poll dance: how does a poet grow big and strong?

by Carolee Sherwood

At least half of those who responded to the current “read write poll” believe that “growing poetically” is the hardest part of being a poet. I am thrilled about that!

I am not happy that you’re struggling to grow poetically, but I am happy that you want it. It tells me that this community sees room for growth in its work and that we recognize poetry as craft, as hard work.

I want to “grow poetically,” too, but I didn’t check it off as one of the hardest parts because I see paths to improvement all around me, even in my daily writing practice. Maybe it’s a syndrome of having so far to go that all I can see in front of me is pavement. All I can see is the way ahead, the way to expand my imagination or practice certain skills.

Whether “growing poetically” is hard for you or not, I recommend approaching it playfully. Yes, study other poets diligently. Yes, be serious about putting in the time. But have some fun with the growing and stretching! Visit resources for kids, such as Scholastic where you’ll find U.S. children’s poet laureate Jack Prelutsky, a poetry workshop by Karla Kuskin and a myth-writing workshop by Jane Yolen. Why “kid stuff”? Because that’s when we knew how to play and it can be a hoot to take a step back, strip away pretention and start with the basics.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are the experts. I also enjoy reading what other poets have to say about being better poets, and the Web is full of great tips and essays, like “The art of finding” by Linda Gregg and “On Writing Poetry” by U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic.

Other ideas to work your muscles include collaborative work, as is sometimes suggested here at RWP and other sites, including – forgive me for shamelessly plugging my pal Jill – Patchwork poetry.

You may also like challenges. There are challenges in small containers: try haiku or acrostic poetry. There are challenges in large containers: try 30 poems in 30 days, for example.

Outside of growing poetically, responses were distributed fairly evenly at “press time” between finding time to write (check out Judy Reeve’s “Keep the fire burning”), titling poems (help! I think titling poems is hands-down the hardest part of writing poetry, and the only thing I found was this: eHow’s “How to develop a title for a poem or song”), editing and organizing (a previous poll dance lists some resources for this).

Isn’t it interesting to think of our poetry lives and talk about our writing practice? Much more enjoyable than, say, suffering through endless conversations about children, health and weather. Right? (Except for a recent writing prompt on weather. That was scintillating.)

So where do you find your greatest challenges? And do you have tricks to share?

Here’s how the poll dance works: We post a poll and let it ride for a week and a half, and then I’ll talk a little bit about the topic and the results. The poll will stand for a few days after that to allow additional participation. The rotation gives each poll two weeks in the white-hot spotlight.