The Curator’s Guide to Writing Poetry

Here at the Curator, we’ve evaluated many poetry submissions. Many of them we have deemed ready to publish; many we haven’t. One of the Curator’s main goals is to help poets improve their craft until they can write publish-ready poetry. This guide covers some of what we’re looking for in the poetry we publish. It contains tips for how to think about poetry and gives explanations of the mistakes that cause us to turn down many poems.

1 Introduction

Poetry is an art form that uses words. It is different from other textual art forms such as fiction, which uses prose language rather than poetic language.

What’s the difference between poetry and prose? While prose selects words for their straightforward meanings, poetry harnesses many subtle qualities of language to contribute to a meaningful text. Poetry makes heavier use of the sounds of words, the connotations of words, and other devices like metaphor. Literary prose will use these devices to an extent, but poetic language is far more intricate and densely packed with meaning.

If you need a reference for the poetic terms used in this guide, here’s a glossary that’s a great resource for understanding how they are typically used.

1.1 Form and Content

All art can be said to have form and content. For a painting, the form includes things like color balance, proportion, shading techniques, and texture. The content is simply the subject of the picture—it may be a bird, a battle, a cup, or a mood.

1.1.1 Form and Content in Poetry

A poem’s form is the way the meanings and sounds of its words and phrases fit together. Form is pattern or structure. Things like metaphor, allusion, and imagery are patterns of meaning. Things like rhyme, meter, and alliteration are structures of sound. 

The content of a poem is what the poem is about. Content is the part that can usually be summarized or stated in different words. While form is the part that makes it irreducibly a poem, content is the part that could be written as prose.

1.1.2 How Much Form?

Both poetry and prose literature have form, but poetry focuses on it more heavily than prose does. Poetry elevates the formal aspects of language  until the form is as important as the content for expressing what the poem intends to express.

Note: How much form a poem needs varies by culture and genre. For example, in narrative poetry the form is not as elevated as it typically is in lyric poetry.

1.1.3 How Form and Content  Work Together

The key to writing successful poetry is to make it about one thing, and to choose every detail and dimension of the poem in light of that center. In this way, the form of a poem contributes vitally to the poem’s content, and in fact, the two should become one. 

Achieving this is simple, yet very difficult. The best poems draw on every resource at the author’s command to make a beautiful and meaningful whole.

1.1.4 Considerations on Curator Content

Naturally, the Curator is looking for excellent form in the submissions we receive, but here are some special considerations on the content we look for:

What makes poetry valuable is that it speaks to/from the human experience. Poetry is original not by being different, but by stemming from the specific experience of a specific person. Such poetry will be different because experiences are different, not just for the sake of being different. See the section on “Hospitality in Poetry.”

We are a Christian publication, and believe that one of the most fundamental facts of reality is that all was once good, and will again be good. To this end, we publish poetry that believes in beauty and goodness and is not sentimental. Evil, ugliness, and pain are real, so poetry shouldn’t ignore them; much of the best poetry wrestles with them. Ultimately, the poem shouldn’t deny goodness or view it cynically.

1.1.5 Examples of Form and Content

The following “poem” is all form and no content. Notice that it has good form, repeating many of the same sounds. But this poem means nothing, since the form doesn’t build content.

Get bellow guest forget said high,
Two spoon could fruitcake the below
Fit sixty this in tie.

The next sample is all content and no form. It’s a prose paraphrase of part of Psalm 23. It is purely conceptual, with no effort to make the concepts come alive.

God takes care of all my needs. This includes my physical needs and my spiritual needs. The way he gives me peace and helps me be righteous is just like him!

The following poem integrates form and content:

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.

Note the simple language and phrasing, metaphors, and parallelism in this quotation from Psalm 23. This poem may have had more formal elements in the original Hebrew, but has excellent form even in the English translation, without rhyme or meter.

However, more obvious formal elements, such as rhyme and meter, can add considerable meaning to a poem. See the following poem as an example:

Daily
by Sherri Steiner

I brought my day to the doorposts
And pierced its ear at the dawn.
Earth sang and shouted for gladness,
And gold spilled down from the sun.

When the world came near the doorposts
And saw the crimson spread,
They laughed, and pointed their fingers
And wrote me down as dead.

thecurator.org/2022/01/27/sherri-steiner-daily

1.2 The Narrator

A poem may not always speak from the perspective of the author. While  the author is obviously the person who writes the poem, the narrator is the (often imagined) person who is speaking in the poem. Many beginner poets write entirely from their own perspective, and find it hard to conceive of the narrator as being someone else. But an author often chooses to write from the perspective of a narrator who is not himself.

Sometimes the narrator is not really apparent; in many hymns, the narrator could be anyone. In other cases, a distinct character or personality comes through.

In expressive poetry, the narrator is simply the author. In some other cases the author separates himself from the narrator. He may poke fun at the narrator by making their shortcomings obvious, or he may write from the perspectives of different personalities or belief systems.

1.3 The Reader

Today, many poets think of their poetry as a private endeavor. They write poems as self-expression, perhaps only for their journal. They may submit their poetry to be published, but still think of it as fundamentally about expressing themselves. Such writers might question the idea of editing their poetry to make it communicate better to an audience.

While poetry is certainly an excellent way of processing one’s thoughts, public poetry must also aim to be publicly intelligible. It doesn’t have to be understood by everyone, but it should aim to connect with many people, or it should stay in the author’s diary.

In published poetry, the author is the servant of the reader. 

1.4 Types of Poetry

There are many different styles, eras, and genres of poetry, and each publication chooses the styles it publishes. This section describes some genres that the Curator tends to publish.

