For example, you might have seen a little girl in the park wearing a blue dress. All you need at this point is the phrase “The girl in the park was wearing a pretty blue dress. "
For example, the blue dress may be the color of the sky. It’s not all that original to say the girl was wearing a dress the color of the sky. But if you say you saw a girl dressed in sky, that’s getting a little more poetic. Think about the point you want to get across in your poem. If you’re writing the poem about the girl in the blue dress, for example, you could write about the contrast between the happiness of the girl and the sadness traditionally associated with the color blue. Or you could write about how carefree the child seems and contrast that to the seriousness of adults and of the color blue.
To find the best places to break your lines, read your poem out loud. Including an exaggerated pause between the lines will help you find the rhythm. Try to break your lines so that each line of the poem is a complete thought in and of itself. When read separately, your reader may get a different idea than they would reading the poem as a whole. This creates depth in your poem and gives your reader something to think about long after they’ve finished reading your poem.
You may also want to write several different drafts of the same poem. If you think of more than one approach, write all of them down so you can decide later which works best. If you have any alternate words or descriptions you’re thinking about, include them in the margins (if you’re handwriting your draft) or at the bottom of the page (if you’re typing).
Haiku teaches the discipline you need to write short poems in other styles, because not just every word, but every syllable counts. Make friends with a thesaurus, as you may need it to find similar words to fit the form.
If you try to edit your poem immediately after you’ve written it, you won’t be able to look at it with the objectivity you need as an editor.
If you stumble over a word or phrase when reading aloud, change it so that it flows more smoothly – unless, of course, you want to write something that’s a tongue twister. When something isn’t sounding like you think it should, highlight or underline it. Go to a dictionary or thesaurus and experiment with different synonyms until you find just the right word.
Remove anything that distracts from or competes with the core. In a short poem, you want to get right to the point. You don’t have room to misdirect your readers.
Try to make your language as compact as possible. For example, if you have “a girl wearing a blue dress,” your first step is to remove the articles. “Girl wearing blue dress” is getting more poetic, but maybe you don’t need “wearing” either. You’re left with “girl blue dress,” which may not make much sense. But if you swap the order of the words, “blue-dressed girl” conveys the meaning of the original statement without any fluff.
If you’ve written something in chronological order, reverse it so that the last line is first and the reader backtracks to the beginning. Remove a line and see how it affects your poem. If it doesn’t change the meaning of the poem, it may be better left out.
Don’t be afraid to go back and look at your poem 6 months or even a year after you’ve written it. At that point, you may have some new ideas on how it could be improved. If you write regularly, you’ll become a better poet. The poet you are after a year of practice may have a better way to convey a message than the poet you were when you wrote your first poem.
Take off your headphones so you can take in the world around you using all of your senses. Make an effort to look around and see everything around you. Allow your mind to wander, and jot down ideas that you get. Don’t worry about whether they’re “good” ideas, or even whether they make sense. You can sort through them later.
Hearing a phrase out of context often conjures up different imagery than if you’d known what the person was talking about. Additionally, you may mishear someone’s words – especially in a busy place with lots of people talking. What you thought you heard may be more poetic than what they actually said.
When you find a particular style that you enjoy, find other poets that write in a similar style. Search the poet’s name online, and look for other poets who are associated with them. For example, the poet may have had a reading with another poet. Anthologies are another good way to find many different poets writing in similar styles, or about similar subject matter. There’s a fine line between inspiration and plagiarism. If you’re directly inspired by a particular poem, consider writing your poem “for” or “after” the original poet. That way your work connects back to the original.
For example, you may have mentioned the sunset in a longer poem about the ending of a relationship. That sunset could be the subject of a short poem on its own. You can also do this with a particular turn of phrase that you really like. Take that phrase and turn it around in your head. Think about how you could approach it from a different angle, or use it in a different way.
