Some features of a good poet
I love writing metric poetry. During my time at Inkhaven, I’ve performed a few of my poems for some of the other writing residents. The consensus – my ego is pleased to report – is that I’m unusually good at it. I’ve been asked more than once to explain how. Here are some factors.
Have something to say
I almost left this one out. It’s personal and hard to explain. Maybe you want to express some different things than me. But you need to start with something to express.
For me, a poem begins as a vibe and maybe some pairs of rhyming words. The story only becomes clear once it’s half-written. I’ve discussed this process before.
Rhythmic sense
I’ve been learning the piano for two decades. I can tap my fingers at all kinds of regular rhythms, syncopated rhythms, and polyrhythms. I have a sense of how beats build into musical phrases.
It’s a basic skill that transfers from music to poetry. It feels similar in both cases. Syllables are beats, stressed or unstressed, that build into verses.
I don’t think I’m exceptional among musicians. I’ve just trained more than the average writer. You could, too.
Choice of words
After getting some feedback from Scott Alexander and other mentors at Inkhaven, I’ve been trying not to use so many “big” words in some of my posts. It’s unnecessary and confusing for readers who might not share my semantic proclivities.
Poetry’s different. Some poems might only use single-syllable words, for effect. Others are more ornate, like Persian carpets. The choice of words alters the flavour. Some people might dislike the flavour of some poems. That’s expected.
Vocabulary is also trainable. The best way to train is to enjoy reading authors who are good at using many words. They don’t need to be poets; the word-choice skill transfers between prose and poetry.
You can even invent your own words,1 though I suggest you spend thirty years on a mountaintop using all the words that already exist, before you try to do that.
Word choice interacts in complicated ways with rhythm. Synonyms might not have the same number of syllables, or the same stresses; you can’t just swap them out. They might not rhyme, and they might not be made of similar sounds. All of these things affect the local flavour of verses. As far as I can tell, the only way to train for this interaction is to try to write poetry and see how it feels to edit them.
A bird in your brain
When the same word is repeated many times, you start to perceive it as meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless meaningless. It’s no longer a meaningful whole, but instead simple chain of sounds.
For me, words disintegrate into sounds almost instantly. For example, I was discussing this post with Alec Thompson and he used the term “Common English”. I understood him, but “Comma Ninglish” also spontaneously appeared in my mind.
As a child I experienced palilalia, or strong urges to repeat certain phrases. I’d get hooked on some nonsense like “zoobledy bop”. After a week or a month (zoobledy bop!) I’d switch over to a new bit of nonsense (tinch harst!). It wasn’t completely involuntary – more of a sudden internal excitement that would be relieved once I said the nonsense. Otherwise, the urge dissipated more slowly.
As an adult I have more equanimity, and no difficulty controlling the urges, which are less frequent. But the tendency is still there, and it serves as a bridge between rhythm and word choice: it’s easy for me to flip between words-as-meanings and words-as-sounds. I guess this is trainable, but I didn’t really need to train it. It’s a side effect of autism or something. If I have some natural advantage, this is it.
Now go write some poetry
You can develop rhythmic skill by learning a musical instrument, or by learning to recite metric poetry by other authors.
You can develop vocabulary by reading good writers that use a lot of interesting words, poets or not.
You can only train the combination of the two by writing some metric poetry or song lyrics yourself. So go write a bunch of sonnets2 or something, until all of this makes intuitive sense to you.
I do this sometimes. For example, “ensqualored” in this sonnet is a novel construction from “squalor”, and “atwilt” in this poem is a word invented solely based on vibes.
It took me 10. It might take you 100 if you are less bird-brained.