1.4.1 Lyric Poetry

Lyric poems are short poems that express the author’s emotions, typically in context of a particular experience. Most of the poetry the Curator receives is closer to lyric poetry than to other genres, so much of this guide’s advice will focus there, but will apply to other genres as well.

1.4.2 Light Verse

Light verse poems are poems written for the sake of humor. A common example of this genre is the limerick form. Lewis Carroll and Hilaire Belloc are well-known writers of light verse.

1.4.3 Narrative Poetry

Narrative poems are poems primarily written to tell a story. Ballads are a subcategory written in four-line stanzas, often in the style of a folk song. Narrative poetry tends to be longer than other forms, and we don’t publish (or receive) much of it.

2 Suggestions for Good Form

2.1 Rhyme

Much Western poetry uses rhyme. Over the last hundred years or so, it has fallen out of fashion among many modern poets, but it’s a valuable tool that we shouldn’t dismiss.

2.1.1 What Is Rhyme?

Perfect rhyme, in English poetry, has these rules: For two syllables to rhyme, they must begin with different consonant sounds and move to the same accented vowel sound. After this may follow any number of consonant sounds and unaccented syllables, all of which must be the same.

Rhymes of one syllable are often called masculine, while rhymes of more than one syllable are often called feminine.

Perfect rhyme:

• • Today–way
  • Eat–seat
  • Ready–Eddy
  • Hurriedly–worriedly

Not a perfect rhyme:

• • Mercy–free
  • Red–read
  • Say–wake

Gray areas:

• Honesty–faithfully: These words are made by adding rhyming suffixes to two otherwise unrhymed words. These suffixes, the third syllable in both cases, aren’t as accented as the first syllables, but slightly more accented than the second syllable. In some meters, the third syllable gets a stress, and in some it doesn’t. Where it does, you can use it as a rhyming syllable.
• Awe–fall: In some dialects of English, these words sound like a perfect rhyme. But beware of words like this that might not rhyme in every dialect. You may still use them; just know that not everyone will hear them as a rhyme.

2.1.2 The Nature of Rhyme

Rhyme is not a magic wand. It does not magically fix problems or “poem-ify” your words. It is not merely a fun sound to spice up your poetry, nor is it merely a rule to be obeyed. 

Rhyme is a binding mechanism. Ending two lines similarly ties them together in the mind of the reader, and using rhyme consistently throughout the poem ties the whole poem together.

Not all poems are rhymed, but if you do use rhyme, it shouldn’t be a merely incidental aspect of a poem. It should be working to hold the poem together.

2.1.2.1 Rhyme Likes Meter

A poem without meter doesn’t make the most use of its rhyme. You might like it, but to the discerning reader, it will feel contrived, which is a crime.

2.1.2.2 Ending Without Rhyme?

Because rhyme is a binding mechanism, and because the end of your poem should be the most bound part of the poem, if you use rhyme at all, the end of your poem should rhyme. This is a flexible rule, and may be broken—sometimes. 

Once I was dawn, for I was young,
and reveled in the air;
I filtered through the sailing clouds
and left my footprints there.

When darkness gathered on the lake
and spread along the shore,
A moon-path rippled in my wake
and Evening sang to me.

—Lynn Michael Martin

2.1.2.3 Don’t Over-Use Rhyme

If a poem overuses rhyme, it’s hard to take the poem seriously. That’s why humorous poetry often makes such heavy use of rhyme, as in the following example. This poem, for example, heavily uses feminine rhyme, which contributes to an unserious tone: 

I am the very model of a modern Major-General;
I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral.
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical.
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical;
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical.
About binomial theorem I am teeming with a lot o’ news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
—W.S. Gilbert

2.1.2.4 Don’t Force Rhymes

Don’t let it be obvious that you chose a word just for its rhyme. Work it in so that it fits, or find another rhyme. Typically, you want your rhyming words to seem like the obvious choice to end the line, rather than an unlikely word to use. If the rhyming syllable is a natural part of the line, it will tie it beautifully to the other rhyming line/s. 

Finding good rhymes can be time-consuming. But taking even ten extra minutes to improve an affected rhyme is usually worth it.

Note: It can help to use the harder or less common rhyming word first; then the typical word will make it seem like it fits in well. Compare these stanzas from two drafts of a poem:

But the righteous son complains;
he is not content:
“You should make a feast for me,
I’m obedient.”

Son and father both rejoice;
servants celebrate.
But the father’s other son
stays outside the gate.

—Lynn Michael Martin

2.1.2.5 Imperfect Rhymes

Poets often use imperfect rhymes (also called slant rhymes) in their poetry. This can work, or it can flop.

The whole purpose of rhyme is that the ear associate the rhyming syllables, and by extension, the lines that they end. Thus, rhyming syllables need to sound similar enough that the ear automatically connects the words.

This means that the proof of the rhyme is in the hearing; no one can say what’s legal and what’s not. However, the following imperfect rhymes tend to work well. Note that in different dialects the example rhymes might not all work.

• • • Same consonant, similar vowel: love–move, known–gone
    • Same vowel, similar consonant: known–dome, face–raise
    • Same vowel, different set of ending consonants: height–bites, stack–racked

It’s possible to stretch these. However, the further you stretch them, the less they’ll be able to carry the rhyme. 

Generally, your most significant rhymes should be perfect rhymes.

