Composing a poem is a natural, noncommercial way of expressing yourself to the masses or maybe about making a point – personal or general. No matter what your poem is about or its purpose, there are certain key points you can use to compose it. These points are experiential and will help you when you feel stuck, too emotional, too distressed, or even nervous, especially when you are about to publish.

DO NOT STRIVE FOR PERFECTION

This is the first of all points for a reason. Perfection is a myth when it comes to language, and yet most of us strive for it day in and day out. One never scores 100 out of 100 in language because there is always scope for improvement. And also because everyone has their personalized style for poesy. Poetry aims to express, not impress, the perfection you expect will come over time with practice. Do not discard every poem just because it does not sound Shakespearean or something composed by Maya Angelou herself.

GO EASY ON LANGUAGE

It is common to lose yourself in the thesaurus or big words from the language you are composing, English or Urdu. Try to refrain if your target audience is the general masses. Read the poem afresh later in the evening or the following day to check its readability. Lesser used, or old words are sure beautiful and aesthetic, but they are more inclined to break the flow of your reader.

Par example,

Thy eyes, such facade 

Veiling thy morose heart.

And thy lips, though rouge

What treacherous art.

OR

Your eyes, such artistic disguise

To hide all the pain.

Your lips, red as a rose

And a smile to feign.

While the first stanza might sound more beautiful and intense, an ordinary reader with a layman’s vocabulary will require a regular sneak-peak in the dictionary. This will only distract them, and their interest in reading the poem will eventually be lost.

The second stanza might look too simple and not too decorated with words, but it is easy to understand. Readers will likely be able to connect with the second stanza and hence, will want to know what the poem is concerned about. The poetry will be more relatable.

POEMS TOO, REQUIRE BUILD-UPS LIKE STORIES

All stories are written to convey a message and tell a story. Poems also tell stories. Let’s take the example of the lines in the preceding point. The gloomy eyes and the sad smile on the person’s face indicate that the person is upset because of an unknown reason. If I were to complete the poem, it would likely tell a story about what the reason might be or what the person would do about it.

Thus, always give build-ups to keep your readers’ curiosity and interest unbroken. Don’t give away too much in the very beginning.

REMEMBER, YOU ARE A TOURIST

After writing a very sad or emotional poem, many poets cannot detach themselves from the emotions. Several poems express and are written in a fit of extreme emotions; however, it is necessary to separate yourself from those sentiments as soon as your poem is composed.

Many of us pick any personal experience to build the emotion we will write about in our poems. For example, we revisit the memories of our worst breakup, most embarrassing moment, heartbreak, and so on. But, you have to realize that we are reviewing those awful memories as tourists, and it is essential that we come back from that state of mind, or else things will surely get emotionally unhealthy.

The best way of doing this is to pay more attention to how you have made the use of those emotions to begin analyzing and distracting yourself. Or maybe watch a movie or pat your back for writing another fabulous poem.

THE TECHNICAL AND LITERARY ADVICE

There are several points to remember while framing the poem:-

i. Use a lot of imagery – use all your senses and vividly describe the sight, smell, sound/noise, taste, feel/touch mentioned in your poem. Be visceral about them.

For example,

The half-lit candle, melting from its sides, glowed a yellowish-orange light. (sight)

The sound of the wind, as though giggling anklet bells. (euphony)

The boy shook his head vigorously. (movement)

The smell of her perfume was as though a thousand lime-dipped roses. (Smell)

ii. Avoid clichés – eyes as bright as the sun, face as white as snow, lips as red as a rose, blue as the ocean, busy as a bee, etc.

For example

Her face shone like a silver lining in an otherwise dull sky,

And lips were redder than the rouge of a Madame.

Eyes bluer than the rarest of all blue diamonds,

She stood there, unaware of her beauty.

iii. Do not force emotions in your poem – Keep the sentiments honest or wait until you get into the mood. Feigned and forced feelings will only repel your readers, and your poetry will not be taken seriously.

iv. Use metaphors, similes, alliterations, repetitions, allusions, dissonance, irony, oxymoron, rhythm, symbols, and other devices to create the desired effect. They give both aesthetics and impact to a poem.

These literary devices help set the poem’s mood for the reader. A complete collection of various literary devices with examples and definitions can be found here Literary Devices | Literary Terms

Happy composing 🙂