How to write a poem. How to Write Poetry.

How to write a poem.
Some years ago I walked into a professor’s office and asked his opinion on my poetry. “Oh,” he said, “It rhymes and has rhythm. That detracts from the meaning.” I explained to him – I shouldn’t have needed to – that poems were meant to rhyme and have rhythm, and that that was what made it poetry and not prose. He explained to me that fashions in poetry changed.Unfortunately, he didn't convince me because I walked out of that office thinking that the man was a pretentious dumb cluck. In my own opinion, the real reason that most modern poetry doesn't rhyme and have rhythm is because it is extremely difficult to do. To do all that, and still have a decent message, is even more difficult.

A Rose by Any Other Name is Still a Rose
Way back when I met a poet. I think he must have been an emerging poet because he wanted my opinion on his poetry. I didn’t really want to give it. I’m not one for giving my opinion on other people’s work because they’re the ones that have to happy about it, not me. In any event, he emailed me reams of written sentences – all doom and gloom -- best buried in a tomb. After reading the first dozen lines, I emailed him back and said it looked as if he had written a couple of pages of prose and then just slashed the sentences in the middle, put the next lot of words on another line, and called it poetry. He emailed me back to say that that was exactly what he had done. My terse reply was that poetry rhymed and had rhythm. I think I did hear from him again but ignored it because I truly don’t have time for idiocy.

A rose by any other name is still a rose, and if one has written a paragraph of prose and divided it up so that it appears to be poetry, it doesn’t make it a poem. It’s just prose pretending to be poetry.

Why Poetry Doesn’t Pay
Many depressed people write poetry. They do it because it gives both meaning and merit to their feelings. However, most people have no desire to sit and read about someone else’s pain, especially when it’s nothing more than a bit of prose pretending to be poetry. So the only people who buy it are other people who are feeling doom and gloom, and who heavily identify with those unhopeful feelings.

Yet poetry can pay, and it does. Greeting cards will pay $300 per poem. Of course, the poems have to have a hopeful, happy message – or a funny one – and they have to have rhyme and rhythm. I assume the reason they pay $300 for a short poem is because it’s not that easy to do and so the price is high!

It also tells you something, though. Most people do love poetry, but they love it because it rhymes, has rhythm, and has a message. When one of the three parts is missing, it just isn’t desirable to most people.

Wisdom in Poetry; Humor in Poetry; Story in Poetry.
The most profound of all poems are those that carry a piece of wisdom that is not obvious to everyone. In that case, the poetry is remembered. Who can forget Keat’s words, “Truth is beauty, beauty truth. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” Humor is another draw. Think of Edward Lear’s nonsense poems. Can anyone forget the story of the Owl and the Pussycat who went out to sea? Yet another mode of poetry is storytelling. Most people love Alfred Noyes’ “The Highwayman.” Poetry comes in many genres; so does rhyme, rhythm, and reason.

How to Write a Poem
I think it helps to have intense emotion when writing a poem. That’s because poetry is really a form of concentrated writing. One has to say a lot with very few words, and, in addition, those words need to have something of a rhyme about them. Sometimes, if the words have an extremely strong rhythm, the rhyme isn’t necessary.

Why is it important to have rhyme and rhythm in a poem?

The human brain remembers words that rhyme and have rhythm with far greater ease than it does poetry without it. Little children, in particular, are far more likely to remember and love books in poem format.

As for the professor who said that the message was lost if there was rhyme or rhythm, obviously the man wasn’t a particularly deep thinker. The point is that if it doesn’t, it’s unlikely to be read, so it doesn’t even get to the gatepost.When poems rhyme and have rhythm, and when the poem has a powerful message, it’s very difficult to miss the message. More to the point, the poem will be loved and remembered.

So how do you write a poem? There is no formula for anything that is artistic. The entire point of any art is that while the tools to do them can be provided – paint, words, a musical instrument, the part that is the most difficult is the part that is innate. That’s why it’s called a talent. It cannot be taught!

If you’ve read rhyming poetry and you’ve listened to the rhythm, that’s all you need to know in order to replicate the medium. Just as someone who is artistically talented can pick up a paint brush and paint the scene ahead, so someone who has a natural flair for words can pick and choose from a large, innate dictionary (and sometimes even refer to the one perched alongside).

Poetry isn’t Poetry When it Doesn’t Rhyme
This is, of course, the narrow view. It’s also the popular view. And just because it’s the narrow and the popular view, doesn’t mean it’s the wrong view. It doesn’t make it the right view, either, of course. So I’m just going to finish this by saying that there are exceptions to everything, that in my time, I’ve read words so profound that the fact that there was neither rhyme nor rhythm completely passed me by. I can count them, of course – two in a lifetime.

I will no doubt offend the myriads of literary poets who have been taught that it is now unfashionable to write rhyming poetry. That is fine with me. I've never been a follower of fashion. In addition, to me a cloud is a cloud. I really get lost when people start describing clouds as 'white mists of shapes purporting to be elephants gone to graves in the sky' or some such purple prose. I don't particularly think it's very clever and I most definitely find it a pain in the proverbial to read.

If it offends you because I think that, let's get real here. So do many other people. They just don't say it. I am.