2.1.2.6 Other Tips for Using Rhyme

• • Good rhyme takes work, but it’s worth it. Use a rhyming dictionary. There are some good ones online, like rhymebrain.com.
  • When starting out, use common rhyming syllables, so that you have plenty of options. If possible, keep words like “God” and “love” within the line rather than as the ending syllable.
  • If you want a challenge, try an Italian sonnet. The first eight lines (octave) are rhymed ABBAABBA, and the last six (sestet) can use either two triads or three pairs of rhymed syllables, in any order.

2.2 Meter

Meter is patterned rhythm. A metrical poem is (theoretically) made up of lines which have a certain number of metrical feet. A metrical foot is a sequence of one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables. Here are the most common metrical feet:

• • Iamb = unstressed,stressed = reTURN
  • Trochee = stressed,unstressed = THINKing
  • Anapest = unstressed,unstressed,stressed = underFOOT
  • Dactyl = stressed,unstressed,unstressed = QUEStioning

In English speech, we often use iambic naturally. Still, trochaic catches our attention. Anapestic is often a lighthearted meter to use. As is dactylic sometimes.

Metrical lines are made up of consistent patterns of metrical feet, though the final foot doesn’t need to be complete. Metrical poems are made up of metrical lines.

Hymns and other songs are typically metrical, and Western poetry has typically been metrical up to the nineteenth century.

2.2.1 Using Meter Naturally

Here’s the first paradox. It’s not metrical verse if you don’t use a meter. However,

 …who on earth enjoys a verse
that marches onward like a hearse
until the pounding in your ears
will bring its hearers all to tears?

In metrical verse, rhythm that is too regular or irregular is a mistake. You don’t want to bury your meter so deeply that it’s missing, and you certainly don’t want your reader to consistently stumble over your lines.

Give your poem the freedom to have some stressed syllables that are weaker than others (as English typically does) and to have some inverted feet (an inverted foot is a metrical foot that inverts the usual pattern, such as a trochaic foot in an iambic poem). But don’t let its freedom obscure its underlying meter.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
—William Butler Yeats

Near us his heart, beating like gentle rain,
moves all the world and makes our spirits rest.
His breath falls lightly here, but, east and west,
it quickens all ills, makes all joys remain.
—Lynn Michael Martin

Look over these stanzas and notice that, though both are iambic, both sometimes flip a metrical foot, either to add aural interest or to bring forward certain words. Though these poems stay within iambic boundaries, they use the natural accents of the English language to create a lyrical sound. You can’t go wrong by emulating Yeats’s poetry in this.

Exception: If you intend your poem to be sung as a strophic hymn (multiple stanzas to the same music), make sure the meter stays fairly consistent, so that none of the verses are awkward to sing.

2.2.2 Meter Matches Mood

Another mistake is using a meter that doesn’t match the mood of the poem. Typically, you shouldn’t use three-syllable feet, especially anapestic meter, for solemn poetry. It will sound like you’re trying to be funny.

Then I sadly looked down in the drain, where my lover had slipped;
I knew, if the blades there were spinning, in bits he’d be clipped.

Dactylic meters are sometimes an exception, and can be very weighty—if you are careful to choose the right words for your desired mood:

Cold on his cradle the dewdrops are shining;
low lies his head with the beasts of the stall.
Angels adore him in slumber reclining,
maker and monarch and Savior of all.
—Reginald Heber

Far down that tide will thy ship, then, be grounding,
Leaving thee off in grey lands like a grave,
Or to the ocean, on some deep sounding,
Pitch thee forever on wave and on wave.
—Lynn Michael Martin

2.2.3 Tighter and Looser Meters

Poets typically begin by emulating the best poetry they know. For Anabaptists, this is often hymns. However, hymns are often constrained to stick closely to their meter, and, as noted above, such metrical regularity can sound wooden when carried into poetry intended to be spoken.

The influence of hymn lyrics is also seen in line length. It’s hard to write a compelling melody for any text with more than four feet per line, so the most common hymn meters max out at four feet (typically eight syllables) per line. Gospel songs, since their lightness allows for lighter melodies, frequently use longer meters.

Poetry that is not meant to be sung generally requires more space. Too tightly-bound verse might keep you from saying as much. This is because of two things:

• • Shorter lines mean that phrases and clauses will typically be shorter, so as to fit into one line. 
  • Shorter lines mean that you’ll need to come up with rhymes more often, which limits your freedom in writing what you intend.

Though short meters can be very beautiful, these constraints make them harder to write.

When I beheld him dying,
the word of ages crying
that all that was begun—
that all the world was ended,
the sun’s last course was wended,
that all earth’s life was flying:
I knew him for God’s son.

—Lynn Michael Martin

The reason this stanza, though so tightly rhymed and bound, says anything at all is because it doesn’t try to say much. It uses the sounds of the form to give depth and earnestness to the simple idea: When I heard Jesus say “It is finished,” I knew he was God’s son. Consider this freer stanza:

Near us his heart, beating like gentle rain,
moves all the world and makes our spirits rest.
His breath falls lightly here, but, east and west,
it quickens all ills, makes all joys remain.

—Lynn Michael Martin

This stanza is able to express just as much or more than the previous one could express, and it does it with five fewer words. Besides that, it’s significantly easier to write in these broader formal constraints. The first stanza isn’t bad; it would work well for a hymn-style musical piece. But it’s a poetic form that is very hard to use successfully.

There are trade-offs, but it is typically easier to express yourself in a longer meter. Add a foot or more, and you may express your thought better; but if you add too many feet, the line will tend to drag or to sound like it’s really two lines, rather than one.

