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The Correct Way To Write Poetry
Poetry is one of the best and a very meaningful methods of expression in today’s day and age, but sadly it isn’t being written much by common people for reasons that I’d like to call their fear of “writing poetry wrong”. Most ways of writing (or expressing one’s opinions) in English have always come with a structural format to assist people in writing them, for example- Letters, stories, etc. They have certain “rules” and “criterions” to follow which makes it all the easier for people to know how to go about writing them. When it comes to writing poetry in specific until you decide to actively research or take a class on it the rules set for writing it are very vague. For example, most of what I thought was the correct way of writing poetry came from the ones I read frequently in the English textbooks and the poetic devices that we had to learn in our classes. Most of the basic poems people know have a similar built structure, the title, rhyming schemes, a few commonly known metaphors, and rhythm, sadly due to this, people who don’t know poetry assume that most poems are structured similarly and so when they try writing poetry they give up immediately after seeing the mediocrity and almost childish quality of what they might have first written. So, to help clear some things up I want to say that there is no correct way to write poetry, no perfect format, and even no built structure. The things we use in poetry such as the numerous poetic devices (enjambments, metaphors, symbolism, anaphora, etc) and even the need for rhythm aren’t necessities, they are enhancements. And learning that for me was a freeing truth and helped give nuance to the way I approached writing poetry and even gave newfound flexibility to the language I thought was starting to hold so many rules. And it could be the same for you. I think one of the best ways one can get good at writing poetry is if they read all kinds of it and especially delve into the world of these enhancements (one of my favorite poems of all time has the word gobbledygook ). Learning to do something can be an adventure in itself, especially without pressure and this would be an adventure you’d be glad to go on.
Durga Menon
10 A
