Touch the souls with stunning verses
Poetry is a universal language — it gives deep insights into a lot of human emotions. Each individual has a vivid variety of experiences.
It is all unique to the person living in that one shoe, yet our experiences and feelings collided with at least one human being in some kind of way.
Poetry can make you dry your tear or cry out loud. It evokes emotions like no other.
Whether it is in the incarnation of lyrics, spoken word, free verse, slam, epic, ballad, concrete or many others. It shows the whole new world to the audience.
It’s daunting for most people to express their emotions with words. In that case, poetry acts as the catalyst.
Often, people realize that the emotions that they are feeling and couldn’t describe has been said out loud by some songwriters or poet. It connects and brings people together to dance, sing and have a beautiful time together.
It requires an imaginative brain, creativity and techniques to craft fascinating poetry. Let’s learn to put our hearts into words here.
a. Find Inspiration
When you put your total energy into finding the perfect inspiration in your surrounding, you may get stuck and never come up with the best idea.
Source of Inspiration
For general folks, falling in love and heartbreaks are the utmost inspiration.
Let me give you some other sources of inspiration — nature. books. Beauty. then betrayal. Mother. Honour. Hopes. Books. mundane conversation. beautiful nights.
See, everyone has a varied form of inspiration — What inspires your idol may never inspire you.
It also depends on time.
For example, I may have full energy and a heart full of words to write about heartbreaks earlier.
Whereas, I can give my whole writing about future hopes and feelings of love toward my lover now.
You’ll be able to scribe beautifully for a certain topic when you have raw emotions involved. You can’t get out raw poetry by forcing emotions.
But please also remember that poetry is about observing and understanding emotions. It can be yours or the people around you. Some people are better at writing others’ emotions by simply observing.
To find out your inspiration, spend some time alone. Go for a walk, wander in the near forest, observe people; their conversations, and pay close attention to ordinary detail; colour, smell, sound, etc.
b. Literature
Literature can be a wonderful source of inspiration no matter where on the road you are in crafting the poems.
Read your favourite poet’s work. Learn their techniques, choice of words, and ways of forming stanzas. Every poet has their own language, study them and let them inspire your work. Don’t copy them- make your artwork as unique as you are.
Experiment with different forms. You’ll find out what works best for you.
Inspiration comes from the most unexpected place at unexpected times. Sometimes it comes while you are overwhelmed with certain emotions, and sometimes it comes when you are in solitude.
Choose different forms like Haikus, sonnets etc., or form a free verse. Do what best works for you. Select which best expresses your emotions and messages.
Free Verse
Free verse is flexible for getting started.
You get to uncover your poetry with your own set of rules and structure and no external influence.
It helps to express personal experience and deep emotions. Slam and spoken word poetry are some forms of free verse.
If you want to learn more about the famous technique and structure of poetry, learn it. I can give you some examples of famous ones.
Example 1:
I adore everything about you
they’re all so beautiful
yabba dabba doo
I have no idea
why you call them flaws
I see ’em as flair.
I love the way you care
& share your life with me
I’ll accompany you
despite existent bare
anywhere, after all,
It’s you starring in the ayre
I think we’re the bestest pair
you’re perfect, so flawless
& extraordinaire
it’s just that you’re
unaware of your adair.
Haiku
Haiku is a traditional Japanese poetry style. It subsists of 3 lines with a strict syllable count of 5–7–5.
This form of poetry expresses a message through a few sweet words.
Example 2:
assaying the moon
my beloved’s coming soon
I’m scenting his perfume
Sonnet
Similarly, Sonnet is more structured than Haiku.
It is a 14-line strict rhyme scheme and meter-structured poetry.
It gives you the chance to explore and create powerful messages in depth.
Example 3:
go away hunters, I beg you for life
I can’t fight alone in the dark night
scared away by cruel animal’s fife
so tell me, am I going to get back to light?
might I be your savoury prey today?
in gloomy wildlife, Imma famished
& a lost lady, soon to be your buffet
frostnip is ok than wounds you perished
quavering on my way to your jaws,
with my lifeblood, shivering,
Wearily staining your sharp claws
with vulture-look, you began severing
you’re baring & tearing thru the nite
today, i’m the one to satisfy your appetite
c. Imagery
Words are not enough for a poem to be beautiful.
it takes creativity, techniques, imagination, good patterns, amusing word choice, and graphic mythology.
And mostly, an idea that spins around one central idea.
The perfect combination of required materials makes the poem the most wanted.
Shakespeare’s works are still alive because of his out-of-the-world imagination.
See, there’s not one thing that is enough for a quality poem.
More adored poems have every ingredient to make them savoury to every tastebud.
Choose a theme and Substances
When we write a poem about the war in Nepal — It would not be irrelevant to talk about Iran, the United States or some other countries unless that is linked to Nepal.
The theme that best reflects your strong emotions — will help to reach the peak of your work. We’re human.
To begin with, we need to resonate to give our best. If your heart and words are connected — your readers can see it too. And if they doo — they can connect yours with theirs.
Vivid and Sensory language
Taking it into account — your senses will appeal to the reader’s senses as well.
Use sensory language — let the reader taste your work, smell the beauty of your work, feel it as their own, listen to your voice and not just see your work.
For example, instead of saying “ I see forever in us”, you could say, “Let’s cross all the mountains and sail the sea, let’s germinate the love seed and soak it through the sprout via the next breed”. It will give quench the reader’s every sense needs from the poems.
This is what readers aspect from a poem. and it is what will make your poems alive in many hearts and memory forever and ever.
Concrete Details and Specific Examples
Besides prose, a simple poem doesn’t have the luxury of elaborative thoughts and ideas.
Make concrete details to give weight to each and every word. Don’t make the sentence too long for the readers to forget where they begin when they come to the end.
Concrete language means using specific and tangible words to describe the scene in poetry rather than abstractly. It is very essential to ground your poem in reality with the use of metaphor and symbolism.
d. Repetition and Refrain
Using reputation and refrain helps the poem to remember the central idea the whole time. It unites the poem as one — and not as 3 or 4 poems in one place.
It makes poems cohesive, honest and authentic — tieing various elements to make a poem one.
e. Literary Devices
Corrective and sensual use of literary devices helps to create a sense of playfulness, seriousness and other raw emotions depending on the tone of the poem.
Various types of literary devices can be alliteration, assonance, consonance etc which adds engagement and texture to your poetry.
Line and Stanza Break
Line breaks and stanza breaks are used to create pauses and shifts in poems.
More often, it draws the pace and tension to the reader to keep them hooked in the poems. Use it as needed. But don’t use it too much.
Sound and Rhythm
Sounds and rhythms give a lyrical and musical feel to the person reciting the poem.
Try writing multifarious poems with various rhyme, meter, and line breaks to grow as a poet and create musicality in your poem.
f. Edit and Revise
Usually days, great writers are great editors. Not just with blog articles or books. Even poems have their firsthand and secondhand draft.
Make mistakes first, and correct them later.
Edit and revise the poem cautiously — while paying attention to every word/phrase and keeping in mind what these words mean to the poem.
It is the best way to sharpen your idea — giving power to your poem effectively.
g. Be True to Your Voice and Style.
Every poet has their own style and voice their heart is screaming to the world to listen.
You can try a different style and imitate various poets in the beginning. But stay true to your inner voice and style as a poet.
You will find your own unique way of expressing yourself along the way.
If you found this useful, please check out my other articles and feel free to connect on LinkedIn.
How to Craft Beautiful Poems: Put Your Emotions into Pages was originally published in The Writing Cooperative on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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Author: Kalpana Khattri
