How to Become a Poetry Writer

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Laura Turner and today I'm going to talk with you about how to become a poetry writer or a poet. Being a poet today is probably one of the most difficult things to do because poetry has a very small, limited audience as far as people who are actually going to go out and buy books of poetry to read them in their spare time. But if you want to be a poet you're going to want to distinguish yourself from other people who are writing by actually trying to write in a different and unique way so you can actually be received in some way. So first of all you're going to want to go back and read poems you know, way back to the beginning of time when people had first started writing poems and discover what you like to read and who do you admire most. And who do you want to emulate, and even go so far as to try to write a poem like your favorite poet. So can actually sort of get into that mode of writing poems because poems are of course a little different than just writing a story, though you can have poems that are story like. You're going to need to think about what kind of meter do want to write in, do you want to write in no meter, do you want in a new meter that you're going to make for yourself. So read not only old poetry but also contemporary poetry because you're going to want to know how to market yourself in the world today, so you're going to really need to see what people are doing. So read contemporary poetry and then to really try and create your own poems based on what you know that you like in poetry and how you feel as though you can express yourself the best and then think about what makes you different from other poets today and how will you market yourself. And finally you should also practice reading your own poetry in front of others and to yourself and having others read it for you so that you can get feedback on it and become better at it. So those are some tips on how to become a poetry writer."