Five Things (Perhaps) to Avoid in Poetry Writing

Found this link on the infamous Twitter from @writersrelif. It's an article by The Railto bloggers. It lists five things that poetry editors for the Railto literary journal are tired of seeing/reading. Of course if you would take a new twist on these old topics then it would be acceptable to write about them, right? I think so. Or at least that's what we were fed at my writing program at GVSU. It makes sense really if you think about it. What story doesn't have, characters, plots, adventure, or a lesson to be learned? Originality is really just offering a new perspective on a classic narrative. (Click For Full Article)

5 Things Editors are Tired of in Poetry:

1. Poems about pets, their births, deaths, loyalty, kittenishness etc. Horses aren’t pets and they interest me.

2. Poems about paintings. I think this may be a Creative Writing Exercise in somebody’s book. They often turn up – they describe the work of art and say how interesting it is and what it reminds the poet of. I don’t know why, but they don’t work for me – maybe because the poets borrow a great artist and then stick their own name to the work. WH Auden has a poem with a Breughel painting in it and Lorraine Mariner has a poem with Bonnard’s work in it, but these are a different matter
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3. Postcard poems – what I did and where I went on my holiday. Travel is supposed to broaden the mind, but these poems show little evidence of this. They often slide into

4. Boasting poems. These are often by males, and the boasting postcard poem goes on and on, something like

It was dark in Brogdgibn Street as I, drunk,
lumbered down to Splatny Square,
somewhere there, last year, I’d had a
one night stand. The girl was beautiful:
I forget her name. The last tram swishes past…….

The Heroic Boast is of course entirely another matter, but it’s not often attempted.

5. Beware the Eternal Verities. Those poems that set out to Explain The Meaning Of Life. There is a useful Creative Writing Maxim which says ‘show don’t tell’. I’m very happy to know life’s meaning, but I’d rather you showed me how you discovered it than bashed me over the head with it.