How Do I Get Better At Writing Poetry?

A few days ago I was asked in a live interview with an audience if I had any advice for writers just starting out and I did that thing where I was so nervous I just SAID STUFF AT RANDOM until it was socially acceptable to stop speaking and receive the next less-difficult question. I have no idea what advice I gave. I’m taking another shot at it here.

If you’re just starting out, you’re possibly frustrated with your own work and/or the reception its getting. Here are my ideas.

1. Read more. I know, I know, shut up Catherine, this is boring advice you’ve already heard. This feels like homework but it is a cliché piece of advice because it’s the thing that both works and makes your life better. Your taste as a reader will develop, and as it does, your taste as a writer will change too. The key here is that you should be reading a lot of other poets—both your peers and published poets, ideally both contemporary and historical. I don’t get too fetishistic about READING THE CLASSICS because I probably don’t read enough old poems either, but it’s a thing we all should try to do more. Cast a wide net. Explore. Drill down on who your favorite poet’s favorite poets are from interviews or notes and acknowledgments in the backs of their books. If there’s a poet who everybody loves and you’re like “I don’t get it” lean in and read more; try to figure out what’s not working for you. Maybe there’s a dissonant approach in the work that articulating will help you better find your own voice.

2. Perform. I came out of the world of open mics and slams, and while not everybody’s cup of tea, knowing there was a weekly reading I wanted to get a new poem ready for because a ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE WERE GOING TO HEAR IT was a great motivator to keep working on a piece until I felt good about it. It also helped to read works in progress because I could see where an audience was responding and where they were getting lost. There are a ton of open mics—some poetry only and others where poetry and music and comedy cohabitate—and I bet you can find one in your area if you google it or ask around. Try attending once or twice without reading, to get a sense of the crowd’s sensibilities. If you keep coming back, you might find yourself in community with other poets, which leads me to…

3. Get a poetry buddy, or five. Everybody thinks they want a mentor. Well, you don’t. Most experienced poets are in high demand and stretched thin; between writing, publishing, and performing their own work, many poets are also educators to support themselves. They don’t really have time to take you, a random person, under their wing and give free attention to your work. You don’t want that anyway. No. You want Poet Friends. Poet Friends are people who are about your skill and experience level who are your friends. You are rooting for each other’s successes and are there for each other to provide feedback on drafts, exchange info about what journals are open for submissions, and who to read next. Things you can try with Poetry Friends: Creating personalized writing prompts for each other. Go to readings together and talk about what you liked and didn’t like afterwards. Giving poetry readings together. Writing and performing a poem together… group piece! Reading poems back and forth and then cowriting. Emailing poem drafts back and forth every day. I have done all these things with my Poet Friends and I am a better poet for it. Trust me. Get some.

4. Take a workshop. Those established published poets I mentioned above? Many of them teach workshops, which vary in cost and time commitment. From $20 for an hour-long session up to a year-long weekly intensive workshop series for thousands of dollars, I bet you can find a workshop that matches what you are looking for. Many are online—some are on Zoom, others are asynchronous and use software like Google Docs and Slack, or a hybrid. In addition to skill building, workshops are also a great way to learn about poet peers you might not otherwise have met.

5. Do an MFA program. I dunno, I never got an MFA so I don’t have first-hand experience about this. I have heard some folks say they had a good experience—that they got to make important contacts and read a lot of poetry they otherwise wouldn’t have. Many people had mixed or difficult experiences in MFAs. If you want to get serious about your poetry AND want to be a teacher AND you get into a fully-funded program, go for it? Don’t saddle yourself with debt to be a poet, in my opinion. Poetry is here to augment life, not make it harder.

6. Try something new. Shake it up. If you usually write free verse, try a form. If you write mostly about your memories, try a persona piece. If you write funny poems, try serious. If you write with rhyme, try… not writing in rhyme (lol). I’ve felt like I’ve made leaps when I’ve gone out of my comfort zone. Sometimes ability is honed incrementally, sometimes it’s a ZAP BANG out of nowhere when you try something totally weird and it works. It doesn’t always work. But sometimes it does, and you discover whole new rooms in the poetic house you’re building you didn’t even know were there.

7. Consider your audience. There’s a concept I think about when I write which I call the Hitch Percentage. There’s a scene in the movie Hitch where the Will Smith character is teaching the Kevin James character how to successfully kiss a date. He says something like, “You go 90% of the way there, and you wait. She comes the 10% and that’s when the kiss happens.” It’s the same between a poet and a reader—but not all poems go the same percentage. Some poems require more work from the reader than others. It can be really helpful for troubleshooting a poem to ask, am I making the reader come 10% of the way? Or is this a 75% of the way poem? Does it make sense for the reader to be working this amount for this poem? Is it pleasurable work I’m asking them to do? In what ways might it be challenging? You can’t control what a reader will take from your poem, but you can be thoughtful about the crafting of your poem with a reader in mind.

8. Remember that “better” is subjective. I bet if you keep writing year after year, and you really find your voice, and publish some poems or a book, and get all the success you’re wishing would be hererightnow, if you were to then go back and look through the poems you’re writing now, you would find things you love about them, that still speak to you and sparkle on the page. Don’t lose what makes you want to write poetry in the quest for being “good at it.”

9. Blah blah blah shitty first drafts. Zzzz.

10. Take a break. Let yourself off the hook. Put your poems in a drawer. Eat a snack and touch grass. Get a hobby. Hobbies are great metaphors, I promise. You’re still a poet, even if you’re not writing every day.