Insight to Writing Poetry - Getting Started
some basic tips and suggestions
Before approaching the poetry lesson plans provided in this section, it is suggested that teachers have their students learn or review the vocabulary often associated with writing poetry.

The specific questions, likewise, provided below will also help establish a better understanding of poetry before students begin any lesson.
On This Page:  Discussion Questions  ~  Literary Terms  ~  Avoiding cliché  ~  Free Verse Poetry  ~  Poet, Poetry, Poem
The poet being honest to his experience is the halo that illuminates a poem to a high level of success.
--Prof. Jonathan Holden, Kansas’ 1st Poet Laurate, KSU ​
Discuss the following questions with your students:
​
  1. Why are poem titles important?
  2. Why is the first line of any poem important?
  3. Why is the last line of any poem important?
  4. Why might word or letter “sounds” be important to a poem?
  5. What is meant by the reference: “speaker of the poem?”
  6. What does  "place" mean in reference to poetry?
  7. Why is poetry an important literary form? 
  8. How has poetry been used throughout the ages?
Have your students define the following literary terms.     
​concrete
specific
 
abstract
vague
general
 
figurative
literal
 
cliché
irony
​image
imagery
 
metaphor
extended metaphor
simile
epigram
 
alliteration
prosody
​antagonist
protagonist
narrator
persona
 
rhythm
rhyme
 
free verse poetry
sonnet
stanza
line break
Poetry Term Definitions
Avoiding cliché ... Common Knowledge
​
A cliché is a phrase that has been repeated so often it no longer communicates anything fresh.  A cliché may be false or true, but it is so familiar to a writer's or reader's ear that they simply don't think about it.  Clichés fool writers into thinking they are saying something meaningful.  AVOID the trap of Clichés! Clichés take away from any form of writing.  Some examples follow:
White as snow...
Dark as night...
Soft as a feather...
Red as an apple...
Hard as a rock...
Icy blue eyes...
Sparkled like diamonds...
the big picture...
​Buried in thought...
Silky-like hair...
Board flat
Slimy as worms...
Hotter than fire...
Ruby red lips...
Heavy heart...
A chill in my bones...
Lists Of Clichés As Long As Your Arm! 
​When Writing Free-Verse Poetry 
  • Is the title of the poem working to draw readers into the poem?
  • Does the FIRST line of the poem grab the reader's attention?
  • What is literally happening in the poem?
  • What images and scenes are being developed?
  • Are the images and metaphors working for the poem?  How?  Why?
  • Are the line breaks working? (line end-words / line first-words) How?
  • If anything, what else is the poem trying to say metaphorically?
  • Does the poem have a successful rhythm and flow?
  • What is the tone or attitude of the speaker?  Poem?
  • Is the LAST line of the poem strong? Does it leave the reader awed?
 
Poet ... Poetry ... Poem

A poet
  • writes that he might better understand himself and the world surrounding him.
  • like a taxidermist, catches and then preserves physical and mental emotion
  • like a painter, captures place

Poetry is a means of
  • extracting "the special" from anything.
  • learning more about ourselves.
  • touching personal emotions.
  • delivering a writer's insight
  • providing glimpses of worldly experiences often overlooked 
  • offering us a chance to see things afresh, through metaphor, with new eyes.
​
A poem is
  • the "magnifying glass" to those pieces of life that people are too busy to see.
  • the "reducing machine" for those things that seem to huge to comprehend.
  • an emotion or feeling that has been etched in stone.
  • a painting of words.
...courage is tied with speaking a truth.
                                    --Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Ph.D., Kansas’ 3rd Poet Laurate.
 
Following is an excerpt from a talk on poetics given at Goddard College January, 2004 by Mirriam-Goldberg, award-winning writer, professor, and the author of five books, including three collections of poetry.  
 
To take ourselves, in the words we inhale or exhale, to new places where we don’t know our way, where we have to learn new ways of riding our minds and lifting the wings of our heart is always an act of courage.  That courage is tied with speaking a truth beneath the realities of our culture or the myths we hold to in defining ourselves or being defined by others.  That’s why it’s so effective as explains Audre Lorde in her essay, “Poetry is Not a Luxury,” in breaking silences, in speaking for the unheard or marginalized or invisible. That courage to dwell in the wild of shaped language, of language made of careful attention to sound and image and movement, takes us beyond compasses and maps that reinforce what we already know, where we’ve already traveled.  Yet it can lead us toward a kind of verbally-launched ecstasy, a place we can dwell if we’re lucky enough in: a poem.