How to Be Poetic

Find poems and poets you enjoy. Poetry dates back thousands of years, with every region of the world having its own distinct poets and styles of poetry. If you're new to reading poetry, you may be feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where to begin. Novice poetry readers may find it easiest to start with poetry that uses contemporary language, though every reader's tastes and preferences are different.

• Try an online poetry database like the Poetry Foundation. You can search through thousands and thousands of poems by subject, poet, occasion, school/period, and geographical region.^[3]
• Explore different poets and different styles of poetry until you find someone or something that is highly engrossing. Discovering poetry that you're very fond of will make it easier for you to fully engage with the text.

Learn how to read poetry. Reading poetry is very different from reading prose. If you're new to the genre, it may seem confusing and even intimidating. Learning how to properly read a piece of poetry will help you better understand the poet's stylistic choices and may allow you to walk away with a deeper understanding of the poem's meaning.^[4]

• Set aside any assumptions you may have about a particular poet, their work, or poetry in general. Every poem is different, so you'll want to approach each piece of writing as a unique experience.
• Remember that poetry is not written like prose. Poets may play with spacing, word choice, and organization on the page to create distinctly original pieces of writing.
• Line breaks help the reader find the poet's intended breath for each line. However, some lines in free-verse and experimental poetry are irregular and don't follow any metrical order.
• Recognize that poetry is essentially about capturing a moment. A poem may not have a logical beginning, middle, and end, but it should cause you to have some type of emotional reaction and sense something deeper beyond the words on the page.

Read poetry out loud. Once you're comfortable reading poetry to yourself, you may want to take the next step and learn how to read poetry out loud. Hearing a poem can be a drastically different experience than reading it on a page. Many poems were meant to be heard out loud, either because of the pleasing sound combinations those poems produce or because the poem is an oral tradition passed on to others (especially in ancient poetry). If you're serious about becoming more poetic, you may want to try experiencing the sounds of spoken verse out loud.^[5]

• Read slowly. Don't rush through each line; take the time to savor the interplay of language and imagery.
• Pause when you encounter punctuation, rather than pausing at the end of every single line break. This will make the poem less choppy and clearer to listeners, should you decide to read a poem in front of an audience.
• Don't try to use a "dramatic" voice; just read the lines in your normal speaking voice and tone.
• If you encounter a word you don't know or aren't sure how to pronounce, look it up in the dictionary. You owe it to the poet to understand their word choice and arrangement, so keep a dictionary on hand whenever you read.

Go to a poetry reading. Hearing practicing poets read their work out loud can be a great way to get inspired or just develop a better understanding of how poetry sounds and feels. You don't have to wait for a world-renowned poet to come through your town, either – many colleges, bookstores, coffee shops, and bars host poetry readings for both published poets and amateur writers.

• You can find a listing of poetry readings in your community by searching online. Even small towns should hold some type of reading series, especially if you live near a college or university.
• Start out going to readings just to hear other poets and experience the sounds of poetry. As you get more comfortable living poetically, though, you may even want to bring your own poem(s) to read in front of an audience.

Consider taking a poetry class. Poetry classes can help you learn about a range of different poets, types of poetry, and styles or techniques in poetry. You can take a poetry literature course, which focuses on reading and analyzing the poetry of others, or you can take a creative writing course/workshop, which can help you write your own poetry.

• Check your local college or community college for academic classes in poetry.
• You can also take poetry classes or workshops for free through community centers, poetry organizations, or certain nonprofit groups.
• Search online for opportunities to study and write poetry in a class setting in your community.

Choose a moment to capture. Any moment, whether experienced or imagined, can become the source for a poem. You may want to capture a life-altering experience in your life, but some of the best poems have been written about otherwise mundane moments. A skilled poet can capture the essence of any moment and impart it with meaning and significance.

• Explore every aspect of the moment you choose.^[6]
• Consider what it felt like living that moment when it was fresh, as well as how it appears now that the moment has passed.
• Don't overlook the everyday moments of your lives. A moment spent waiting in fear or apprehension, for example, could make for a powerful and moving poem.

Find something new and interesting in that moment. If you've chosen a relatively commonplace moment to write about, think about what could make that moment interesting or meaningful to a reader. That doesn't necessarily mean falsifying the moment; rather, it means looking for a different approach to a familiar sight, sound, smell, or concept.^[7]

• Instead of just seeing what people are doing in a given moment, imagine the private lives of those people. Think about what they do or don't do, what motivates them, and what makes them happy or sad.
• You can also apply this method to physical places. Look past a building's 4 walls and think about what might have transpired within a given place and what it might have meant in someone else's life.

Have an opinion on the things you write about. You may be afraid to personalize your poems for fear that a reader might disagree with you. However, a good poem should convey the poet's thoughts, opinions, and feelings on whatever is being written about.^[8]

• Every poem has a theme. This is the central "topic" of the poem.
• A strong poem will expand on the theme with the poet's opinions and beliefs regarding that topic. This makes it more powerful as well as more meaningful, and it separates your poem from every other poem on a given subject.

Play with different word choices. Some of the best poetry plays with words to produce unexpected phrasings and enjoyable sounds. This can take a lot of work, and it may involve some trial and error in replacing or entirely removing certain words to test the effects of those choices.^[9]

• Say the words out loud to see how they sound, both individually and with one another.
• Remove unnecessary words, including words like "and," "then," and "because." Many of these and other words can be removed without causing the poem to lose clarity.
• Try swapping out familiar or overused words with something new. Let yourself be surprised and see how the poem turns out differently with those changes.

Work on developing striking similes and metaphors. A simile is a comparison using "like" or "as."^[10] A metaphor uses 1 word, phrase, or concept to stand in for another word, phrase, or concept to show an otherwise abstract relationship.^[11] For example, a metaphor for beautiful eyes might be written, "Her eyes are deep pools of mystery and misunderstanding." A simile for beautiful eyes might be, "Her eyes are like deep pools that contain uncharted beauty."

• Poetry often relies heavily on similes and metaphors for their imagistic effect and their ability to relate 2 seemingly disparate things in a short span of space.
• Think about what a word really means, and find words that express similar things. For example, drowning can literally mean being incapable of swimming, but it can also describe a sense of feeling overwhelmed or overpowered.
• Think about the symbolism of any words you choose. Even if you don't intend a word to carry a given symbolic meaning, some readers may interpret your work that way.