March 2023

Megan Madrigal

Prepping Your Poetry for the Dazed Starling and Publication

The approach writers take to poetry is completely different than it is to prose. Each genre requires a different perspective and skill set. Skill set here means familiarity with the characteristics of quality poetry. Even though the term quality is subjective, it also refers to the general criteria of the foundation of a poem—the rest is up to the inspiration of the writer.

Again, poetry is a genre that is unique in the sense that there is a lot more freedom and variety with a multitude of components. Knowing the most strategic way to create a piece of poetry can be tricky and even a little intimating to some, but is something that can be achievable, nonetheless.

There are a few key ideas to keep in mind when initially writing your poem; however, there are also just as many that work well to keep in mind specifically for revision. Most tips serve the writer better if they keep them in mind when drafting and revising their poems before entering them for the possibility of getting published, whether at CBU or any other place.

Understanding Your Audience

Believe it or not, doing your research plays a big role in what you do and how you choose to write a poem. Research is the umbrella term that takes into consideration influence and audience. It explores this relationship in a way that creates a steady base. This of course would be easiest if done before the initial draft of a poem because it is such a key factor.

Not only is important for the writer to understand these deciding factors, but it also gives them insight into how they can best include their personal flare and style into a piece. That way, the poems are originally the author’s and universally those who encounter them.

Even though understanding your audience may sound obvious, it is one of the most important things the writer can do to have a higher probability of publication. It is essentially the mold for the author’s technique and work.

In terms of audience for a publication, it is safe to say that CBU has a distinct audience. Clearly, the audience here is Christian. With this religious background, it is important to take that into consideration when writing your piece. Despite this, that doesn’t mean that all poems must be only positive and surface level. It is important to keep in mind that theme and audience are different principles. It’s one thing to follow a certain theme for a piece; that is more malleable than say guidelines and restrictions for theme, topics, and language.

Knowing the Basics

With the information about the audience in mind, the next component to tackle is poetic structure and detail. This step is one that doesn’t technically have to be looked at before drafting, but it would surely be the most helpful. The mechanics are the trampoline for ideas and creativity to bounce from.

The easiest way to ensure everything looks good in your poem is again research. Exploring the variety of structures and styles within the realm of poetry, the more room for creativity there is. Oftentimes, structure aids the creative process of expressing certain imagery and themes.

The easiest way to learn all the poetic detail is, of course, the internet. There are a bunch of helpful websites out there that provide useful insight and suggestions on how to write a memorable poem. Some good keywords to look out for are rhyme scheme, diction, punctuation, musicality, and imagery. Another good method is reading an introductory (or even advanced, depending on what level you are as a poet) poetry book.

Piecing It Altogether

Once the audience and the major/minor details have been addressed, the poem is closer to being completed. Now that the main forms have been reviewed the focus should be on the message, tone, and creativity. That is, after the journey of revisions.

The revisions shouldn’t be seen as tedious. Now that you’ve spread the jelly on one piece of the bread and peanut butter on another, it’s time to finally put them together and create a finished PB & J sandwich. And remember prepping your poetry, like with anything else, is an essential part of the process.

When piecing all of it together, it is important to remember that writing poetry isn’t necessarily a “skill.” It is a lengthy process that requires determination and cleverness. Nonetheless, over time it can become a skill. With research, strategy, and creativity your poem is sure to be accepted into the publication world before you know it.

Andrew Winslow

Poetry has become something of an enigma in our culture.  While it feels like a dying art, it simultaneously lives on.  While many people have lost interest in reading or writing it, poetry still seems to hold a sacred space in our hearts.  From those who defend the practice of poetry, I hear a lot of blame placed on an overcrowding of the market with bland or outright bad poetry.  I hear a lot about poor teachers who exhort their students that there is no wrong way to do poetry, a fact that is true, but often abused.  I think a lot of people feel like they want to try their hand at poetry at least once in their life.  Those that like the experience often want to continue writing, but the task feels daunting when confronted with the complex forms and structures outside of free verse poetry.

