Writing Poetry for Beginners: How to Write a Winning Poem

1. Introduction: Welcome to writing poetry for beginners, how to ride a winning poem. I am your teacher, Adam Lee von Browne. Who am I? My name is Adam Lee von Brown. I am an award-winning internationally published poet and author of 11 poetry books. I have my poetry books in libraries and bookstores around the world. I have hundreds of poems published in top poetry journals, and I have judged international poetry contests. Who is this class for? This class is for new poetry writers. Those with the basic grasp of the English language. Those want to know how to craft a publishable poem. Those who have never written a poem, those who have written hundreds of poems, but want to learn new tricks. And those watching to learn how to craft a free verse poem. Now, to my philosophy of poetry, I believe anyone can write a poem. Poetry doesn't take much skill and it can be written well after some practice. And what I believe is that poetry as a vehicle of emotion, It's up to you, the poet to make that vehicle a crashing car. Now to go over the final assignment and the final assignment, I want you to use all that I've taught you in this course to craft a winning poem. And then I want you to send your winning poem to me and I will provide feedback. I can't wait to have you in this course. Welcome. 2. Alliteration: Here is a hot poetry tip. Alliteration. Alliteration is when you have two light consonant sounds right after each other. And for example, I will write some alliteration. The barbaric baboons bamboozled. Each sprint. As you can see, the BBB sound is all throughout the poem. Or in this case, the wine. Publishers, especially modern day publishers, they really look for an alliteration. And I wouldn't put too much of it in your poem. But if you add just the right amount, which is maybe once or twice in a poem, publishers will really appreciate that. Just for another example, here's another and say I'm cranky cats. Turn the key to the cough and cough and the store away. And there we have it. The SCC, then they pay the sound. So that is alliteration. I implore you to try it in your poetry. It can really help. Thank you. I'll see you in the next lesson. 3. Finding Your Poetic Voice: In this lesson, we're gonna be going over finding your poetic voice. And to do that, you want to write what you know. But we'll get into that in a second. Finding her poetic voice is a long process. It takes time writing poetry to truly develop what poets and non-academics would call voice. The best way to get started is to write. I always stick to the advice, right? Once you know, for example, I suffer with addiction, so I know all about it and hence forth. I can write about it. When you're developing your voices and poet, you'll want to find something that means a lot to you. It could be her hobby, it to be an illness. It could even be your favorite color and it can be anything. But when you're developing your voice as a poet, you want to pick something that's close to your heart or something you identify with. Remember, start was writing what you know. I hope this helps and I'll see you in the next lesson. 4. Lines and Stanzas: So in this lesson, we're going to learn about lines and stanzas. So here's a poem I wrote. The title is his brilliance. It's not my best, That's not my worse. It's just the tone for the class. But yes, a lion and a stanza. A line is just basically what it sounds like. I'm highlighting right here. That is a line of poetry. And a stanza is a group of lines. So, and, and usually it's a group of two or more lines, but here it's three. And as you can see, the stanza is a group of lines, and here's the second stanza that I'm highlighting. So let's go back because a refresher, one line and a group of wine as a stanza. Okay, Thank you. I hope to see you in the next lesson. 5. Stream of Consciousness: For the next lesson, we're going to look at stream of consciousness variety. Stream of consciousness writing is basically when you just write your thoughts out onto the paper without really filtering anything. And this is a great writing exercise as it can help you. It can help you learn all about yourself and become a better writer. Because your work, What's their subconscious mind? And in your subconscious mind, we hold certain traumas and all sorts of things so we can work through it with writing. So for an example, I'm just going to go through here with a little stream of consciousness. Okay, so I'm just writing it down, whatever comes to mind. And this is how stream of consciousness writing works. You just write down what you're thinking. You don't judge it. You just relax for two minutes and then you right for three minutes. And then we'll repeat the process until you are satisfied. Doing this for five to ten minutes a day will open up your mind to new possibilities and new writing techniques. And it really works. I encourage you to try it. And I hope to see you in the next lesson. 