10 SECRETS OF GOOD POETRY

Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that there are ten secrets to good poetry. That person is more likely to be a salesperson than a poet. There are in fact eleven.

Good poems resist time
Language is a fluid
Your idealised inner poetic space may be quite irrelevant in the end
Even free verse is a form
Speech and punctuation and grammar imply rhythm
Randomness creates rhythm and harmony
Irony is not always funny
Remain auto-conscious
Poetics
Community
One word is enough to summarise an entire generation

St Kilda Writers Festival, Saturday February 5 2005

3 Comments

  1. this isn’t meant to be provocative – would you consider expanding on these points? I’d be well interested. Trying to get back into poetry writing, and this would be a help, i think.

    adam

  2. Hey Adam,

    no problems – I’ll try to elaborate on each secret in turn over the coming days – please feel free to add to the discussion (that goes for everyone, obviously, except the person who keyed in “discussion on private sex orgies in sydney” to get here).

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