“A poem isn’t a greeting card with line breaks. It’s a concentrated dose of human experience distilled into the fewest possible words that create the biggest possible impact.”
— L.A. Walton, The Book Maven
Poetry gets a bad rap, and honestly, some of that rap is earned. When poems lean on clichés (‘the stars in your eyes,’ ‘the fire in my soul,’ ‘the journey of life’), they stop being poems and start being motivational posters without the sunset backgrounds.
Good poetry is specific. It’s surprising. It makes the reader see something familiar in a completely new way. And it does it in the fewest words possible.
Motivational Poster vs. Actual Poetry
| Motivational Poster | Actual Poetry |
| “Follow your dreams!” | Describing the specific 4 AM alarm that feels like a betrayal. |
| “Love conquers all.” | Describing how love looks at the kitchen table at 7 AM on a Tuesday. |
| “Be yourself.” | Describing the specific, terrifying moment of dropping the mask in public. |
| “Life is a journey.” | Describing the crack in the highway where a weed is growing through concrete. |
| Uses abstract nouns: love, hope, beauty. | Uses concrete images: rusted faucet, unread letter, burnt toast. |
How to Write Poems That Matter
- Be specific. Don’t write about ‘love.’ Write about the way someone always makes your coffee wrong and you never correct them.
- Avoid clichés like they owe you money. If you’ve heard the phrase before, find a new way to say it.
- Read widely. Contemporary poets, spoken word, lyrics, classic verse. Study how others use language.
- Cut ruthlessly. If a word isn’t earning its place, it goes. Poems are precision instruments.
- Trust the image. Show the reader a picture. Let them feel the emotion through the image, not the label.
Your Move, Creative
Write a poem about something tiny and specific: the sound a door makes, the color of someone’s coat, the way a spoon sits in an empty bowl. Find the universe inside the detail.
Stop letting your stories stay stuck.
