say helps you, I apologize now. This is how I began and this is how I currently approach the craft.
Step one: Don’t sit in a quiet room. Nothing is more painful than sitting in a quiet room for an hour trying to materialize some granule of substance. If left alone, the mind will meander and stagnate, then you will end up thinking about school, work, or, worse, what else you could be doing. You need distractions so you have to actually focus on writing. Turn on the television; listen to a CD or the radio; write in a public place (not a coffee house or bookstore – trust me).
Step one, part 2: Find anyhing to say. Don’t worry about changing the established world just starting out, brite about anything you want – shoes, your mood, the atmosphere. Try to avoid clichés unless you can make it fresh – parted lovers, for instance. I suggest writing about specific things at first: odd dreams, people you know, common things. The poet Pablo Neruda is famous for his odes to everyday objects.
Step two: Write your first draft by hand. There’s a mechanism in the brain that goes along with typing and it’s called wordiness. It’s a lot more time consuming and stressful on the body to write by hand. Use the extra time to think. For me, this only works for poetry because the intent is concentrated to 5-100 lines (generally), whereas in short prose and academia, that may be ten times that. That’s a lot of pain.
Step three: Type your second draft before you do any editing. To poorly paraphrase W. H. Auden, one enjoys the sight of their own handwriting like one enjoys the smell of one’s farts. That is, if it’s pretty and it’s yours, you’re likely to be more sentimental about it. Sentiment can be your enemy in the early stages of editing because you’re more likely to leave something because it looks pretty. Don’t use any funny fonts either – 12 point, times new roman. If a poem is absolutely ugly to look at but still sounds good to your ear or mind, you’re on the right track. Besides, you can worry about visual aesthetics after your words are down.
Step three, part 2: Read your poem aloud after every edit. If you can’t or feel embarrassed, mouth it instead, then do it when you’re alone. Get a feeling for the words and sounds of your poem. If it feels like it drags, cut. If it feels weird in a place, consider a word change. Poetry is just as much about rhythm, sounds, and physical movement as it is meaning.
Step four: Don’t judge yourself too harshly. Writing gets easier with time, just like riding a bike. Find other people who write and get them to read your stuff. You can only benefit from criticism.
Here are a few books that I recommend that may help anyone who is currently getting started:
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. A good book on writing in general. If you read this and don’t feel like writing afterwards, you need to read it again.
The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo. This is Hugo’s own appraisal of the craft, and a good one. He provides a lot of mechanisms that can help focus your poetry and help you find that something that you want to write about.
In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop by Steve Kowit. A good guide to the basics of poetry such as meter and form. This book also includes many samples of poetry and exercises to make you think and write. I recommend starting with this and just working the assignments, some multiple times, to get yourself into writing poetry.
