Omouse and Liarbyrd's Guide to Bad Poetry

The First St. Paul's Poem
that never received a title
because it was That Bad.

So why is one so bad and the other good? Here's Omouse's Answer:

The first on tries to make itself epic, some sort of ballad with a repeating refrain. It doesn't work. Poems work better with specific details that make them concrete. Give your characters names and circumstances rather than universal pronouns. The first poem is all telling. There's no details that really draws in the reader. It strives for something abstract and falls short... really short. Don't be too pretentious. If you were meant to write like Keats and Shelley you would have been born a century or too ago, and you'd be doomed to die young.

Here's Liarbyrd's Answer:

What so wrong with the first poem? Just look at it. It's cute. It has a stated purpose and meaning. Poetry should never ever TELL you how to feel. Shows, yes. But mostly, it sparks the imagination with a phrase or an interesting way to put something that you've never really thought of before. When you think, 'Why didn't I say that!' That's good poetry. The first poem is…an attempt.

The vocabulary is limited. (A poet needs a thesaurus!) Old, forgotten, crumbles, fades, ageless, years…Yes, we get the point. Time decays. What an original idea. The limited vocabulary is aggravating, to say the most. It's not an original arrangement of the words. The first poem is exactly what anyone else out there could have written. There is no real detail. It's all fluff and dangerously flirts to finding a meaning at the end.

So, if I know so much, Ms University Student, then what makes good poetry? Lots of stuff. Too much to mention. Too much to even list. Just as an equally varied amount of stuff can make a poem bad, it can also make a poem good. Let's review a few important clues.

Rule one: Personality needs to shine through. You wrote this, no one else. Don't mimic the style after another writer. You're better than that. Find your voice. Your perspective. Even if you think you're a fairly dull indi, there has to be something about that merits verse. If this isn't the case, you wouldn't even be trying to write in the first place, would you? Find your voice. Tired but true.

Secondly, as Omouse said, name things. Tactile detail. These details will make a phrase priceless. It takes an 'Oh, that's nice' phrase to 'Fuck, that's brilliant!' Abstract concepts do not go over well. You, I, he, she, his, hers, whatever. Pronouns are bad. If your talking about a guy named Ross, say 'Ross.' Name that ocean you're meditating on. Pacific? Irish Sea? Indian? Which one? A summer sky? Precisely which summer sky? The hard blue June sky of Kansas? Or the grey, softly damp June sky of England? Makes a difference. Without detail, what is supposed to be universal in truth becomes meaningless because it is so universal.

Thirdly, a good poem will make you see something common as extraordinary. The tilt of perspective, tucking your head between your legs at looking behind you, just to see what you can see. The poet does not find a 'nicer' or 'prettier' way of saying what has already been said. The poet finds something new to say. A new way of saying what has already been said before because, let's face it, it's all been said before.

Fourth: imagination. I know, it's wrapped up with personality and perspective, but some people over look it. Imagination comes not with just being able to write something, it's comes with being able to bring that something away from the common place into the extraordinary. When the writer uses his/her imagination, so does the reader. And when the reader can imagine the scene that's been painted, when they become excited about what they've just read, then you're on to something.

Five: a thesaurus. This does not mean dig up fancy words than look really impressive on paper but you can't really use them in conversation. See, I said 'conversation' instead of 'while talking.' This is a clue. It entails expanding your vocabulary. Common words, used everyday, are fine, but the constant repetition of such an ordinary word, such as 'death', 'darkness,' etc, is boring. Never bore the readers. It's the kiss of death.

Five simple guidelines: personality, detail, perspective, imagination, and vocabulary. Oddly, these are also fairly sound advice for a good reader. Could it be that good readers make good writers?

Now, an example of all these elements in action.

My favourite example of the perfect poems comes not from a poem but from the rather poetic begins of the novel 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov. The narrator considers the different meanings of the object of his affections name:

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

"She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita."

The only thing separating that passage from a poem is line formation.

Lolita, light of my life,
Fire of my loins.
My sin, my soul.
Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue
Making a trip of three steps down
To the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.

As you read, you mouth the words, feeling the pronunciation of Lolita. That's poetry. The line that gets me every time is 'standing four feet ten in one sock.' Just one? What happened to the other? I want to know. I can see the picture vividly. That's poetry. When you can see the story, having only been giving a handful of words with see the story with, when the imagination has been teased, then you'll know. You'll just know. Honestly.