THE FIRST, SECOND AND THIRD LESSON OF POETRY

A Poem by Bear

Writing a poem is just like writing a short story, you need to include the 3 W's (Who, What and Why) if you want your readers to understand your work. Many poets only write part of the story, they make the mistake of thinking everyone is in their head and assumes everyone knows or understands what they know. Say you are writing a poem about a girl you know, if you don't tell that to your readers how are they going to understand about the Who of your poem. I read hundreds of poems that say things like "She broke my heart" but never bother to explain who she is or how she did it or even why she did it before they move on to something else like "I forgot her and moved on". If you read a book that was so cryptic or vague you most likely would lose interest in it and not finish reading it. I tell every poet I know they need to have someone read their poetry out loud to them so they can hear how it sounds. When you read it yourself your mind fills in the gaps because it knows the whole story, but when you listen to it being read out loud to you, you'll only hear the words written. Hearing it read to you is the best way to catch the small mistakes we all make.
Bear

THE SECOND LESSON OF POETRY

A Poem by Bear

Vocabulary! Write it the same way you would say it. Another mistake I see all the time in poems is where someone used a word that they didn't understand what the word really meant. This is the problem of using just a thesaurus, you look at a list of words with the same meaning but this is not always true. An example of this is the word LOST, say you are writing about something you lost, well absent is the first word that comes up on your thesaurus. An absent sock doesn't really mean the same thing as a lost sock. Also, you can't smell green or see happy without explaining just what you mean. Oh you can say (It was such a good day you could see the happiness.) If you use just that line without a supporting line then people are not really going to understand. Oh, you will get comments on your work but if you were to ask people what they thought that line meant their answers would be as vague as that line. Some of the best poems use simple words to get great depth and emotional meaning so: write it the same way you would say it and only use words that you know what they mean and if you are going to use a writing tool like a thesaurus also take the time to look the word's meaning up. Dictionary.com - The world's favorite online English dictionary! is a very good reference site for any and all writers.
Bear

THE THIRD LESSON OF POETRY

A Poem by Bear

    What is the difference between a poem and a short story? Styling and sentence structure! A poem can be broken up into stanzas (an arrangement of a certain number of lines, usually four or more, sometimes having a fixed length, meter, or rhyme scheme) whereas a story is broken up into paragraphs (a distinct portion of written or printed matter dealing with a particular idea, usually beginning with an indentation on a new line). Poems tend to be read with a meter or set timing for each line (much like a song), and a story is read at the same pace all the way through. Sentence structure also dictates the length of sentences, if you have ten words in a line and two in the next pairing line then you have changed the flow and meter the poem will be read. I am not saying each line should be the same length, I am saying that the length of each line determines how the poem is read. Think of it like this, long lines are read slow and short line fast, slow fast slow fast is a rhythm or pattern that make sense but slow slow fast slow slow slow fast fast is not. Try it, read a few poems out loud and see for yourself how the timing and flow is changed by different sentence length.

Well, that covers the basics of writing poetry. Feel free to send me a note if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer your questions if I am able.
                         Bear

                      ANOTHER LINK JUST ADDED TO A GREAT WRITING TOOL
Grammarly makes you a better writer by finding and correcting up to 10x more mistakes then your word processor, do yourself a favor and check it out.
https://www.grammarly.com/1?affiliateID=1959&affiliateNetwork=ho
Or try this link https://app.grammarly.com/

                        JUST ADDED
Sorry everyone but It occurred to me that I should have included this link from the very beginning http://www.naturalreaders.com/index.html This it the text to speech program I use. There are other programs, I like this one because it is easy to adjust the speed and voice sound to my liking

I just came across this website and fell in love with it, if you only want one site to help with your writing this is it!!! http://www.wordhippo.com/

Well, it seems I have overlooked a very helpful writing tool: The Thesaurus! If you have never used one it is a dictionary of words with the same or nearly the same meanings, it is a great writing tool that lets you find just the right word. Here is the link to the online thesaurus and dictionary that I use if you don't have one.
     http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/thesaurus

Another helpful writing tool is the Rhyming Dictionary, for those of you who don't have one here is the link to the one I use from Itools:
     http://itools.com/tag/rhymes
Here is a link to the gateway to the internet and from here you can find anything. A must have link: http://www.refdesk.com/