6. What is a Free Verse Poem: Hello and welcome to this lesson. This lesson is called free verse poetry, and this is what we will mostly be writing them this course, it's free verse poetry. And that's because 95% of the literary journals out there today only publish free verse. We did not deal with Rhyme to metered verse in this course. What is free verse and what is modern poetry? If you look into the literary scene, yes, all you will find it's free verse poetry. I will show you what a free verse poem. This here. As you can see, a free verse poem usually uses no rhyme or meter. This means that are free verse poem is free and that it has no harsh structure holding it down. As you can see in my poem here, there's no rhyme or meter. There are simply lines and stanzas. This means that you can write without the constraints that classical or I'm poetry has its read said. Thank you, and I'll see you in the next. 7. Writing With Your Senses: Another great tip and poetry is to write with your senses. What do you see, smell, hear, taste, and touch or feel. This will create a very vivid poem. If you own, plant your senses into it. For example, I see a white wall. So I'm going to write down white wall. I smell strawberry. So I'm going to write strawberry. What do I hear? I hear the wind. So I'm going to write down wind. How do I feel? I feel relaxed. So I'm going to write down relaxed. But do I taste I also, well, a case strawberry as well, but we already wrote that down. And see if you own planet your senses into the poem. It will be a very imagistic poem full of vivid imagery. In the next lesson, I'll show you exactly how to incorporate these into a column. See you in the next lesson. 8. Writing With Your Senses In-Depth: Hello, welcome back. As you can see, I've narrowed it down to four sensors. What I see, smell, hear, and feel. So what I saw was a white wall and then I put it in a motion next to it that basically tells you how it makes me feel the emotion behind it. So I see a white wall and I want to paint it so I feel are tested. I smell strawberry and it makes me think to perfume. I hear wind, and it makes me feel freezing. I feel relaxed. And so I sit in peace. And now we're going to write a poem using these words and I'll show you how I do it. It's a really simple trick. So we go, white wall, stuck in place. So I basically just use the white wall and the emotion behind it to write this line. Now we're gonna go to the next one. I smell her perfume drug there. And next we go to the next one here when freezing. So I put the wind howls and I lay frozen. And then the final one feel relaxed is I feel at ease. One night piece. And there we have that. We have a poem made from a motions and sensors. And this is how you create a very imagistic inventory driven home tray. 9. Anaphora: In this next section, we'll be going over a poetic tool of poetic device named anaphora. Anaphora is basically the repeating of a stanza, a phrase, or a line in a poem. As you can see, I've highlighted the anaphora in this poem. It's repeating two lines, the second slow and the heartbeats begin. So I'll just read a little bit of this and I'll show you just how it affects the poem. I've counted, and it takes two cycles to disintegrate my love for you. It has been for cycles today and it is only 10:00 AM. The second slow and the heartbeats begin. Where do birds fly when the nest is on fire today, who stayed behind, huddle for warmth or simply burned along with the memories of OEM, the second slow and the heartbeats begin. As you can probably tell, it adds some power and flavor to the poem with the repeating lines. If you do this in a poem, it creates more vivid imagery as well as creates a sing-song quality to the poem. So try it out in one of your poems. Thank you, I'll see you in the next lesson. 10. Consistency: In this next lesson, we're going to talk about consistency. Basically, consistency is just being consistent in the poem. It's traveling from line to line from stanza, stanza, and keeping the subject the same or around the same. For example, I have this polygon here. The sun on his shoulder seemed to hide in the fires of a shame. The heat of this phoenix bore no resemblance to the man I once knew. He had come through the trials, have crew loss and singed the imperfections of his once broken beam. Today is all there is. And today he's stands among the flames. As you can see. I stuck with the same subjects throughout the poem, which has he. And it's all about him overcoming something and triumphing. And as you can also see, I've included the words relating to heat and fire all throughout the poem, which can help keep a consistent all throughout the entire piece. This is called consistency. And it is very important. And poems, modern day publishers, they really look for consistency. So it's something you want to try today. 