Iambic pentameter (five iambic feet per line) is probably the sweet spot between the two extremes. Historically, poets seem to agree—for centuries, sonnets, plays, and epics in the English language were typically written in iambic pentameter.

2.2.4 No Squeezing or Padding

Often poets writing in meter need to change what they say in order to make it fit the meter. One easy hack is to pad the line with an extra word that doesn’t change the meaning. Common words used to stuff lines are “now,” “all,” and “very.”

Another tempting hack is to remove a word that may be a natural word to use, but which can be removed without affecting the meaning.

I looked at the bright discordant sun,
And stood in a shining ray.

Dropping words can be part of a deliberate stylistic choice, but if dropping or adding is used as a hack to patch the rhythm, the poem will sound hacked and patched. Why not take the opportunity to work hard and find something that sounds even better? When the exact words you want to use aren’t available, find a way of saying something that naturally fits the space you have.

2.3 Other Patterns of Word Sounds

While rhyme and meter are two excellent ways of employing sound to contribute to meaning, we shouldn’t stop there. Good poets will listen closely, delighting in all the physical aspects of words. They will use the sounds of words to make their poetry speak.

Some time-honored techniques: 

• • Assonance—repeating a vowel: “at the apple tree / I had it come to me”
  • Alliteration—repeating a consonant, especially as the beginning consonant of multiple words in a particular line: “in maiden meditation, fancy-free” —Shakespeare
  • Onomatopoeia—using the sound of words to approximate the sound you’re trying to describe. This could include words like “swish” or “sizzle,” but the best uses of onomatopoeia often use words that weren’t originally intended to be onomatopoeic: “A swirling susurration of soaring wings” —Myra Wollman

2.4 Line Breaks

So far, we’ve been discussing metrical poetry. Much poetry today is not metrical. It’s known as free verse. 

Just because free verse is free from rhyme and meter doesn’t mean that it’s free from using any formal elements. One formal element that makes a big difference in free verse is line breaks. There’s no rule that you must pause at line breaks when reading a poem. However, well-placed line breaks will create a strategic pause in the sound and thought of a poem.

Line breaks do not need to occur only at punctuation points. In enjambment, a sentence continues without a pause beyond the end of a line or stanza. This segmenting of the flow of thought can be used to slow or quicken reading speed, and to modify what is most in focus.

2.4.1 Prose in Disguise

Arguably, one can’t turn prose into poetry just by adding line breaks. One way to tell whether a free verse poem has good form or not is to remove the line breaks and see if it sounds poetic. Consider this example from before:

God takes care of all
my needs.
This includes my physical
needs and my
spiritual needs.

God takes care of all my needs. This includes my physical needs and my spiritual needs.

If it sounds just like normal prose when the line breaks are removed, then apparently there aren’t other poetic devices helping to make it a poem. A poem that depends on line breaks alone will usually feel artistically shallow.

It takes practice to get a sense for what makes a poem read like a poem. If you have a hard time with free verse, there is nothing wrong with focusing on rhymed and metered poetry.

2.4.2 Very Short Lines

Many free verse poets try to write their lines as short as possible (perhaps to accommodate the width of a cell phone screen?). This can easily be overdone. Consider this beautiful poem:

Each morning breaks the same,
Rising with a hunger that carves
Like the slanting fingers of sunlight cutting
Through the fog that shrouds the neighbor’s burnt field.
—Lori Hershberger

If we use short lines to try to intensify the poem, it might look like this:

Each morning
breaks the same,
Rising with a hunger
that carves
Like the slanting
fingers of sunlight
cutting through
the fog that shrouds
the neighbor’s
burnt field.

Shortening these lines doesn’t help the poem. Short lines can seem to be a shortcut to intensity; they make each word stand out. But think of each line as your stride. Some steps will be shorter than others, especially when you’re turning a corner; but if you try to intensify your walk by using shorter steps, you’ll get tired pretty quickly.

In the musical world, amateur composers find it hard to write long, flowing melody lines. The same can be true in poetry. Short lines can make beautiful poetry, but longer lines are often more effective.

2.4.3 Prose Poetry

A recent writing style called “prose poetry” doesn’t use line breaks, but does use other poetic formal elements. Up to now, we haven’t published prose poetry. This is partly because it often uses a stream-of-consciousness style which ignores certain aspects of content that we look for, like themes that tie it together.

Line breaks really do make poetry speak better. They insert “space” into the reading of a poem, so that a poem can have intense language without the reader’s eyes or ears glazing over. Without line breaks, intense language has to be toned down, until the result is more prose and less poetry.

2.5 Specific Images

”Image” means something you sense with any of your senses. A poem has an image when it describes a picture, sound, taste, etc. 

Specifics are how we “get to know” anything. Specifics are tangible, familiar, and particular. Everyone has tasted a sour fruit, or felt a blow to the head, or seen the enthusiasm of a child. Tap into such experiences to draw the reader into the poem.

If your eyesight were blurry, your hearing fuzzy, and your hands numb, would you have a full experience of the world? Don’t give that experience to your reader.

The next sections describe some time-honored ways of using specific images in poetry. These methods immerse us in the world of the poem. If you catch yourself telling someone the facts about the matter, chances are you’re writing prose rather than a poem. 

2.5.1 Thick Words

Some words are thinner and some are thicker. A thin word conveys relatively few characteristics, while a thick word conveys many.

Consider the phrase “a cheerful, bow-legged street vendor.” The word “cheerful” doesn’t just mean “happy”; it is a bit thicker. A cheerful person exudes happiness as a vibe, or maybe puts on happiness as a choice. They wear happiness; they don’t just feel happiness. Whether this is pleasant or grating, the word “cheerful” is thick enough to help us picture how interactions with such a person will be.

