Young Writers Society

I've been going through the poetry articles in the knowledge base, and I found that some of them take a really long time to say something simple, which means few people read them. So, let's go over some of those tips in quick form!

1. Punctuation: Punctuate your poetry like prose, unless you're experimenting. Punctuation helps your reader to read your poem.

2. Navel-Gazing: This means writing poems about yourself for yourself. When you post on YWS, try to post poems that are accessible to other readers.

3. Rhyming and Structure: If you're writing a rhyming or structured poem, make sure you say what you MEAN to say, and don't change the meaning to fit the rhyme.

4. Critiquing: When critiquing a poem, focus not on the punctuation, but on the content.
a. Content can be how well pieces of the poem work together.
b. Content can be if the poem flowed in a logical order.
c. Content can be if similes, metaphors, or other poetic devices made sense.
d. Content can be many things.

5. Reading: Read poetry, and read a lot of poetry. You can't know poetry unless you read it, and even then you only know what you've read.

Quick, concise and to the point. Great article! It'll also be easy to remember. Thanks.

Remove three adjectives. Add three nouns.

That's a good one as well, Sealegs! Thanks!

I agree completely with these tips. They are very useful. Sometimes we as readers forget the content of the writing because we are hung on punctuation. Though punctuation is key to reading something correctly it should not the be the main focus. These seem like common sense things one should remember each time while reading, but it is good that someone took the time to remind us of important skills that often times we forget. Truly thank you for posting this.

THANK YOU.

To number 4, I'd like to thank you for pointing out not to attack people about punctuation. Those are little things that can be easily fixed and tweaked to suit the poem better. But I think, when being critiqued, they do not need to be the main focus of the comment.

As for punctuation, some poets don't even use it. So in some cases, I don't think punctuation needs to be attacked if it's not there. It does help to reader to understand, and to read the piece, also the author to create pauses and stops, but a poem is not a sentence. It doesn't have to have punctuation.

I would just like to point that out.