11. Hook and Ending: In this lesson, we're going to go over the hook and ending, which is basically the beginning and the end of the poem. I brought up my poem here, 12 standards to say I'm still alive. And basically what the hook is, it has a hook that gets your reader's attention. Your first sentence, once, sorry, your first stanza wants to hook your readers. And this is a good way of doing it. You write something captivating, like in this poem I wrote, you say that you loved me, but you don't know that I am a grave. So it's gotta be captivating, surprising, maybe a metaphor like I am a grade flesh I put here. But yeah. And then will travel down to that ending. And I put tell it, telling horror stories of how we mistakenly thought we'd never belong. Let me read the entire ending. Those who we get a sense of what it's about and what do we truly are gone body and dust, while the hope of being treated the same as everyone else linger or become the reason we all hold hands in the end. In horror stories of how we mistakenly thought we'd never belong. And ending a poem like this in an ambiguous way as a perfect ending, you want to leave it open for interpretation. So people will have cell, the palm will have rereading value. When people question, they can go back to the poem and it will always cause them to question and interpret it in new ways. So yes, that is the hook and the ending for every poem. Okay, Thank you. See you in the next lesson. 12. Metaphor : And I will give a brief explanation of metaphor and the power it has in poetry. This is my poem and dependence. And I will just read through it really fast. And then I'll read through it again at the end after I've explained the metaphor to see the differences and what you think about afford at the end. Independence I've counted and then it takes two cycles to descend. A great My love for you. And it's been four cycles today and it is only 10:00 AM. The second slow and the heartbeats begin. Where do birds fly when the nest is on fire today, who stayed behind, huddle for warmth or simply burn along with the memories of home. Second, slow and the heartbeats begin, the memories mouth branches with faint twists as full of lightening the czar past, running from future lies could only bring Bruce bones sighing was shrill, the fall from trust. Oh, the sweet, sweet blood. The second slow and the heartbeats begin. Why do you lies? Seek to Bruce bones when already the truth eats our hearts. Were there were five seconds to challenge the three syllables of your name that it's now only one. This heartbeat stopped and the naming begins. The last syllable is caught in my throat, tied to the last second as I choke on the ashes of my home. So yes, that's my poem and I'm going to go into an explanation of the metaphors involved. So the first one we have here is where do birds fly? Well, then that's dissolved fire. So this can mean many things, but what I was going for was that I am the bird and the nest is my home. And basically I have a poor home life where fire represents the all the agony and the trepidation in the home. And then I put do they they stayed behind, huddle for warmth or simply burn along with the memories of home. So those who stay behind or those who stay in their problematic home environment. And and the the question begs to ask, do you do they huddle for warmth? You know, do you stay there, these stay in it and hope things get better? Or do you simply burden along with them? And without trying to escape? Now I'm going to continue. The memories mouth branch has with thin twigs as full of lightening is our past. So this has a double meaning. I put the memories and then I put Mao's branches to represent. 13. Metaphor in-Depth: The mouth, the memories Mao branch has with fame twigs as full of lightening is our past. With this, I am talking about the memories being Mao's branches in the nest that we as birds lay in. Basically the memories are the are the thing twigs and our nest. And they, they can cripple us her cutoffs depending on how long we stay at home. And then I go down further, the fall from trust oh, the sweet, sweet blood. So basically it's falling from the Nast, falling from home. Everything you'd go through after being possibly in a co-dependent or dependent relationship and having to leave home for the first time. And then I'll go down to the bottom. The last syllable is caught in my throat tied to the last section as I choke on the ashes, my home. So this answers the question that was asked halfway through the poem. Huddled for warrants are simply burn along with the memories for the home. And so the author may. I chose to stay at home and I lived and survived and now I'm choking on the ashes of my former home, the NASW, the birds and asked so that it is a pretty deep explanation of the metaphor of this poem. But, yeah, try it yourself and see what happens. 