Many people see the plethora of poetic forms as a roadblock, a ball and chain on creativity and free expression.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  The fact is, we are drawn to a good beat, a flowing rhythm, or a clever rhyme scheme.  Just look at the modern music market, with lyrics to many songs that sound like poems when read instead of sung.  A lot of them follow the same pattern, based on style, and people love it.  Working with fixed forms is challenging, but the benefits are worth the effort.  It can make a poem come alive, make the emotions you try to express jump off the page.  In this post, I will walk through some basic examples of how to begin playing with structure and form, and show some examples of easy(er) to use fixed forms.

Reasons to Experiment with Fixed Forms

1. Using free verse is all well and good, but just because you don’t have to structure a poem in a particular way does not mean that you shouldn’t give it a structure of some kind.  Play around with the lines and stanzas.  What makes your poem look good?  What layout emphasizes the major points and emotions of the poem?  These are the two most important questions to ask when playing with structure.
2. Messing with meter and rhythm can be difficult.  Believe me, I know.  I consider myself a poet and I still struggle with it.  The easiest thing I can recommend is to pay attention to your syllable count.  Look things up if you have to, just make a pattern out of the syllables first without worrying about stresses or iambs or anything like that.  Then, and this is the most important part of crafting any poem, read it out loud.  If there are any portions that sound weird or you stumble over consistently, then try to re-work it until you find something that does work with the syllable count.  You don’t even have to know why something works or doesn’t work, as long as it sounds good you’ll be fine.
3. If you’re feeling ambitious, try one of the fixed forms.  One of the biggest mistakes I see aspiring poets make is to be intimidated by fixed forms because all they can think of is the Sonnet.  There’s a reason the Sonnet is the golden standard in English poetry, it’s really hard to master, that’s why Shakespeare was considered a genius poet.  There are much easier, though still challenging, poetic forms that don’t rely on meter or rhyme schemes.  Repetition is a good place to start. 

A Few Forms to Try

Try the Ghazal style on for size: Stanzas made of two lines each, and the end of every second line is the same word.

Next time don’t bother

Nothing gets past me, dear


I know what happens in my own house

Or did you think otherwise, dear


I don’t want to deal with this again

But I will if I have to, dear

Okay, so it’s not my best work.  I just slapped it down as an example, sue me.  But you get the idea.  You can add as many two-line stanzas as you want, so it works well for almost any size.

If you want to try something a little more ambitious, a Sestina is an interesting workout to craft.  They’re made up of six stanzas with six lines each and an end stanza of three lines, so poems written in this form are big.  The most interesting part is that the word at the end of every line gets reused throughout the poem in this pattern:

ABCDEF

FAEBDC
CFDABE

ECBFAD

DEACFB

BDFECA
Then, in the last half-stanza, the pattern can either take the form of ACE or ECA.

Notice that the word at the end of every last line in a stanza is used at the end of the first line in the next stanza.

If you feel like your rhyming is okay but you’re still unsure about meter, I would recommend one of my favorite forms, the Villanelle, which uses rhymes and repetition.  It’s made up of five three-line stanzas and one four-line stanza at the end.  All the first and last lines rhyme with each other throughout the whole poem, and the second lines all rhyme with each other too, like this:

A1 b A2

a b A1

a b A2

a b A1

a b A2

A b A1 A2

Now, here’s where the repetition comes in, all the A1 lines are exactly the same, they get repeated.  Same with all the A2 lines.  The effect is rather impressive when you put the work in.

If you want a bigger challenge with rhyme and repetition, try a pantoum.  This can get tricky, but there’s no harm in trying and coming up with something ridiculous, as evidenced by my poem about how to write a pantoum in the form of a pantoum

How to Write a Pantoum

1A It starts and ends with an opening rhyme
2B Then you move onto the next part
3A Lines 2 & 4 will be lines 1 & 3 next time
4B The Pantoum makes repetition an art

2B Then you move onto the next part
5C By doing the same thing again
4B The Pantoum makes repetition an art
6C The structure is really quite plain

5C By doing the same thing again
7D The Pantoum maintains a beat
6C The structure is really quite plain
8D The rhythm is easy and neat

7D The Pantoum maintains a beat
9A It goes as long as the author has time
8D The rhythm is easy and neat
A1 It starts and ends with an opening rhyme

There are many other styles and forms to play with.  Look up a list and try a few.  Try to stick to the form as closely as possible, because an unspoken truth of poetry is the more challenging it is to write, the more impressive the results can be.  Push yourself, but find the style that works best for you

Jameson Showers

As we continue down this harrowing journey of becoming established writers, I can say wholeheartedly that we may be holding ourselves back. Whether it’s being too scared to share our craft in fear of being criticized, or not having the creative capacity to write while juggling a full-load of classes, something is obstructing our writing paths.

