Write What You Know and Feel

It’s my observation that many aspiring poets when dealing with rhyme and meter for the first time get into a frame of mind in which reaching for a rhyme word becomes the dominant focus of attention, and while they are learning this new thing almost every other consideration takes second pace, such as writing about what you know about from personal experience and feel warmly about.

To make matters worse, our everyday language carries so much marketing jargon, and it is so insistent in our ears, that this has a way of inserting itself into our consciousness as we write, masquerading as what we “know” and “feel” and incessantly offering its words as “suitable” rhymes.

Here’s an exercise that will help us break out of this trap. First, write an initial line of a couplet that is about something you truly know and have experienced and feel warmly drawn to. You needn’t know why you are drawn (the poem will disclose that to you), but you need to feel warmly drawn. If you are not, throw that first line away and try another.

Second, consult a rhyming dictionary and find a group of rhyme words that all match the end-word of the first line you have chosen out of your experience and feeling. Your goal at this point is to make music, not a predetermined argument. If you have a choice, select as a rhyme word several that are spelled differently, although they sound the same as the last word of your initial line. Third, let the most suitable of these words pull fresh imagery into your second line, preferably imagery you haven’t already had in mind. Four, repeat this process until you have a fresh poem that little resembles what you initially set out to write.

This is the best way I know to pull yourself out of tired, repetitious writing. Try this and comment on it!

Leland