How to Write Great Poetry

How is great poetry created? This is one Machine Girl the first questions I address in my poetry class. There are probably as many answers to that question as there are poets in the world, but for me it starts with this:

Lets start with our sense of sight. Is that just a tree in the front yard? Not to a poet. To a poet, that tree becomes a broom sweeping across the sky. Is that just a vacuum cleaner in the corner? Not to a poet. To a poet it might be a monster devouring a junk food lunch. Are those just tulip petals attached to a stem? To a poet, they might represent a cozy bed for an ant. Creating great poetry requires you to put on special glasses that allow you to view the world in a completely different way!

Let's move on to our sense of hearing. With poetry, it's Dick Dale and the Del-Tones Miserlou just what we hear, it's how we hear it. We don't just hear the car donate outside. A poet hears tapping, beating, pelting, etc. A poet doesn't just hear you walking across the room. A poet hears clip-clop, shush, shush, stomp, stomp, clomp, clomp. Creating great poetry requires us to not just hear things, but to really listen to what they sound like.

What about a poet's sense of smell? A poet doesn't just smell a delicious pie baking in the oven. A poet smells the memory of her grandmother's kitchen and the joy she felt spending time there with her grandmother. He doesn't just smell a dog. He smells the memory of his first dog, Tiger, and the sweet, just rained on scent of a new puppy. A great poet lets their sense of smell take them to another time and place and translate that into poetry.

A poet doesn't just eat that yummy candy, Pop Rocks. They experience every effervescent, explosive minute of those candies fizzing and exploding, a virtual volcano on their tongues. When they write, they don't just say, They ate chicken off of the bone. They would explain the experience (again, in as few well-chosen words as possible). They might use words like picked, gnawed, gnashed, etc. A great poet translates the experience, not just the action, into poetry.

Last but not least, how does a great poet use their sense of touch? The average person feels the steamy water of a hot tub, but a poet might feel a bubbling steamy soup of froth and filth. I know, not the nicest picture, but you get the idea. A poet doesn't just feel the fabric, filler and springs of the new mattress underneath of him. Though he might feel a fluffy, feathery, floating cloud on which to rest his body.

Creating great poetry requires each of us to take all five of our senses into overdrive. It requires us to not just live life, but to take the time to experience it. Below you'll find a few writing exercises that will help you get your senses into tip-top shape.

1. Make a list of common words like raining, running, windy, shiny, etc. Now make a list of as many synonyms as you can think of for each common word. Hint: It's okay to use a thesaurus. After you do this exercise enough times, the more expressive, descriptive words will come more naturally.

2. Ask a writing partner or friend to put objects of different textures into their own individual paper lunch sacks. Close your eyes and feel the objects. Make a list of adjectives to describe what you feel in each sack.

3. Do the same exercise above, substituting scents for textures.

4. Go outside and lay down on a blanket in the grass. Close your eyes and be still. Make mental notes of all of the different sounds that you hear. Don't just say I hear an owl calling or I hear a train going by. In vivid detail, describe how these things sound.

5. Go to the store and buy your favorite brand of cookies. Go home, enjoy a cookie, and then write a magazine advertisement for the cookies. Be as descriptive and convincing as possible.

To read more articles by Kimberly Hutmacher and to learn more about her books, visit her blog at worksinprogress-kim.blogspot.com/">worksinprogress-kim.blogspot.com/