Writing Poetry: Lesson One

I’m going to be offering weekly poetry lessons, complete with exercises and reading recommendations. These will be primarily craft lessons, although some will be designed to get you to think about content, purpose and the rest.
Here’s the first:
WHY WRITE POETRY ANYWAY?
Samuel Johnson once wrote that nobody but a jackass ever wrote a line for any reason but money, but then Samuel Johnson wasn’t a poet. Still, a lot of beginning poets have a vague idea that somewhere down the line money will flow in. In a moment, we’ll see how and why they are wrong. First, though, before we get into lessons proper, let’s take a look at the possible motives for writing poetry.
1: Self-expression. If you are motivated by the need to express yourself, then shut down this blog and write any way you want to, any thing you want to. Self-expression has no rules, no structure, no formats, no literary aspects at all. Whatever goes on the page is just fine. So, if you want to write the following:
I’ve never been happier in my life except when I was happier and
Being happy in life is all that counts except for maybe money and
Good times and collecting bottle caps and sailing water filled balloons down
From the tops of buildings and stuff like that.
Well, then, great, you go right ahead. Don’t be bothered by the fact that you’ve used the word “and” five times in four lines and that you haven’t communicated anything to anyone, so that all you are doing is babbling, which cannot possibly be of interest to anyone but yourself.
You don’t need to be bothered by any of that because your goal was to express yourself and you achieved that. You just didn’t express anything to anyone else or create a piece of art.
2: Commercial. Many young poets have the idea that after they serve an apprenticeship, money will follow. If you are writing poetry, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. Poetry doesn’t pay anything. In fact, it costs money to be a poet. You have to pay postage to send stuff out and most of the magazines you will publish in do not pay anything. When you get a book out, the chances are your publisher will lose money on it and will pay you in copies of the book, which you will have to promote and sell. Or you will have to publish it yourself, which costs money. Naturally, promoting a book costs money. It is especially expensive to promote something that no one wants, as is the case with poetry. Richard Wilbur used to complain that party guests would not even steal one of his books from his home. So, if you’re writing poetry in order to make a few bucks, stop right now and instead move to L.A. and write for TV. One TV script will pay more than you’ll make in a career as a poet.
3: Literary. Okay, here’s the real reason to write poetry. You do it because you are an artist and this is your medium for creation. Your intent is to communicate something of importance, either an idea, an insight or a feeling to an audience, no matter how small. You are writing as both an act of creation and of communication. You have something to offer and you want other people to have an opportunity to pick up on it.
Will the masses pick it up and adore you, shower you with ego strokes? Thankfully, no. Chances are you will never hear from your audience. Every once in a while, though, you’ll get a hit; someone will get in touch and say, “Nice work” and you’ll know you’ve communicated. Once, I got a call from a college student in Illinois who had read something of mine in a magazine, tracked me down at the college where I worked and called me in my office just to say, “Thanks.” He said he needed to read my work and it came to his attention at just the right time. Those things don’t happen much, but when they do it’s a big payoff. If you’re not writing from a literary motive, it will never happen. Self-expression and commerciality do not communicate the way literary does.
Reading list:
For commercial poetry, find a Rod McKuen book. In the sixties and seventies he was the best selling poet around and the stuff he wrote was loved by a bazillion people, probably the same ones who love Dan Brown novels. You might also read Judith Viorst.
For self-expression, read Richard Brautigan, a hippie poet from the sixties and seventies who scrawled whatever occurred to him down and never revised or shaped any of it.
You might note that none of those people are easy to find today. That’s because poems written for their motives have no lasting value.
For literary poetry, you can find a thousand examples on your own.
Here’s an exercise:
1: Write down whatever occurs to you. Let it be as spontaneous as possible, with no thought or direction. Don’t worry about whether it makes sense or not, has an internal logic or any other literary value. Just make sure you get it on paper. Be satisfied with whatever happens.
2: Now, tell yourself that you want to make money off of what you just wrote. What will you have to do to make it commercial? Maybe you’ll have to shape it into a song; don’t forget that the guy who wrote “Achy-Breaky Heart” made 12 million dollars off of it. Perhaps you’ll have to change it into a short story or a TV script.
For the sake of this exercise, you don’t have to really carry out the changes, just explore them.
3: Turn it into a literary poem.
More next week.