Next let’s think about the word “bow-legged.” This describes a physical trait, but it doesn’t merely tell us the shape of the person’s legs. It gives us an idea of how the person moves and how they walk. It suggests a person who is short and wiry.

The term “street vendor” also says a lot, both about the person and about his surroundings. The person is working-class, probably lower-class. In the US, a street vendor is likely an immigrant, and may speak English with an accent. Since it’s a street vendor’s job to interact with passersby, he might be calling to people as they pass. All of these qualities give us an idea of how he may be dressed, how he looks, and how he may interact. Furthermore, we guess we’re probably on a city street with other vendors nearby; we’re probably smelling food and hearing traffic.

These associations come to our minds without our thinking about them. Thick words make your poem deep and immersive.

To summarize, here are some characteristics of thick words:

1. 1. They contain multiple ideas or complex ideas.
   2. They have not only straightforward meanings, but also connotations that round out their meanings.
   3. They help us get to know something through its character, personality, or style of interaction.
   4. They remind us of familiar experiences, so that they immediately convey meaning.
   5. They allow us to predict other things about the situation or thing described.

2.5.2 Cross-Modals

Cross-modal expressions are thick in a specific way. These words describe the experience of one sense—sight or touch, for instance—by using another of the five senses  (e.g., a bright note, a liquid motion, a crushing darkness). See this stanza, for example:

Light shines into the vacant corridors
long since emptied
by darknesses—
and brings an intense ecstasy

Light floods the vacant corridors
long since swept out
by darknesses—
and wakes a shivering ecstasy
—Rebecca Weber

Cross-modals are a kind of metaphor. They are unique in that they combine sensory experiences, the most immersive experiences that we have,  making them very powerful.

2.5.3 Metaphor

A metaphor says one thing is another thing, for the purpose of using characteristics of the second thing to describe the first. “That man is a pig.” “She’s a gem.”

We won’t go into detail about metaphor, because it’s commonly understood. Nevertheless, metaphor is one of the most powerful tools in your repertoire.

3 Suggestions for Good Content

This guide has spent a disproportionate amount of space on form, since form is what makes poetry poetry. Good form makes for good content, but there are also valuable considerations of content in its own right. 

3.1 Hospitality in Poetry

Just because you write in the same language as the reader doesn’t mean that the reader understands your meaning. 

You are the poet. You know how you felt and what you meant when you wrote the poem. All the reader has are the words of the poem. In this section, we’ll describe how to invite the reader into ideas and experiences through poetry.

Note: Editors often tell writers to write what is “new” or “original.” They don’t mean you should write poems that are different or unexpected. For a poem to be original is for it to grow out of the author’s experience, and bring the reader into that experience. The following principles will explore how to do this.

3.1.1 Show, Don’t Tell 

Prose and poetry are both excellent media for exploring ideas. But while prose is the best medium for analyzing, poetry is the best medium for apprehending. If you want to share an experience with a reader, try poetry. If you’re trying to explain something, stick to prose.

Note: Well-written prose, especially stories, also makes use of the principle “show, don’t tell.” But while there is room for telling in prose, there’s very little room for it in poetry.

I cannot fully grasp the love of God
even if I could live a thousand years.
Yet all my insufficiency
won’t keep away his love.

These are great insights. But stating them openly—telling—doesn’t make for an effective poem. Consider instead this sestet which shows God’s love to the reader by drawing the reader into the story of the poem:

Yet what is this?—this new thing You have done?
Gone down to slumber in a bed of straw,
Your splendor laid aside, Your rightful throne?
What love is this, that dares to come as one
Undone, unclothed—a homeless baby? Ah,
Despite me, something stirs my heart of stone.
—Rebecca Weber

If you can restate it, it’s not poetry; if you can explain it, it’s not a poem.

The best poems have to be poems in order to say what they need to say. A poem is not only content; if it can be reduced to content, then the form isn’t integral to the content. In general, art is art because it says something ineffable, something that can’t be reduced to its disassembled parts. 

3.1.2 Heartfelt (Sentimental) Poetry (or, When Content Overpowers Form)

When a poem flows from the author’s deep emotional experience, it sometimes doesn’t communicate itself well. The author can be tempted to depend on emotion words, and to assume that a reader will also experience that emotion. But the word “sad” does not make people sad. Using more emotion words and more intense words won’t solve the problem either. 

Showing instead of telling is always important, but especially in this case. It is better not to tell the reader to feel strong emotion, but instead focus on the scene or subject of the poem itself, allowing the reader’s response to occur uncoerced. Poems of this sort could be called sentimental or over-wrought. Sentimentality is often associated with over-indulged emotions like tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia, but the broader problem occurs any time a poem’s expressed emotions are greater than its poetic form conveys. Understatement is preferrable. 

One of our authors, for example, wrote a poem about the loss of a loved one. While the writing of the poem was doubtless very meaningful, the poem didn’t really bring the readers into that experience. Nevertheless, the poem might have struck a chord in someone who had lost a loved one, because it described that experience.

The best poetry wakens an experience in the reader; it doesn’t naively hope that someone will relate to it. The best poetry that comes out of an emotion is the poetry that can stir those emotions in a person who might not otherwise know them.

Many of us have written poems from very heartfelt emotions, but that just didn’t convey those emotions well. There is nothing wrong with these as journal poems or private prayers. However, such poems have been rightly rejected from publication. 

