Poetry Writing: The Expert Guide (Amazon.co.uk)
Fiona Sampson
Poetry in the Making: A Handbook for Writing and Teaching (Amazon.co.uk)
Ted Hughes
The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within (Amazon.co.uk)
Stephen Fry
Writing Poems (Bloodaxe Poetry Handbooks) (Amazon.co.uk)
Peter Sansom
Paul Rance's Writing and Poetry Advice Articles
Poetry: Tips For New Poets
Poetry: Ironing Out Faults
Promoting Your Poetry Online
Reasons Why Writers And Poets Should Have Their Own Website
More of Paul Rance's poetry and writing articles
In this article, I'll focus on those of you who are fairly new to writing poetry.
As a small press publisher, I've published hundreds of poets via my Peace & Freedom Press since 1985. I've often found that it's the modest poets, and the ones insecure about their work, who are often the best. writers of poetry. So, if you are lacking in confidence about writing poetry, please bear that in mind.
Don't be fooled, however, into thinking that writing poetry will be a cakewalk, just because a poem can be so short compared to an article or story. A haiku may look fairly simple to write, because of its 5-7-5 syllable structure, but writing a descriptive poem with so few words to play with will often be very challenging.
Learn By Reading
Reading as many different styles of poetry as possible should inspire you rather than be too daunting. Write down your own ideas and fragments of verse as you are reading great poetry. Ideas can come from nowhere, so just embrace them and write some poetry! Don't worry about whether its good or bad at this stage. Even geniuses need to practice.
Purchase a notebook to write your poems in, and look through them and edit them. Be dispassionate. In the editing process, read your poems as if you were reading the poetry of someone else. It's also best to edit any poem at least a few hours after you've written it.
Discover what styles of poetry you enjoy writing the most. If you think you're competent in many styles, and enjoy writing in many styles, then great, go for it!
Finally, if you feel comfortable about showing your poetry to friends and family, then do so, but your own belief in your ability is the most important thing. Don't write poetry (and this is true of any creative endeavor) just with the object of making money. Do it because you enjoy it. If you're not enjoying what you're doing it'll probably lack sparkle. Age isn't a barrier for writing good poetry either. Some poets as young as 14 have stunned me with the insight of seemingly a 60-year-old!
Paul Rance is the co-founder of small UK publishing company Peace & Freedom Press, and has been editor of Peace & Freedom and Eastern Rainbow magazines since their inception, in 1985 and 1992 respectively.
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