 Can you tell me where your poem takes place? Can you state, without hesitation, the specific location where your poem is happening? Even more importantly, can I feel, taste, smell, hear, and see that place in your poem? If not, you may have a problem. Good poems make copious use of setting. Like a stage play, an effective poem uses setting to power up its impact. For example, Gwendolyn Brooks conspicuously identifies her setting with a poetic asterisk in, "We Real Cool." Poe lets you know right off in "The Raven" that you're in a scholar's chamber. Similarly, even a tiny poem like Pound's "In a Station at the Metro" uses setting as its foundational point. "Sea Surface Full of Clouds" by Wallace Stevens imagines the same setting over and over as varying oceanic visions, while Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" subsists entirely on an imagined fragment of an imagined land. The reason that setting is so important is because it helps the reader fall into your poem. One of your jobs as a poet is to surround the reader with poetry, to fully engage their senses and emotions so that the poem, itself, becomes a living reality. Some settings seem to intrinsically create moods. For example, if you wanted to write an ecological poem, you might choose a nature setting. On the other hand, it might be even more effective to set your ecological poem in the heart of a city, or a survival bunker deep in the earth. Another reason I mention setting is because it's an area where you have so much room to create and experiment. Also, when you're drawn to places, or have persistent memories of places, this can be a rich source of poetry. As usual, I have a few basic pointers on this topic:
I'll talk more about this topic in a future blog post. Meanwhile, daydream about places and let those dreams inspire your poems. I think you'll like the results. If you'd like some feedback for your poetry or a bit of help polishing your words, just click one of the buttons below. Or email @ [email protected] Categories All
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