Major Rules to Writing Poetry

There really is not any rules  to writing poetry!!  I love the fact that people will tell me that there are certain rules to poetry. Poetry is Art. Art has no boundaries. A person’s expression cannot be held back by any limitations or requirements or restrictions upon their creativity. There are several guidelines a writer of poetry must keep in mind when creating his art. The reason for this is because if he does not keep these guidelines in mind he will sacrifice his art. The quality of his work will not be good and he will not be able to connect with his reader. At least in my opinion anyway. Guidelines are not rules and are flexible. They are just certain things that the writer needs to keep in mind when writing.

1: Be sure your thoughts are in some sort of order. At times I find myself sitting down to write because I really feel like writing but my thoughts are still not in order to do so. Even at other times I have found myself with unclear thoughts that I have put on paper and not been able to relay my message to the readers that are reading my work. There is two methods I use to clear unclear thoughts. The first one is to get into a quiet room and just sit with the words in my head and the feelings in my heart and organize them. The other is a rather unique method. First let me explain why I use this second method. I have found myself working on three or four different poems at one time and sometimes the stanzas in those poems will come out at different times and be  very  unorganized. So what I like to do is sit down with a piece of paper and put  these thoughts out on paper just throwing them out there  whether  they rhyme, whether they don’t, just blowing them out there and let them fall on the paper. From there I’m able to separate them, use better words, rewrite them to where I believe it maybe clear for the reader to understand.

2. Take your time. If you rush your work your quality will fail. Sometimes I’ll look over an article or a poem that I’ve written for months before I posted. I like to put them in draft form and go back and change words and misspellings. I have found the more time I spent on a piece for more results I get from it. I have had  poems that have come along five years ago and only have half a stanza and then go back and revise and revise and revise and end up with a two page poem that I am truly proud of.

3.  Just make time to write. I have found if you make time to write the writing will come to you. Most of the writings I have created, were right there, but I just had to take the time to sort them out. Even if I just pulled out some paper and grabbed a pen and wrote whatever popped in my head. I have made some true masterpieces from that.

      Well those are the three that I usually practice. I find the better I am at keeping those three things in mind, the better my work gets. The easier the flow of creativity comes as well. I have found that actually slowing down has increased the rate of productivity for me. So feel free to add this to any of the things you do to write.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN:

    What things do you do, or what guidelines do you like to follow when it comes to your work? Please by all means share in the comments below. For what a better way to improve than to learn from each other!!