Toolboxes come in various shapes, sizes, and colors, but most of them have multiple compartments for storing tools according to their function, size, and frequency of use, and a poet’s toolbox is no different! Some tools, like themes and imagery, aren’t needed for every job, so you can safely store them in a removable shelf, but others—punctuation, metaphors, and similes—you will need for each piece of writing you compose, even if you are a spoken word poet. In poetry, how you use your tools is somewhat open to interpretation, but the fact remains that if you don’t understand what’s in your toolbox, you’ll never be able to get the job done properly.
In this chapter, you’re not going to just look inside the poet’s toolbox: you’re going to learn how each tool works and how you can use them to add depth and character to your poetry. We’ll cover the indispensable tools that you’ll take to every job—punctuation, metaphors, and similes—and we’ll also take a look at how other items (e.g., imagery and themes), while not necessary for each piece you write, could take your poetry to the next level. You’ll also be able to see that your toolbox still has room for one more tool...or twenty! Hopefully by the time this chapter is finished, you’ll feel much more confident and capable of composing your very own masterpiece.
As a poet, punctuation is one of the most important tools at your disposal, regardless of whether you are confined to ink and paper, a digital format, or the spoken word. Every thought you try to communicate, every image you want to paint in the mind of your readers, and every emotion you attempt to convey, will require you to understand and utilize punctuation. Unfortunately, so many types of punctuation exist in the world that there’s no way we’ll be able to look at each of them up close, but we will certainly check out the main poetry “fasteners” at our disposal!
Contrary to popular belief, a comma is not punctuation used to indicate where you—reader or writer—should pause or breathe in a statement. Many, many would-be poets lose their audience to too many unnecessary commas, or worse, no commas or punctuation whatsoever (insert choking sounds). The truth is, commas are very simple to use properly! If you need to separate the parts of a sentence, create a list, or denote large numerical values, use a comma. If your goal is to create space between certain words or syllables for emphasis, though, either omit the comma (possibly for a period instead), or only use it for personal reference in the event that you’re reading your work aloud.
In the following list you’ll find common examples for using commas appropriately. Familiarize yourself with them, because if punctuation is a tool you’re going to need in every job, then commas are undoubtedly the grease you’ll need to keep your writing working efficiently.
• Between sections of a compound statement: “I think, therefore I am.” “I think” and “I am” are both complete statements, and “therefore” is the conjunction connecting the two, so a comma before the conjunction is correct.
• Separating items in a list: “Broken, blinded, scarred, and lost, my torment lingers on.” Whether it’s a list of adjectives describing the sentence’s subject, or a list of nouns, each word should be separated by a comma—even after “scarred.”
• Offsetting an introductory phrase: “Not prone to wander, her love remained locked up inside.” “Not prone to wander” is a statement used to further describe “her love,” and since it comes before the subject as an introduction of sorts, a comma is used to separate the two parts.
Most of us know what a comma is, and even though we’ll accidentally include one where it’s not required from time to time, a rogue comma will rarely throw off an entire piece. What does have that potential, however, is its misunderstood stepbrother, the semicolon.
If your toolbox has been sitting on a shelf in the garage for ages, you might go through it one day and pull out a strange-looking tool that is a complete mystery to you. Let’s call this tool the semicolon. Across the board, fewer writers know how to use the semicolon than any other element of punctuation in the English language. Thankfully, semicolons are not all that difficult to understand! They are primarily used to separate two related but independent statements not joined by a conjunction and can also be used in place of a comma for lists wherein the list items are more detailed or already contain commas. That’s quite a bit to take in, so let’s mull over a couple of examples:
“The light shone upon me; my heart was filled.”
In this first example, we have two statements that can stand alone. In poetry, we frequently use semicolons to draw more obvious connections between two independent thoughts. Thanks to the semicolon in this example, we know that the author’s heart was filled because the light shone upon him. Be careful to note that when you’re using a semicolon this way, the conjunction that would’ve been there is dropped (e.g., “The light shone upon me, and my heart was filled.”).