Use the tips found in this guide to create poetry through which readers can experience the poem’s reality, especially specific images (see section 2.5).

3.1.3 Religious Content

One of the best subjects for a poem is God and one’s relationship with Him. Faith gives a huge amount of room for poetic exploration, especially for our deepest desires and struggles.

We poets often find it difficult to communicate such deep and heartfelt emotions. It doesn’t help that we’ve been given cookie-cutter language for speaking about these things. Here’s how religious language often fails:

• • We end up speaking about concepts which are not specific enough to strike a chord.
  • The language and concepts surrounding faith are “tired.” They’re so common that the reader will have heard the same thing a thousand times. They struggle to get excited to hear you say it one more time, even if you really mean it.
  • Religious language is usually shorthand for much more complex concepts. These “Christianese” concepts are understood so variously that you may mean something very different from what the reader hears. Take for example the word “salvation.” Religious “nones,” and even many religious people, may think salvation is merely a transaction that ensures you will have a pleasant afterlife. Is that what you want to convey? If not, use specific images.

Analyze just what it is that is unique to the feeling you have now, rather than the one you had yesterday, what it is that feels different from the language that you’ve already been given. Successful poems unpack concepts into language with specific images. Compare these two:

I had no grace, no hope in life,
There was no meaning in my strife,
And then in faith I called his name,
And his salvation came.

What does “grace” mean to the poet? What does “faith” or “salvation” mean? What about “call his name”? We don’t know. Lots of people talk about those things; few people can make them come alive. There’s only enough room in a poem for what’s alive.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth and followed Thee.
—Charles Wesley

When in this hymn Charles Wesley describes his salvation, it is no longer merely a concept—he helps us re-experience joy and freedom through rich metaphor and a powerful story. No one is wondering what emotion to feel when singing this verse; it creates those emotions in the singers.

Remember that the richest of concepts isn’t a poem without form. The formal elements of poetry make them come alive for the reader.

3.1.4 Big Words and Ethereal Language

Poets love words. Words are exciting. The bigger and stranger the word, the more exciting it is . . . but there’s a problem. 

Big words are hard to understand. Lofty and ethereal language has its place and can be used to excellent effect, especially in comic verse, but understated language is usually more effective in lyric poetry. Big words aren’t thick words. A poem which consists of an effusion of transcendent or highly descriptive vocabulary tends to be inhospitable and to alienate the reader. Like a good host, a good poet doesn’t show off his vocabulary. 

Use simple words. The words we use most are often the strongest. When you use big words, balance them with simple words. Strong and simple words support big words and make them meaningful.

3.2 Structure: Taking the Reader Through the Poem

The structure of a poem is the way the thoughts fit together and contribute to the whole.  A poem’s structure does not need to be obvious, but its thoughts must be arranged to the best effect.

A unified poem is unique. Something makes it that poem rather than another one. What makes it different is what you put in and what you leave out. Poetry can communicate pretty much any subject, but what an individual poem includes and excludes should make intuitive/emotional sense as a unit.

A beautiful sky might not make a good photograph. Only things that can fit into a camera’s frame and still look good make good photographs. In photography, the frame defines what is inside or outside the photo, and what is inside should make intuitive and emotional sense as a unit.

How can we unify a poem? Here are some tips.

3.2.1 Focus It

Poetry of the type we tend to publish is usually best when it’s short. Long lyrical poems are possible, but they are structured as short units organized into a larger whole. (Narrative poems, on the other hand, can be quite long and still be effective.)

3.2.1.1 Careful Repetition

Repetition is a power drill, to be used with great care. Read your poem and ask whether it repeats thoughts. Could you say the same thing without some of the lines? Consider removing them, or replacing them with stronger and more original material. 

Repetition can work well when it deliberately repeats an important single line or phrase either word-for-word or with a slight, strategic modification that builds on the first occurrence.

3.2.1.2 Depth

When a poem tries to cover a subject completely, it almost always fails. Such poems lightly skim over deep and meaningful ideas. Poetry is not  the best genre for summarizing. Poetry is best at giving a vivid picture of one moment, idea, or image.

Choose one concept, situation, or moment and tell it well. Instead of trying to give a complete picture of a subject, pick one aspect of it and distill it into one powerful moment.

3.2.1.3 Unity of Image

While specific images are great, too many large-scale images can make a poem feel scattered. It’s best to stick to one overarching image, however many specific images you may use to flesh it out.

Some poems are unified around tone, color, mood, or atmosphere more than they are around image. If this is the case, there should be unity of tone, color, mood, or atmosphere.

3.2.1.4 List Poems

Many poets, in an attempt at parallelism, create poems that are lists of different aspects of something. Here’s a poem written to demonstrate this mistake:

Our mighty God—
The one creator of all things that move.
Amazing worlds
As yet untrod
Are held together by the hand of love.

Our Father, God—
Whom every heart must long to seek and know.
“We are his sheep”—
The Shepherd’s rod
And living water makes cups overflow.

Our saving Lord—
Redeeming humans from the pits of hell.
Not one is good
Who can afford
To earn the love by which he makes us well.

This poem could continue indefinitely: The God of love, Returning King, Abraham’s God, etc. The poem isn’t carrying us through any story or emotional journey. If you arranged a list to hint at, let’s say, the story of our redemption, you would have to solve these problems:

• • A list hardly digs deeply enough into its subject to feel like more than a quick summary.
  • A list tends not to reference each list item or build on each part to propel us toward the conclusion of the poem.

