Poetry Lesson 1: Bad Poetry

Before you can understand how to write good poetry, you must be able to identify and avoid bad poetry. If you follow the list below, you are almost guaranteed to produce common, substandard or just plain bad poetry:

• No attention to meter or rhythm – Poetry can be rhyming or non-rhyming (free verse), but in either case it should follow a consistent pattern or beat. Amateur poets often set up a meter and then break it, or simply ignore meter altogether.
• Forced or bad rhymes – Rhyming poetry can be fantastic, but the rhyming words can be awkward or downright hilarious if the word choice is random. Some poets are so desperate to keep the previous line that they will use any rhyming word in the following line to keep it going.
• Clichés – One of the most wonderful aspects of poetry is the chance to hear objects, feelings and situations described in unique ways. Poems full of overused comparisons – “Her eyes were as blue as the sky,” “My heart beats like a drum,” “He ran like the wind,” and the like, are seen as unoriginal and lazy.
• Thinly disguised attempt to flatter or charm the subject of the poem – I have been guilty of this one in my teen years. Some poets write “to” the object of their affection, using the poem as a sort of persuasive letter set to rhyme. Unless the poet is exceptionally talented, this is usually a disaster in the poetic sense.
• Thinly disguised rant about life – Similar to the “I love you” poem, some poets use poetry as an outlet to gripe about their lives. Usually no one cares except the “poet.”
• Cookie-cutter, “me-too,” unoriginal – These are usually found in Hallmark cards. The rhyme and meter is correct, the words are pleasant, but no new ground is broken. The reader won’t remember the poem five minutes after it has been read. Poetry should be chocolate for the senses…Rich in the mind, pleasant to the mouth and a bit intoxicating!
• Overused, conventional themes – Some subjects have been “done to death” in poetry. Easily the most overused topic of all time is love, followed by exhausting descriptions of nature, weather, etc. The more original the topic of the poem, the less chance that it will tread on familiar ground or be underwhelming.
• Preachy propaganda set to rhyme – Writing poetry about the things that you believe in is a good idea. Using poetry as a blunt weapon to hammer your point home to the reader regardless of poetic integrity is not.
• Pedestrian language, no nuances – Vocabulary and a mastery of nuance is essential to good poetry. Poetry should be as precise as possible. Vague simple words like “good,” bad,’ “love,” and “honesty” should be replaced with either exact descriptions of what you mean or more accurate words.
• Too common of description – This is a close cousin to the previous point. Poetry that is lazy uses the obvious descriptions – bark is rough, wind is cold, the waves pound the shore. Good poetry makes these descriptions come alive through great metaphor and odd yet evocative comparisons.

The Bottom Line: Now that you know what not to do, you have a starting point!