A Lesson in Poetry

Here are some interesting tips for young poets made by Robert Hass,Poet Laureate and Co-founder of River of Words, a California based non-profit whose hands-on approach to education seeks to foster students' creativity through participation in art and poetry. Read his six tips for young poets below and check out the organization with the link at the bottom of the page.

TIPS FOR WRITING POEMS, by Robert Hass

1. Get something down on paper. Or as the Irish short story writer Frank O’Connor said, “You can’t revise nothing.” Waiting for inspiration is like waiting to be asked to dance. If inspiration comes, it comes. And it will come more often if you show you are interested.

2. Pay attention to what’s around you. If you write nature poems, look at things. If you write poems about people, notice them. There are ways to practice noticing: teach yourself the name of some of the birds in your neighborhood, the trees; learn the names of the stars overhead. Listen to the wind. Look at the way light falls on your street at different times of day.

3. Pay attention to what you’re feeling. A lot of poetry has to do not with knowing what you feel, but discovering what you feel. Sometimes, if you notice what you’re feeling, a phrase or an image for it will come to you out of nowhere. It will be a place to start and the result may surprise you. It’s hard not to present to the world the feeling you think will please other people by having or seeming to have. Poetry ought to be the place where you don’t have to do that.

4. Pay attention to your own mind. No thought is too weird for poetry. And everyone has weird thoughts all the time. Some people are just good at not noticing that they have them. Noticing is what makes any kind of art fresh and interesting.

5. Say your poems out loud to yourself until you’re pleased with how they sound. Some thoughts are quick, some thoughts are slow and deep. Some skip, some pace slowly. The pleasure of poetry for people who write it a lot is mostly here, whether you write in rhyme with a definite beat, or write in the rhythm of natural speech. The poem isn’t finished until it’s pleasing to your ear.

6. Read lots of poetry. It will give you ideas about what poetry can do, techniques you can try. And real feeling will put you in touch with real feeling. Someone else’s originality will make you feel yours.

River of Words Website