While the previous two issues are valid, there’s one far more common problem that weaves itself in seamlessly: Not writing on a consistent basis. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It is, but I and many other writers I’ve met commit the same offense of not being consistent. If it’s so simple, why do we often neglect this part of our regimen?

I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, I’m not always in the mood to write. I’m either tired, too “busy,” or not inspired. There’s only so many hours in the day and most of our time gets chewed up without a second thought. While important, all of these excuses are only kiddie-pool deep.

Identifying the problem

When I was a kid, I played a good deal of sports and video games. I used to become obsessed and play every day to improve. And what happened? After a consistent routine, I got better. That simple.

I was at odds with my writing for some time. As a new writer, I didn’t know my voice or what I wanted to write about. To top it off, I didn’t know how to get better. My brain wasn’t turned on. How could I not apply the same concept from my younger days to the pen (or keyboard)?

Attacking the problem

After coming to terms with my writing, I created a plan. I would write at least five times a week and since I was in a creative writing program, that should be easy, right? Wrong.

The inspiration didn’t flow. I had a head full of imagination, but nothing translated to paper. The wall in-front of me grew and became more intimidating and eventually, it pushed me into a corner.

But like a determined animal fighting for its life (dramatic, I know) I forced myself to write. I woke up early around six or seven in the morning and I would crank out a story. If I had a hard time waking up or had another commitment, I blocked out a time in between classes or in the evening to get it done.  Even if it was just a page, it was something. I took writing prompts from various books and social media accounts and proceeded to my notebook.

Before I knew it, I saw improvements in my writing. My flow became smoother, my focus sharpened, and I ruthlessly cut the fluff from my stories. Eureka! I struck gold.

Learning from the problem

Who wakes up wanting to write each day? Not most writers I know, and not me. But if you neglect your craft, one missed day turns into a week and a few weeks into a month. That’s the problem with not staying on schedule. Your plan falls by the wayside.

The hardest part is to constantly show up. You can’t refine your craft without hundreds of repetitions. You’re not going to want to write some days, but you must pull through. You won’t see improvements immediately, but you will down the road. Think of your schedule and work as an investment that you’ll cash later.

I’m not saying I’m a perfect writer or that I’m good by anyone’s standards. There’s much I have to work on, and it will take a lifetime to be where I want to. Still, I’m steadily improving, and I am proud of myself for that.

Grind it out and bet on yourself. You won’t be disappointed.

Audrey Smith

A great story needs a great theme. But what is a theme, and why does it matter? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines theme as “an idea that recurs in or pervades a work of art or literature.” Beyond the “what happens” of a story, theme answers the question of “what is it about?” Common themes in film and literature include love, family, revenge, the law versus mercy, good versus evil, and coming of age. Theme is like the skeleton of a story―you cannot see it on the surface, but it is supporting everything.

When a person criticizes a story for feeling substance-less, it usually comes down to the story not making good enough use of its theme. In an effective story, a character’s arc will revolve around the theme. Different characters are great opportunities for writers to show a variety of responses to a theme. When one character believes revenge is the true path to justice, and the other wants peace—now there is drama.

The theme is what an author will make a statement about through their story. For example, in a story about revenge, an author can illustrate how the pursuit of revenge takes a negative toll on one’s mental health. A story usually has multiple themes alongside one central theme that drives the narrative. Revenge can be a major theme of a story, but it could also be a minor theme in a grander narrative. While a theme is a general concept, it can help an author narrow down on the direction of their story. For instance, G.R.R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series has a central theme of power. Martin then expands on this theme through a story of wand how a character’s quest for power can lead to the suffering of the innocent.

If you are looking for ideas on what the theme of your story could be, this article by Masterclass offers several examples for inspiration. They also share examples of how various themes have been written by famous authors, and the different directions one theme can take you. You can see how these popular themes are woven into your favorite stories, and now you can recognize them in the next story you read.