Workshop Tips for Poetry Beginners

1.       Check that details included as factual are accurate.

2.       Check that words you have used do not have unplanned, unhelpful connotations.

3.       Colloquialisms should be used for definite purpose or effect; casually inserted, they often jar.

4.       Use ‘like’ and ‘as’ sparingly e.g. the train crawled out of the station like a caterpillar.

5.       Avoid explaining yourself; imagery or other poetic mechanisms may provide a necessary clarification.

6.       Avoid moralizing.

7.    Beware of lines you really like in your poems; if they are 'stand out' to you, they'll quite possibly unbalance the boat.

8.       Avoid changes of style in a poem, unless there is a specific purpose (e.g. the sudden appearance of rhyme).

9.       Read your poetry out loud to check cadence.

10.   One poor (lazy) line sinks a poem.

11.   Engage with art of all types regularly; poetry is art, artistic taste brushes off on your work.

12.   Compile a list of events/experiences/sights from your past and present life that could spark poetry.

13.   Look at day to day events in terms of their writing potential and take notes.

14.   Create a mood for your creativity with evocative music, images, smells etc.

15.   Poems seldom arrive in finished state; be patient, leave them to sit, and edit them after a reasonable period of cooling off time.

16.   Retain older versions of poems. Rewriting can change the tenor of a piece of work. It may transpire that you have more than one poem among a series of drafts.

17.   Old poems, that have been unsuccessful, can prove excellent sources of lines that, stitched together, recombine into  new and successful poems.
18. Get yourself a critic, who sees the world your way, but knows enough to give informed opinions.