“I know not where my hot-blooded, adventurous heart will roam; when the beast inside will awaken, ravenous and crazed; whence its melodious, siren-song calls; but I do know, that I will never cease to pursue its every desire.”
This second example uses the semicolon to replace commas that would normally separate items in the list. Since the items in this list are more descriptive though, and because they already contain commas themselves, semicolons replace the item-separating commas to prevent confusion. Also note that when using a semicolon is this situation, the conjunction “but” is still necessary, so the semicolon doesn’t replace it.
The semicolon has other functions, too, but these two main uses are what you will come across most frequently. If you’re still having trouble trying to decide whether or not you should use a semicolon, just remember: except in complex lists, a semicolon is, more or less, exactly what it looks like—a fancy nail pinning together two related statements. Don’t forget to remove the conjunction before hammering it into place, and you’re all set!
A colon looks just as strange as its second cousin, the semicolon, but fear not—it is a bit easier to master. Colons are used to explain or illustrate the previous phrase. If you’re trying to say, “Here’s what I mean,” or “That is to say,” then the colon is the tool for you. Here is an example:
Threshing floors loose grains of rice,
Falling twixt my fingers twice,
In my head, Mother’s advice:
Work hard to earn your wage!
Undoubtedly, this author’s mother had more advice to give her child than simply, “Work hard,” but at least you can see how the colon is used correctly within poetry. As the author is working, he’s thinking about his mother’s advice, that is to say, “Work hard to earn your wage!” Pretty cool how that works, isn’t it?
Colons can also be used to denote the beginning of a list. Where Instagram and the world of micropoetry are concerned, lists aren’t going to be an incredibly common occurrence (since that would sort of contradict the micro aspect of the poem), but it’s still good to know that you have the option. Following is an example of poetry wherein the author uses a colon to start a list of items. Note that the items in the list can all be directly tied back to the statement preceding the colon: if you ever write a colon-formed list where this isn’t the case, then the colon has been misused.
The toils of this world are great,
But not so countless as the joys she’s made:
The salty kiss of ocean’s ebbing tide,
The midnight crow who cackles at passersby,
That longing hung upon your scarlet lips,
and back arching softly just at the hip.
As you can see, each item in the list, though a separate poetic thought, can be directly linked to the line before the colon, “But not so countless as the joys she’s made.” Each item in the list details a specific joy as experienced by the writer, so you can tell that the colon has been used correctly.
So now that you’ve stocked up on some of the tool-belt basics, let’s take a look at how you can go from being “some guy with a hammer and nails” to “a master craftsman with a plan.” After all, it’s not enough to simply own the tools: you have to pick them up and create something beautiful to be called a true master.
The second most important tool at our disposal is the simile. A simile is a comparison of one object to another by way of the words “like” and “as.” Similes allow us to take a common, mundane object and breathe new life into it by comparing it to another, more fascinating and vivid object.
Being the artistic observers that they are, poets commonly use similes in their writing to help paint specific pictures in the reader’s mind, or to create a means of comprehending more difficult subjects like violence and depression—issues that not everyone experiences or understands. Here is an example:
Looking to the glitt’ring sky
I felt my soul take flight,
Wings spread wide like black magpie
Take off toward starlight.
Adjectives like “glitt’ring” play their part in bringing life to your poetry, but similes are where the truest artistry takes place. By comparing the wings of his soul to those of the black magpie (a jet-black bird with a bright, white chest), the poet makes sure that every reader will have a clearer image of the poet’s soul in their mind, and with any luck, that image will more closely match the poet’s intent.
Here’s the catch: similes are so common in poetry, both ancient and modern, that overusing this tool or using it in the same way every time can leave your poetry feeling shallow and repetitive. We’ll touch on this more in the next chapter, but for now just understand that, as a budding poet, you will have to put a great deal of thought into your similes if you want them to be effective.
