How to Write a Good Poem

Tips from a real poet (i.e., not me)

When the world weighs me down, music, painting, and poetry bring me back up. They lift me like a breeze in the woods. I like consuming art—looking at paintings, listening to music, reading poetry—but creating it is something else. It’s more demanding, and the payoff is greater.

“Poetry is the music of words.”

It’s not easy to write well. There is no blueprint, and the road to creativity is pockmarked with cliché, overstatement, and cloying predictability. If you don’t believe me, look at poetry on Instagram. Some of it is inspired but most of it is… yawn.

Japanese feminist poet Yosano Akiko (1868-1942) has some suggestions. She knew what she was talking about: she published tens of thousands of poems in her lifetime. Her poetry form of choice was tanka, so her suggestions below are fine-tuned to that. Also called waka, tanka is possibly Japan’s oldest form of poetry. It is older than the better-known haiku and about twice as long. Tanka has 31 syllables to haiku’s 17, so there is a bit more breathing room. I like it better, but you do you. Write a sonnet if you like, or an epic poem.

Sit down with your favorite beverage and review these guidelines before starting.  I paraphrase from her Tanka Philosophy, adding my own clarifications.: [1]

-   To be art, poetry must cover new ground. You must say something new.

-       Poetry is the music of words. How it sounds is as important as what it says.

-       Shoot for three things: Clarity, elegance, and freshness.

-       Personal feelings are the subject matter of tanka. Get to the bottom of how you feel.

-       The vocabulary of tanka is literary language. Be clear, don’t be crass.

-       Go in a new direction, try a different music, surprise your readers.

Akiko wrote these guidelines more than 100 years ago, but they still ring true. Poetry is the music of words. If a novel or essay were boiled down to its essence, tended from soupy mixture to silky sauce, that would be a poem. A poem can be reduced no further, it is stripped bare of fluff and slosh. Nothing can be taken from it, nothing added, without ruining the balance, without breaking the sauce.

So, go find your voice. Make your sauce. To see examples of what Akiko meant, look at her poems on my website at www.accidentalfeminist.net/poetry. Let me know how it goes. And don’t worry, the dysfunctional world will be here when you get back.

[1]  「晶子の短歌論」