Although using a list within your poem may be effective at times, the whole poem should not be a list. A poem that is a list is really many poems, as many poems as there are list items. We recommend picking one thing from the list and diving deeply into it.

3.2.2 Continuity and Discontinuity

Literature is usually deeper and more worthwhile when it explores themes that provide, as it were, threads running through the whole of a work. These threads help to bind it into a whole, and they leave room for a reader’s contemplation.

3.2.2.1 Themes and Threads

A good poem tends to tie itself together using themes or ideas that emerge throughout the poem. In the following poem, see how the idea of tracing different sorts of lines makes this poem come alive.

Trace the blue-green veins on the naked wrist
where life throbs through its conduits, circling;
trace the flight of the far-soaring swallow
black against the flame of sun.
Trace the line of the wet river, running
through the valley, and as you do so,
say to yourself, “I am alive.”
And then, trace a line through the drought-drenched dust,
the rain-hungry soil. Lift your finger to the edge
of the smoky horizon where at night
the ridges flare in startling flame;
trace the burning circle of the dying sun
that dies every day, and through
parched lips, say to yourself,
very softly,
“I am alive.”
—Lori Hershberger

If your poem seems to follow all the rules, but ends up merely being a poetic description rather than an emotional unit, developing theme in it could help. When editing, see if you can choose words that will hint at a certain theme or themes throughout the poem.

3.2.2.2 Allusion

A good poet brings out of his storehouse not only new things, but also old things.

Just as all the parts of your poem should cohere around some center, so your poem can be a part of the larger literary conversation. When a poem references a well-known work, it interweaves its meaning with the meaning of that work. 

This weaving process strengthens the poem by adding relevance for those readers who understand the reference—the more strands in the rope, the harder to break. 

Poets sometimes use allusion to show off, as if everyone should be impressed at the number of obscure Greek gods they know. Other poets use allusion for popularity, to piggyback on another’s success. But allusion should not be ostentatious or obsequious; its aim is unity.

3.2.2.3 Turns and Shifts

A turn is a shift in perspective that transforms the poem and may bring an unexpected meaning. This is typical in sonnets, which typically include a volta (the Italian word for “turn”). Here’s an example from Shakespeare. The turn appears before the last two lines.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare.

The turn introduces an idea which is somewhat novel, but which still ties back to and follows from the ideas that came earlier. A good turn will give a gratifying sense of suddenly drawing together or focusing. It might have seemed as if there were numerous threads running through the poem, lending a sense of unsettledness or of dormant potential; but the turn comes as a revelation, binding all the threads into one, snapping everything into brighter focus and deeper color. It provides a place to land, or a place to take off.

Not every poem needs to have a turn—not all short stories should have an O.Henry-style twist—but turns are very satisfying. 

3.3 Ending the Poem

Nothing is more important than a good ending. A good ending can charm the reader into forgiving all sorts of things. A bad ending, like a bad aftertaste, ruins the whole poem and leaves a dissatisfied reader. 

3.3.1 The Moral of the Story 

Beginning poets often end their poem with a nice line or two intended to bring it to an easy conclusion. A good ending line will bring a closure of some kind, but when it makes the main thrust of the poem too explicit or states the spiritual meaning of a metaphor, problems arise.

Note: It’s not always easy to explain what makes the difference between a good ending and a poor one. That’s not because there’s no difference, but because, as said before, the proof of a poem is in the hearing. So take these descriptions with a grain of salt.

Poets naturally want their poem to raise the appropriate conclusions within the reader. But the beginning poet is concerned that the reader won’t get what the poem means without clarification, and is tempted to tell rather than show. Even if his clarification doesn’t tell, it creates these problems:

• • The poem feels interrupted. Instead of taking a steady journey to its conclusion, the poem leaps forward at the last minute, skipping over important terrain, and ends up prematurely at its conclusion, like a preacher who is halfway through his sermon when his time is up, and needs to conclude with a hasty sentence or two.
  • The poet makes the conclusion for the reader, instead of trusting them to make up their own mind. The insightful reader, for whom we hope you are writing, will feel like you’re talking down to them and that you don’t trust them to understand the poem.
  • There is no need for a poem that can be summarized in the last line. The poem should not undersell itself by suggesting that it can be summarized.

Remove that last line or two, let the poem end with a tension, and just ensure that your poem’s worldview points to the truth. The truth should be implied throughout the poem, making it unnecessary to tie it up with a pretty bow. 

“But,” you may ask, “how will people know God is the answer if we don’t tell them?” 

If God is content not to write “I am God” in the sky, but instead overwhelms people by the awesome nature of his work, can’t poetry which describes the world show him in the same way? Life doesn’t come with a tag saying what it means, nor do people or nature.

Art that is trying to drive a point risks being both poor art and a poor point-driver. Your job is to write poems with the true worldview being the answer, and to make that truth so compelling that people want it. If you really want to end with a moral, you will need to bring your reader there through the merits of the poem rather than explaining it at the end.

We also try to stay away from poetry that raises a difficult problem or situation, and resolves it too easily. Life doesn’t have easy answers. There’s also a space constraint: the poetry we publish is generally too short to travel that range of emotion. Instead, we try to publish poetry that hints at a path toward resolution rather than resolving it entirely. Resolving something too quickly can seem like wishful thinking to a reader.

Remember, if you can explain it, it’s not a poem.

3.3.2 Good Endings

Good poems end with some kind of closure, often called the “resolution.” It might not satisfy you completely, but a good ending gives a certain satisfaction that the poem has achieved its end.

Good endings often do not entirely resolve the tension or question or problem that the poem has introduced. The closures they bring are often an effect of suggestion, not statement. The following endings are from quite good poems.

