What is Poetry?

There are many definitions of poetry. Coleridge said that, "Poetry = the best words in the best order." Pasternak, more poetically, said that it is, "the crunch of jostling ice floes, it is two nightingales duelling." Basically, and more mundanely, poetry is prose written down in specific line order on a page. "If prose is walking," someone said, "poetry is dancing." The language poets use, the words, are under a stress that gives them beauty and meaning. The poet gives the reader, in few words, a story and a feeling, an emotion.

Here's a little exercise for you. Take a blank sheet of paper and a pen or pencil. (Don't use your keyboard; you need to feel the pen or pencil slipping over the paper.)

Now, close your eyes and picture your mother's room, your baby's room, your boyfriend's room - the room of anyone dear to you. When it's clear in your mind, write: In my ...................'s room...

Don't stop now, keep writing what you see or feel about that room, and don't worry about line length, rhyme or rhythm just yet. Break the lines where you feel it is right, and begin a new line. Keep going until you run out of things to write.

When you have finished your first draft, look at what you have written. Is there anything in there that brings something back to you, some forgotten memory, some feeling? Rewrite it, focussing on that one point. Keep it short.

For your next draft, you will look at the words you have used. Are they the very best words for that thought, for that feeling? Is there a metaphor you can use to convey the thought without stating it so clearly? What words can be cut out without affecting the whole? How do the line endings work and are the pauses in the right places. Look now at rhythm; rhyme is not necessary but even free poetry must have rhythm. Tap out the rhythm as you read the words to see how it fits ... dah, de dah, de dah, dah....

Keep writing and rewriting until you feel that it is as polished and as fresh and new as you can possible make it. Compare it with your earlier drafts before deciding that this is your final draft though. Sometimes, in the constant redrafting, the freshness of those first thoughts and words can be lost.

When you are happy with it, make a clean copy and send it out to find a home in some anthology, or book of poetry.