Disclaimer:
All of these are rules with exceptions, don't Private Message me, arguing certain points. This is merely meant as an umbrella guide.
So let’s start with the basics
Prosody:
Meter and Stress are every poet's best friend as they enable cadence, rhythm, tone, and power.
Meter is the term used to classify the number of syllables in a line. Each line is grouped into a metrical foot. Similarly, Stress is the stressed/unstressed pattern of syllables in each line. Iamb is the most common; unstressed, stressed.
When paired together you get the most common Metrical Foot; Iambic Pentameter;
Five feet of iambs
` / ` / ` / ` / ` /
To flay the fickle knife on fishy flesh
` denotes unstressed \ denotes stressed.
Purple poetry (bad teenage angst poetry) rarely makes use of this, and so it's easily seen as amateur-- like a bleach-white bikini strap across angry-red sunburn- which brings us to our next topic.
Imagery.
Imagery is the use of metaphors and similes to portray a certain scene. You may call your poem an imagery poem, but it isn't. There is a difference between overstuffing your poem with images and using poetic metaphors.
Watch:
Boring imagery:
Clown fish peek from tendrils of anemones
Mine:
Pagliacci faces from a greenhouse frame peek.
Notice any differences?
I do. Not only did I allude to clowns via Pagliacci (It's an opera) but I alluded to anemone's and plant life via greenhouse.
Also, ending a line with a noun is generally weak. An expert poet taught me to use the old style Germanic English. Try sporadically placing lines ending in a verb rather than a noun, it sounds brilliant.
Diction: The one thing every poet wants to avoid is shoddy diction. Diction is your word choice and most of you people use the, forgive me for stealing this, Fat-B**** Hey! Let's stuff as much in as possible in the least amount of lines!
"The light purple shiny fish, with bulging eyes and teeth that looked like rusty fishhooks dangling from his extended maw."
That, that right there is terrible. Overstuffed, shoddy imagery, it's an info-dump. Also, don't use giant words that you don't understand, or use a thesaurus to find synonyms for words like red, or passion. It'll be obvious.
Message:
Your message needs to be clear, yet shrouded. You can't say something like: "The bird is blue"
but you also can't say
"flash of azure"
Also, avoid cliche and trite images like these:
The serenity of water and the ocean
The cruelty of man and war
The juxtaposition of water's serenity and earth's chaos
Cutting wrists
A break-up
Falling in love
Killing someone
Dying
The ocean
etc.
Honestly, I think there's a whole webpage dedicated to Oceanic poems.
Yup here it is. http://www.poetryinnature.com/nature/ocean-poems.asp
Here's a reading list for you all:
Because I could not stop for death... By Emily Dickinson
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/en.../cs6/stop.html
A Noiseless Patient Spider- Walt Whitman
http://www.bartleby.com/142/208.html
Electra on Azalea Path- Sylvia Plath
http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/electra.html
i sing of Olaf glad and big- e.e. cummings
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15408
