Are you being taken seriously?

This is an opinion piece, and I anticipate a bit of flak from some people, but I write this post from a position as an editor, publisher and owner/founder of four successful online poetry groups. And do bear in mind, this piece has been written to try to help poets improve their chances of being noticed and possibly even published in due course. 

Please comment in the box below if you want dialogue on this subject. I'm very happy to reply to serious questions and comments. 

How can you be taken seriously as a poet? Firstly there will be some who might reply that they don't really care whether they are taken seriously or not. But I suspect that most people who write poetry want their work to be taken seriously. At the minimum, most poets would rather not be ignored. And yet that is exactly what I see happening in my online poetry groups. Poeple post poetry that is ignored by most. Or it is poetry that fails to get accepted for anthologies or other publications. 

Pen Names. Firstly, writing under your own name, or at least a pen-name that is not ridiculous is an absolute requirement. How you represent yourself is very important, Those who use contrived pen-names, or noms de plume that are jokey do not generally have their work taken seriously. At Wheelsong Books our editors tend to ignore those who we can't take seriously, and the first impression - the name of the poet - is important in setting the atmosphere for any review. 

Emojis. Secondly, the use of emojis and other embellishment in a poem is often a turn-off to a reviewer or reader. The question must be asked: why does the poet use lots of smileys, hearts, and other emoticons in their work? Is it because they lack any confidence in their own writing? It is certainly a distracting feature, and as an editor/reviewer I tend to ignore poems with an overload of emojis. 

Upper case lettering. Thirdly, poetry that is presented totally in upper case lettering seems amateurish. In old money, upper case lettering was considered shouting in text and social media cultures. In poetry, the overuse of upper case lettering makes it appear as though the writer is desperate to be noticed, and again, they lack confidence that their writing alone will keep the attention.

Be original. Fourthly, if you wish to be taken seriously as a poet, make sure your work is original. There is nothing worse in poetry than reading old, jaded phrases that others have used before. The forced rhyme or the predictable line is a clear indication that the poet is struggling to express themselves and maybe has lost their way.

AI Generated poetry. Finally, as an addendum to the last point, you won't be taken seriously (and may even be sanctioned) if you persist in submitting or posting poetry that has been generated by artificial intelligence. You would be surprised by how many posts each day we reject from our online poetry groups. You might also be horrified at the number of people we ban from the group if they persist in this practice. It's dishonest and might even be breaking copyright laws.

So there you have it. Five key points to remember if you wish to be taken seriously as a poet. I believe most of these apply to online poetry groups worldwide, and definitely apply in the publishing world.

Steve Wheeler 

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

How to get your poetry published

With two new anthologies about to be published by Wheelsong Books, I'm sure there will be many in the groups who would like to know how best to get their poems selected. Will your poems be chosen for publication by the panel? Well, it all depends if your poetry is good or bad poetry. If there is such a thing as bad poetry (and many would argue there is! Boring has something to do with it) then there must be characteristics that make it so bad. In this briefing, I want to show you some reasons why in the past, some poems have failed to be selected for publication in the Wheelsong Poetry Anthologies. 

Firstly, to get into an anthology, your poetry should not be lengthy. It should be comparatively brief, normally no longer than one page of text. The publisher is constrained by page count. The more pages a book contains, the more expensive it is to publish. Wheelsong Anthologies are generally between 240-300 pages in length. We like to keep the costs down so everyone can afford to buy a copy. 

Tip 1: Submit brief poems that are no more than 50 lines at the very most. Shorter poems will be favoured over longer ones. 

Most poets don't tend to read poems by other writers. This is a sure-fire way to get stuck in a rut and to keep on churning out the same old same old. If they do read other poets' work, they tend to read old, dead poets rather than living, contemporary poets. This encourages them to become obsessed with archaic language, especially thee, thou, hast and any other kind of bygone vocabulary. And when they get this wrong, oh boy, do the get it wrong! It's embarrassing, and it causes me to move on without reading. Also, if you're wanting to excel in the spoken word kind of poetry, then you'll need to write in contemporary language that your audience will easily recognise and identify with.

Tip 2: Read widely, not just the dead poets, but the living ones as well! Try to pick up ideas from the many and varied ways poets of today construct their poetry. It will be an eye opener, and I guarantee you will never regret it. Best thing you can do is buy a copy (or more) of a Wheelsong Poetry Anthology, and check out the quality, themes and format of the poems that were selected.

Next, here are a few things you should definitely avoid:

Boring poetry uses sing-songy rhythm and forced (gratuitous) rhyme. Forced syntax doesn't do any favours for your reputation. Losing your reader because your rhymes don't make any sense - or worse - because they become completely predictable - is a great way to destroy your credibility. I recently made a comment about gratuitous rhymes. I was surprised when people took up the erroneous idea that I had said rhyming was bad. I didn't say that. I said that bad rhyming is bad. There's a difference. But people hear what they want to hear I guess...

Tip 3: If you can, write poetry that is free-form, and avoid rhyming if you feel it is constraining your creativity. If you are determined to stick to fixed form poetry with strict rhyming schemes, then experiment with rhyming that is unpredictable. I recently rhymed "Avoid them" with "I Siegfried and Royed 'em". I rhymed the entire phrase rather than just the end word. Experiment. You have nothing to lose. 

Tip 4: Rhyme schemes can be as varied as you like. You can stick to the boring ABAB or AABB quatrain n schemes if you wish (good luck with that), or stretch yourself with ABCABC or ABACBCBA or even ABCABDABEDBCAEB - if it was good enough for Dylan Thomas, then you should be just fine.

Bad poetry is full of cliches, phrases that are so hackneyed the poem becomes laughable. Avoid the use of flat, uninteresting phrases like 'You broke my heart' - a simile would be more interesting: 'I am shattered like pottery on the hard surface of your indifference' seems more poetically astute. 

Worse still is the use of cliched end rhymes. How often have you seen life/strife, or world/unfurled or love/above? 

Tip 5: Be inventive with your language. You needn't address your topic head on. You can approach it obliquely, and keep your reader intrigued. Again, what have you got to lose?

Avoid preachy poems - 'do this or else' type writing. Also, avoid poetry that is self centred, and harps on about how badly treated you have been.  The best poetry takes the mundane and every day, and transforms it into something magical. 

Finally - is there a name for bad poetry? Yep. It's known as doggerel. 

How are you going to avoid doggerel? Firstly, make sure your poetry creates emotional energy. Secondly, make your poetry unusual, interesting, intriguing, exciting etc. using whatever devices or techniques are at your disposal. Thirdly, create something that no-one else has ever created before - a new rhyme scheme, a new way of expressing the mundane, a new turn of phrase. Experiment and be different! Stand out from the crowd, and you're sure to be published! 

Steve Wheeler