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How to Write Poetry

If you're like the vast majority of poets out there, you probably started writing without thinking too hard about metre.

You may have vague recollections of 'iambic pentameter' from school but you may not quite recall what counting syllables has to do with self-expression. You certainly don't need to write trochees or spondees in order to craft good poetry, but finding your own rhythm is a vital step to making your work your own, and stopping it resembling your dad on the dance floor.

A SECTION THAT DESCRIBES PENTAMETER

Knowing how to use rhythm in poetry doesn't require a degree. In fact, all you have to do is look at everyday speech. Take the heading above, for instance: 'a section that describes pentameter'. It's made up of ten alternating strong and weaksyllables. This is actually an iambic pentameter: one of the most commonly used metrical systems in poetry, adopted by such luminaries as Milton and Wordsworth. You don't have to speak like Shakespeare in order to write in iambic pentameter - your language can be modern and natural and still be set to that pace - but the rhythm helps order the words, working to make them more fluent, and give them more impact, than those without structure.

RHYTHM HELPS YOUR TWO HIPS MOVE

Some academics make metre sound like a science, but nobody actually reads poetry in this fractured, halting way. In fact, it's best, for now, to forget about metre (as something a poet imposes on their words) and start thinking about rhythm - the musical movement and flow of speech.

If the word rhythm makes you think of steel drums and samba, great! It's all about movement, music, freedom; what Robert Frost calls the 'abstract vitality of our speech'. Try to listen to the way people talk without actually hearing what they're saying. Don't focus on the words, tune in to the stresses, the intonation (the rise and fall of pitch) and the voice quality.

Make that your task for this week: go out and listen to the music and rhythm of language. Listen to people on the bus, in the pub, on television, listen to yourself. But hear the noise, not the words - tune the meaning out (a great technique to learn for next time you have an argument with a loved one). We're lucky in that English is a language in which strong and weak stresses alternate in a fairly evenly distributed way. Next time you're writing, try and convey these patterns onto the page as honestly as possible: you'll probably find a rhythm emerging. The most important thing is to always go with your instincts: if your heart breaks rhythm you see a doctor, if your footsteps fall out of sync you fall over, if a line doesn't feel like it's got a natural rhythm, you change it.

FEEL FREE

In short, it doesn't matter if you go traditional and strike up an iambic pose, or break out and listen to the natural rhythms of everyday speech - you have to have an underlying beat of some sort. Even free verse, with no discernible metre, has rhythm. Writing poetry without rhythm, says Frost, is like 'playing tennis with the net down'. Experiment with different kinds of metre, but don't just rebel against it because you feel it might be restrictive: remember, one of the primary principles of poetry is organisation. Keep playing until you find your own balance between the underlying order of metre and the natural rhythm of spoken language. Once you've found this rhythm, your lines will always have energy and life.


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