I don’t know. The birds veer off, to go
Home, perhaps. Mine seems so far away no roads
Could take me there but the one the swallows follow,
The one that flows in the obscurity of their wings and words.
—Myra Wollman

I trace the words that tremble on the page and pen the ache–
Read this my Lord—this hunger, this hollowness,
This burnt ground, this empty cup, my song to You.
—Lori Hershberger

One more day’s measure
from the last word you spoke
brings one more evening
empty of your laughter
brings one more morning
into which your name, spoken,
will fall into space
as clear as water,
without a ripple,
without reply.
—Claudia Lehman

If you’d rather love not sear you,
Set a roadblock somewhere near you.
Hold your breath. Retreat. Reduce. Accept the lie.
You only need a little space to die.
—Sheila J Petre

3.4 Content to Avoid

Here are a few examples of content we receive that we find problematic.

3.4.1 Rants vs. Laments

Poetry is an excellent vehicle for criticism. But there are good and bad kinds of criticism.

There is ranting, where the narrator one-sidedly criticizes someone or something without seeing it as human or giving it any sympathy. Rants can easily be cruel and dehumanizing.

A rant makes the narrator look bad. Some authors use this as a tool, writing ironic poems where the narrator is intended to look bad. But for many poems, the narrator is the author. If you go on a rant that is entirely negative and uncharitable, it says something about your character.

While a lament may be characterized by anger to a degree, its redeeming factor is its sadness. In a lament, the narrator may be critical or even lay blame. But the narrator doesn’t hate the person being criticized—the narrator only feels a deep sadness for them.

A lament will be charitable to the person being blamed. The narrator may criticize those same failings in himself, portraying the issue as a broadly human one, or he may describe the criticized people in a charitable way, humanizing them and recognizing that they may have good intentions.

We don’t publish poetry that sees another person as a one-sided silly blind fool. Criticism should be done respectfully, and out of love and an attempt at understanding.

3.4.2 Thomas Kinkade Poetry

Although it’s a problem to be overly critical, it’s also a problem to be effusive in praising something that doesn’t deserve it and to gloss over its faults.

Thomas Kinkade’s paintings show cottages nestled in idyllic settings, with a halo of inviting light around each window. They’re idealistic, heartwarming, and nostalgic. It appears that the viewer must be pampered and cheered.

Putting a nice face on things may be a working strategy in the short term. But good literature is true as well as beautiful. It is willing to explore whatever exists, difficult or dark, while holding forth hope of beauty.

“Thomas Kinkade poems” might be about nostalgic subjects, like “The Old Oaken Bucket.” They might idolize the author’s culture, or paint foreign cultures as excitingly exotic or attractively primitive. They might describe poor or disabled people in a picturesque way that warms one’s heart. Not all of these are bad subjects for poetry; but they need to be treated truthfully, not with cloying sentimentality.

When a narrator gets sappy about something and paints a halo around it, we start to wonder if we’re actually seeing that thing, or if the author is trying to play on our emotions by showing us a rose-tinted picture.

It’s the poet’s job to help the reader enter into an experience, not to ensure that the reader can feel comfortable.

Consider the Psalms. The Psalmists wrestle, sometimes angrily, with the challenges of their relationship with God. Yet they glorified God. We can join in their praises because what we’re joining is real, not censored.

This doesn’t mean that every poem must have a dark side. Certainly not. It means that we should be real about what is beautiful and what is painful.

4 The Editing Process

4.1 Cultivate a Ruthless Inner Editor

All of us have had times when there were weak spots in our poem, but changing them would mean changing our favorite line. If this is happening to you, we feel for you. But no line is so special that it should be allowed to hold back the rest of the poem.

If you still really feel for that special line, you can save it and try to use it again. Whether or not you ever go back to it, it can help to know where you can find it if you don’t like the edits you’ve made.

When writing poetry, you’re the author. After writing a poem, take off your author hat, act like a ruthless editor, and find the spots that are weak. Until the number of poems you’ve written is in the hundreds, you probably won’t end up with poems that don’t need edits. 

After editing, you can come back as the author and find a better way of making it work. Bit by bit, this process will improve your poem.

So, after you’ve written your poem, go back through and see if you can make it better. Replace even good words with the best words.

• • Replace being verbs with vivid active verbs.
  • Cut out adverbs and use better verbs.
  • Use metaphors rather than adjectives.
  • Create specific images.
  • Completely remove useless elements, or replace them with more useful ones.

4.2 Find An Editor

Happy writing, and happy editing. If you would like help developing your poetry, some of the Curator’s editors offer writing advice and editing services. Contact us through our contact page, and we can connect you with one of them.

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The text of “The Curator’s Guide to Writing Poetry” is ©2024 The Curator and licensed by the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, which means that it can be freely reproduced, as long as it is attributed to the Curator.
Several poems are included which are republished from previous publications of the Curator. These poems are used by permission and may be freely reproduced as a part of this text, but may not be altered or individually republished without permission from the authors or copyright holders:

Daily ©2022 Sherri Steiner.
“Once I was dawn,” In a Country Far Away ©2021, And So We Sleep ©2021, “Far down that tide,” I Saw the Word © Lynn Michael Martin.
Ritual ©2022, Lines ©2024 Lori Hershberger.
Golden Song ©2022, Love Reawakened ©2021 Rebecca Weber.
Flight ©2022 Myra Wollman.
Anniversary ©2022 Claudia Lehman.
Upon Encountering God ©2021 Sheila Petre.