How To Write Poetry - Guest Post From Author James Zerndt

How To Write Poetry 

     Here is a short guide to help you on your way to becoming a poet. First, you have to know what words to use. If you were a carpenter, would you build a house using driftwood? Of course not! So don't go building your poetry using drift-words. Throughout this instructional essay, I will drop words like pieces of bread (hereafter denoted by an asterisk) leading you out of the forest of bad poetry. Here is one made of solid oak: tendrils. Just look at it. Maybe you're thinking, Is that some type of pasta? No, it's a word! And not just any word, it's a poetry-word! Here's an example:

     Her hair fell like *tendrils into the gaping *maw of *night.

     Not bad, eh? And look, we've got two more. Maw is just a fancy way of saying mouth, but if you're going to write a poem about visiting the dentist, make sure you say something like,
“That son-of-a-bitch (it's okay to cuss in poetry) yanked the tooth right out of my *gaping maw.” Notice the use of gaping here. The two are often seen together. And let's not forget night. This simple word is the poet's lonely friend, the friend who walks down a deserted road kicking pebbles across the *fecund path of life, the friend who holds the poet's hand in the dark. Let us not forget him. Or her.

     Now I'd like to talk about something that is a bit of a secret in most poetry circles: Indentation!

     Let's say you have a fairly boring couplet like this:

     She left a coffee

     stain on my tabled heart

     Yawn, right? Now watch this:

     She left a coffee

                    stain on my tabled heart

     Can you say New Yorker? You've just gone from coffee house amateur to professional just by hitting your tab button a few times.

     Okay, let’s move on. Here’s an example of a sonnet:

     Dirt Weed Sonnet

(actually, who really wants to read a sonnet? Let’s just skip it.)

     Another great way to be a certified poet is to write about poetry. Nothing says you're a poet better than penning an ode to your favorite pastime. Whatever you do, make sure you place the word Poem in your title. Here's an example:

     Poem about a Pony named Poetry

     You'll notice I killed two birds with one stone there. Who wouldn't publish that?! If this fails for some reason, try writing about yourself. Who is the most interesting person you know? You, of course! If you do decide to go this route, try using the following formula (it's not fail-proof, but it should get you rolling):

     I did this

     Then I did that

               And when I sat back from it all

     I had this insightful and somewhat ambiguous thought

     Please beware of something called adjectivitis. I see this often. A poem can become sick and diseased if you don't use enough adjectives. I like adjectives. I also like sugar. I have a whole box of sugar cubes next to my coffee maker. Do you think I use just one sugar cube in my coffee when I have upwards of 80 at my disposal? Hell no! Sometimes I'll use two, three and if I'm really hung-over, then I'll use four. Do you see my point? We all have at least 80 adjectives sitting in our collective sugar-cube boxes. See what happens to this ordinary cup of a poem:

     She was a lovely person

     One lump or three?

     She was an ugly, sad, horny, lovely person

     Next up is the use of simile and metaphor. These are what car-bombs are to terrorists. Without them, you're nothing more than an angry person with too much religion stewing in their bottom who can't afford a rocket launcher. See how I did that? I compared the terrorist with the poet. You are the terrorist! Plant your homemade word-bombs along the roadside of your audience's mind and let them rip! Ka-blooey!! If you do your job right, you'll have innocent corpses strewn about everywhere.

     Simile example:

     She said my poetry was like a kitten

          peeing in a basket

of freshly washed laundry

     Metaphor example:

     The laundry basket was an amazing poem

          a certain someone couldn’t appreciate

     because she was stupid in the face

     Some more ideas if you’re stuck:

     Maybe you have a journal lying around full of sad thoughts about that guy who cheated on you with your hot deaf sister. Surely, you say, that can't be poetry-fodder. The answer is: Hell yes! Copy it down word for word, indent here and there, maybe indent again just for dramatic emphasis at the part where he tells you right in front of your hot deaf sister, but she pretends not to be able to hear (but you know she really can.) And what do we have here? A poem titled: My Hot Deaf Sister is a Poem I Hate.

     Once you've actually written your poem, you should look for the heart of your poem. The heart is the central focal point of the piece, the place that pumps blood to the other parts of the poem. Many beginners often mistake the leg for the heart. It's easy to do. A good way to avoid this is by placing your ear against the poem and listening for the ba-dum, ba-dum of creativity.

     When you find it, stick a big pin in it.

     So you can find it again later.

Make sure you pick up James' novel The Cloud Seeders here!

James Zerndt lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and son. His poetry has appeared in The Oregonian Newspaper, and his fiction has most recently appeared in Gray's Sporting Journal and SWINK magazine. He recieved an MFA in Writing from Pacific University and is extremely fond of gummy bears and rain.

This is his first novel.

His second novel, The Korean Word For Butterfly, is due out in February 2013.