How to Write Poetry

By Jon Justis

What do you need to write poetry?

First you need a leather-bound journal, preferably purchased in a small, cramped, book-store

You also need a fountain pen, or a pencil that looks like it was carved from a branch

Also, you must be able to write in calligraphy, or at least cursive

So long as your letters swoop and loop, like the fluid movements of a matador

In order to write poetry, you need to use the proper figurative language

Which has served you so well since 8^th grade language arts

You need to be a melancholy metaphor, so you can express sorrow like a simile

You need to personify the phases, or faces, of the moon’s expressions

You need so much hyperbole, it would fill the volume of the sun

But make sure you do not forget a furiously apathetic oxymoron

Or some alluringly academic alliteration aviating around an axis of stubborn consistency

And, of course, you need allusions worthy of an episode of the Simpsons

To write poetry, you need to have suffered. For a start, you could simply have your heart broken

But it’s far better to become addicted to something… or someone

Drugs, alcohol, fatty foods, abusive relationships, antique road shows… just about anything you could think of to destroy yourself, but…

You have to survive

You need to be oppressed, betrayed

You need to make mistakes, commit crimes, serve time, learn lessons, and repeat your mistakes all over again

But above all else, you need to have felt something powerful

Something meaningful

Something to make you say

See, my suffering was not without purpose! Everything does happen for a reason!

Writing poetry isn’t that hard

So long as you follow these simple rules

Or…

You could take the words from your head and your experiences

And type them, write them, speak them

Whatever you want to do to get them out into the world

But…

Would it REALLY be poetry?

Poetry Practice Worksheets