This is Not a Poem

A man sits reading

Drinking coffee in the sun

I watched you while I drank my coffee

And read a book

I was happy to be by another reader.

Holy shit, that was hard to write. I couldn’t do it. But the point is, this isn’t a poem… But I do see stuff like this posted on IG.. Instagram Poems. Oof. I

This is an observation, and not even a good one, broken into lines. That does not make it a poem. Poems have elevated language, imagery, metaphor… They take us somewhere, show us something by planting the image in our mind to let our imagination to expand on it, to hold it in our memory for awhile, to move us.

But, I do love that people are writing and putting pen to paper. I also really like making observations, that is where creativity comes from—looking at the world and noticing small things, big things, the mundane, the spectacular (but from a different point of view that everyone else sees).

Make your observations, write them down in journal, come back to them when you need an image to become a metaphor.

Oh, and read. Read, read, read poetry. Take the time to unpack images, to look at lines, to listen to the sounds, and then imitate those techniques… Practice writing, it’s a craft, put pen to paper.

And with that, I’ve been slacking horribly in writing… I better go grab a pen and journal and see if I can rattle something out of my head.