Susan Astor
Poet-in the-Schools

1.Write with Emotion
Feelings have their own lyricism.  When we are in love, enraged, overjoyed or grief-stricken, we tend to speak and write most eloquently.  This is why words spoken at moments of desire, rage or despair are often remembered.  Poets channel this emotional power to make their poems more intense and memorable.  The music of their words reflects the rhythm of their own passions.

2.  Condense
Keep to as few words as possible.  Watch out for redundancy, e.g. "dead corpse".  Eliminate unnecessary words like "and" "then" "also".   Lyricism will come more naturally when the focus is on meaningful, carefully chosen words.
 
3.  Pay Attention to Sound
There are many ways of conveying meaning. Be aware of the sounds of words as well as their connotations, for example: "little" "tiny" "petite" "miniature" "microscopic"all indicate small size, but each has a different sound and connotation. Poetry is all about being aware of particular possibilities and making wise choices.
  
4.   Use Pertinent Detail

In order to write poetry, it is necessary to use language in keeping with your subject.  If you are writing about the moon, it cannot be done without using words like “crater” "crescent"  "lunar"  "eclipse"  "orbit". When you choose vocabulary for a poem, especially nouns and verbs, they must be chosen from a bank of related words.  It is impossible to write a poem about a clock without including words like "time" "hour"  "minute" or a poem about a mountain without using words like "slope"or "peak".

5.  Pay Attention to Sequence
Be aware that poems are crafted carefully.  Just because a line or phrase comes to mind first doesn’t mean it belongs at the beginning of the poem. Remember that you have a great deal of power as a poet to edit and shift words and lines in order to get the effect you desire, not only in terms of  logic and meaning, but in terms of sound quality.

6. Let Punctuation Work for You
Some poems require punctuation; some do not.  This is for the poet to decide.     Less punctuation is better than more, but not if meaning becomes muddled.  Often line breaks can substitute for commas, stanzas for periods, but this is not always the case. The reader must be given directions about how to navigate the poem.   Pauses must be indicated clearly, whether by punctuation or spacing so that the poet’s rhythm is conveyed.  Punctuation, capitalization, spacing, italics and bold type are poetic tools comparable to the musician’s signs and symbols.  They make the reader understand  the dynamics and rhythm, the music, of the poem.

7.  Read and Revise
Poems are not meant to be read rapidly.  It is impossible to skim a poem.
The person for whom this is the most true is the poet herself.  While ideas may be clear in the poet’s mind and phrases or lines may come easily, it is never acceptable to jot down a poem and consider it finished.  The poet must reread the poem many times to hear it. She must be her own most careful reader.  Like a musician composing, the poet must hum the melody again and again to make it smooth where it is meant to be smooth and staccato where it is meant to be staccato.

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About Susan Astor

 

   Thousands of Long Island residents have learned that they can write a good poem and have done so, at least in childhood. They are among the more than 25, 000 children Susan Astor has taught in 26 years as poet-in-the-schools. Ms. Astor also teaches poetry to children and adults  in libraries, civic centers, and in her own home. She is consultant for the Nassau County Poet Laureate Poetry Contest. When Ms. Astor includes her young students’ poems in her readings, you hear audiences respond as enthusiastically as they do for her excellent poems. For her teaching achievements and two popular books of poetry, Dame and Spider Lies, Ms. Astor was given the 2008 Long Island Poet of the Year Award by the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association in West Hills.


Susan Astor
32 Jefferson Avenue
Mineola, New York 11501-2928
Phone: 516-873-2547
Cell 516-721-7446
E-Mail: sastor@optonline.net