14. The Messy Poem: Welcome to the next lesson, every one. And this lesson we're going to be going over adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and the messy poem. So in this poem, there's a gift for all to see. The messy, bright, bushy poem is all wrong. It's not always wrong to write. Adverbs are adjectives into a poem, but at times they can really slow down a poem. You want to add the descriptive words in front of the main words so as to retain flow. This makes the poem less messy overall. Also look at my line breaks. I am ending the lines with the words and or, but these are called conjunctions and they want to avoid editing lines with these words. This helps the flow of the poem and also allows the reader to read a full line, keeping them captivated to the page. So let me see, let me highlight these. That was the poem. It's more of an explanation, was sent a poem so I can show you what not to do. So Yes, Well, we have here the messy, bright, lush she poem. These are adverbs and adjectives, and they kinda muddle up the poem. So you'd want to put it in front of the word. So instead of saying the messy, bright mushy poem, say, you can even go with them. Metaphor, which is cool at the metaphor here. Poems in essence is all wrong. Or the poem, and it's now the poems were x plus Smiths. The poems recklessness is all wrong. And the poem is all wrong. You want to avoid it, OK? And for the line breaks, you want to avoid the conjunctions because those are just messy and it's a lot easier to read a poem if you keep to the script and keep away from conjunctions. If you write out the full word set each line, it may seem much better reading experience for the reader. Okay, that's it. I hope to see you in the next lesson. 15. Asking a Question: Hello, welcome to the next lesson. In this lesson, we'll learn asking a question. So asking a question in a poem can be very beneficial and add power as well as layers of depth and meaning to the poem. As you can see, I added the splash and about halfway down through the poem, I asked, Do the flames extinguished themselves and the fire of self-doubt? I've highlighted it here. And then the answers down here, the flames are only a extinguished when the answers are finally spoke here. But let's read through the whole poem. The broken fighter ends the unspoken fear of the cradle to the flames of distinguished themselves in the fire of self-doubt. There's a burden for every scholar and a scar for every story. The flames are only extinguished when the answers are finally spoken. So as you can see, that question is answered at the end of the poem. And honestly, you could even flip the stanzas and put the second stanza of first mascot right at the beginning. Did the sodium. Now, this is a very powerful strategy and like I said, it can add depth and layers and meaning. All cheer one pound. Okay, I hope to see you in the next lesson. Thank you. 16. Developing Intimacy in Your Poem: Hello, welcome to the next lesson. In this lesson, we'll be talking about intimacy and how did it develop it in a poem? Well, first it takes a lot of skill too. Build up your intimacy and a poem. But you can short cut it with a few tips. For example, if my poem here, trapped epicenter of faith, we ran upward to find her. The truth escaped our lips like blood baking for a home. We went searching that night, finding nothing but fear. So as you can see, first of all, it's consistent like I taught you in the previous lesson. And there's also intimacy as it creates an emotional grip in the reader and makes them read immediately and to continue the poem. So this is a very powerful concept to develop intimacy as some beginning TO it. I would say, think of something that is emotional, that provides a motion for real. Like did you lose a cat? Did you think that when he lost a job takes up a great loss in their life. And then use that in a poem. Thinks of that, right when you're writing, you don't try to develop that into your poem, that emotion. And that'll really help you develop intimacy. But as I said, it takes time, but that's a good shortcut. 17. Similes: In this lesson, we'll be going over similes. Somalis are like metaphors and sometimes they're even considered to be a type of metaphor. But I think there's some key differences between a simile and metaphor. So similarly uses the word like or as. Like in this poem, I have pores from sonorant mouths like Sarah found a fire is key and as emptiness and as hard as truth. So if you see the words like or as, it's a similarly comparing two things. Whereas a metaphor. It doesn't use logic, whereas it will usually just be clean cut where as, similarly as there are a lot easier to spot as they use like or as to compare. 18. Congratulations: Congratulations, You made it to the end of the course. Great job. That's spent a long windy road. I am so glad you decided to take this course. I hope you enjoyed it. But before we go, I was wondering if you wanted to do an assignment. It's totally optional, but it's here in case you want it. I want you to experiment with all of the different poetry techniques I taught you, and I want you to create a poem for me. I will look at it and give you feedback on it if you want. So yes, please take a look at the assignment and thank you so much again, I am adamantly von Brown and I have been your course instructors. Thank you. Bye.