Metaphors are incredibly similar to similes (you might even say like similes), but where similes compare two objects, metaphors directly equate them by means of either the word “is” or “are.” Many young poets struggle with metaphors for a couple of reasons: one, it’s human nature to draw comparisons between similar things, so similes are kind of like our human default setting; and two, the sound of metaphorical statements can leave a line of poetry feeling archaic and unclear, especially if the two objects being equated are particularly abstract. Here’s an example to help clear up any confusion:
Capable of being filled,
Unable to sustain.
In the example, the author uses a metaphorical statement to directly equate war with a broken piece of pottery. To understand why metaphors can be difficult to use, only read the first line. The meaning of the metaphor isn’t very clear, is it? What you imagine when you think of “a broken vase” might be completely different than what the next reader imagines, so it’s important that both your metaphors and similes are well thought out. Because the author continues his poem by explaining the meaning behind his metaphor, his readers are on the same page, and the imagery is understood.
Fully equipped with a working understanding of similes and metaphors, you may be thinking, “Great, but I still only have a bunch of words on paper. How do I really make them pop when I don’t actually know the people who are reading them?” Good question! In the next section, you’ll explore how your poetry can use themes and images to pull in readers.
Now that we’ve rummaged through our toolboxes a little more and polished a couple of the tools we’ll never leave home without, you may be thinking, “Well what good is a hammer without nails? What use have I for a drill if I have no screws?” Where carpenters deal with nails and masons work with mortar, our essential fasteners as poets of the twenty-first century are images and themes. What’s the best part about these tools? You can bring them out more frequently with your essentials, or keep them in the toolbox until you’re ready to use them a bit more sporadically: the choice is yours.
That being said, you may consider the modern world of digital media and social networking as you write. The average attention span for most people is limited to somewhere between a measly two and twenty minutes, and especially where Instagram—a visually dominated platform—is concerned, if you can’t hook someone into your writing within the first couple lines, you’re probably not going to hook them at all. Thankfully, we artsy types have the tools to give us an edge.
Sometimes an actual image—a simple outline, a single flower petal, or even just a background image—is all you need to drive home the picture you’re painting with your poetry. If you’ve ever heard the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” then just imagine what can be done with a picture and a few carefully chosen words. As a poet, you have the good fortune of being able to take a single moment in time (e.g., a picture or part of a picture) and work it into an interpretation of your own choosing. You can take the picture of a rose, for example, and instead of talking about the love it represents or the pain caused by its thorns (so cliché and boring!), you can focus solely on its scarlet petals and create vivid imagery in the minds of your readers that way. Here is an example poem:
Dressed in scarlet thick as wool
Across her chest cascades,
Desire rising in me full,
Though confidence still fades.
The imagery crafted by your words becomes more clearly illustrated with your image of the rose, because it provides the same visual focus for every reader. Thanks to hashtags, you can also attract potential readers seeking both poetry and pretty flowers: #rose #poetsofinstagram.
As you strive for greatness, eventually you’re going to reach a point where you’re producing a lot of pieces of writing, and that’s when you can really make your work shine by focusing on different themes.
A theme is essentially a collection of works that all focus on the same general concept. Sticking with the rose image, you could draft a series of poems in which each focuses on a different part of the flower: one for its color, one for its scent, one for its nature, and one for how it’s spent. By creating a theme, you give your audience more unique insights into a certain subject; you challenge yourself to think outside the box, thereby continuing your growth as a poet; and you create more opportunities to increase your viewership. That makes three birds with one stone—not too shabby!
Cheesy gimmicks about toolboxes and birds aside, you will not succeed as a poet without a basic understanding of the concepts we have gone over in this chapter. And these facets are barely the tip of the iceberg! If you really want your poetry to flourish, you’ve got a bit more work to do, and thanks to You/Poet, you now have the tools to get started. The next chapter will explore the importance of word choice in your work.