How Do I Start Writing Poetry Without Sounding Like An Angsty Teenager?

Let's face it: most of the time we sit down to write poetry, it's not to capture the ephemeral beauty of the cashier at the local ALDI. Far more likely, it's to express our soul-crushing loneliness and lament the fact that there's no way she'd ever notice m—er, us.

In other words, poetry is often an outlet for complex or difficult emotions. When faced with putting them into words, many of us worry that we'll sound silly, whiny, or be too exposed. When you're just starting out, this can be true of all poetry, regardless of your choice of subject matter.

Here's why it shouldn't stop you.

Lady wearing store apron - How do I start writing poetry without sounding like an angsty teenager?

What Do You Want?

Before you do anything else, find your answer to this question.

Are you:

looking to have your work published?
aspiring to become a poet?
wanting to put something you have to say out there?
purely looking to improve for your personal satisfaction, with no intention of sharing your work?

Whether you fall neatly into one of these categories or somewhere in between ...

... Your Poetry Is About You

It doesn't matter if a thousand people read it and every last one of them curses its name, right down to the ground.

... Okay, it matters a little if your answer to the above question was exclusively one of the first two options.

But the message here is that poetry should represent your experience. It should expose you. That's what makes people want to read it! Poetry is all about emotion, sensation, and sentiment. If you don't allow any of that to shine through, then I daresay you'll be missing the point.

Feeling Silly Is Fine

In poetry or otherwise, you should never feel self-conscious about your skill level, much less the way you feel. Your work represents where you're at right now, both expressively and emotionally, and there's value in that. There are plenty of people out there, and it's all but a certainty that someone else is right there with you!

Either way, it doesn't make sense to expect perfection when you're just starting out. The poetry muscle is quite different from the rest of the writing body, so even if you're a dab hand at prose, don't expect to be flexing it any time soon. Most people have at least a passing awareness of this, but it can be a very difficult thing to connect with or draw reassurance from.

In many cases, the greater issue at work is that you're simply too afraid of criticism or humiliation. If you ever want to explore poetry beyond the back page of your notepad, however, you'll have to start getting over it!

If you're even a little bit happy with something you've done, why not try posting it to a poetry forum? There's plenty of them out there, and they are typically very beginner friendly. Besides the immersion therapy, you could end also up with some valuable feedback (and maybe even a community!).

Practically Speaking ...

The path to improving your poetry is the same harrowing, accursed road to improving anything; learning about it and practising it as much as you can. Are you into poetic metre, or are you more inclined to free verse? Maybe you want to work your way up to slam poetry? Take a look at what's out there, look into the rules that govern it, and try your hand.

There are more types of poetry than can realistically be addressed here, and infinitely more comprehensive resources for each of them out there already. Instead, I leave you with a few pieces of advice that are (arguably) universal among them:

For poetry, an understanding of rhythm in writing and speech is crucial. Even free verse, which claims to be free of poetic metre's rhythmic constraints, is subject to natural pauses and breaks. No matter how humble or grand your poetic aspirations, learning to leverage rhythm is one of the best ways to improve your work.
A unique perspective and independent thinking go a long way towards making your work memorable. Once you've decided on your subject, pick it apart from every angle imaginable, looking for ways of thinking about it that may not readily occur to others. Identifying parallels or comparisons with other subjects is a good place to start. A very basic example of this might be comparing a child to a sponge, as they both 'absorb' things easily (information vs. water).
As with any form of writing, the principle of 'show, don't tell' applies. Much of poetry is finding new and interesting ways to communicate concepts, whether basic (e.g., having a bit of a crush on an ALDI cashier) or complex (e.g., the feeling of witnessing a childhood friend fail their child in the same way their parents failed them). You can be as literal or as obtuse as you like, but it's generally best to avoid blatantly spelling things out.

Would You Like A Catalogue?

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Acknowledgements

Photo Credit Tim Douglas, Unsplash