(Yes, I just had to write the header like that! I’ll be reading Poe this month and analyzing his work, among others. And trying to write my own poetry (cringe LOL). What about you?)
Right now, I’m a class on my writer’s group called the Apex Writers Group started by NYT bestselling author David Farland. The topic is learning poetry to be a better fiction writer. and I totally agree.
If you avoid poetry writers’ workshops, you are missing a huge opportunity to improve your writing and force it to the next level. Poetry is tight writing. Every single word choice is a particular and specific choice for that poem. (If it isn’t, it’s a lazy writer writing lazy poetry.)
In storytelling, only the relationships matter in that the word choices bring that relationship to life. If you’re describing an apple–is it round, uneven? red.. which red? Deep maroon, light and bright? Is the apple soft or hard? There’s more to an apple than just being red.
We explore the aesthetics of our words. History of words is important. History of the word itself, of the combination of the words, the sentences, the paragraphs.
If you’re a writer and you haven’t taken a poetry workshop, you’re really missing out, in my opinion. So for poetry month, why not find a poetry workshop and dig in?
Check out NPR’s National Poetry Month: Nikky Finney.