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

Using the Triolet

What on earth is a triolet? Sounds a bit French yeah? Well, it is.... a bit French. But it's also a bit of other countries too, because although the poetry form originated in France, it has evolved and has been adapted so many times it's now positively cosmopolitan. 

A triolet is almost always a poem of eight lines - an octave if you will - but it can be seven or nine lines too. Take your pick. The distinctive feature of the triolet though, is its repetition of lines. Three in fact, hence the moniker.  I won't go into all the crappy details and boring technicalities of the triolet. Instead, I will give you an example from my own portfolio of poetry: Here's one of my triolets called Angels without Wings:

There in the depths of the eternal soul
There is a wondering beyond finite things
We ponder in our hearts a God-shaped hole
There in the depths of the eternal soul
We deeply yearn for something to console
And thus we fall as angels without wings
There in the depths of the eternal soul
There is a wondering beyond finite things

Steve Wheeler © 25 June, 2022

You can see that the first and second line are repeated in lines seven and eight. But the first line is also repeated before that, in line four. Lines 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 have end rhymes, while 2, 6 and 8 also rhyme. And that's about it, apart from the rhythm of the lines, which can be in iambic pentameter (10 syllables) or just about any other iamb combination. 

So go forth and multiply - write your own triolet and share it here. I will be sure to comment on it.

Steve Wheeler

Image from Pixabay via a Creative Commons Licence

Line evolution

Often I'm asked how I write my poetry. The source of my inspiration is an easy one to answer. How I construct my lines and infuse my poetry with tempo is a harder question to answer. I sometimes have to stop and think about that one, because writing poetry is like riding a bicycle or swimming. Once you've developed your skills, you don't really have to think about them too much - they become competencies that are fairly unconscious. 

But, just for the sake of analysis, here is a response about how I develop a line (or in most cases a phrase or an idea) into a stanza with a pleasing tempo. NB: Because I edit a lot, I use either a laptop, or more likely my smartphone to compose my poetry. It provides the provisionality that I need to do this.

Let's start with a simple line...

A river flows toward the sea

It's fairly bland, yeah? It's something you might say in a conversation. Let's add some adjectives to it. And let's change the definite article from 'A' to 'The'.

The silver river flows toward the stormy sea

Now it's a little more poetic. Let's evolve it further by enriching the adjectives and adding some personification...

The argent river flows toward
the mouth of a contentious sea

OK. Now it's transformed into two lines.  Argent means silver. 'Contentious' is not something people would normally use as an adjective to describe the sea, but it conjures up some imagery for me, so I will use it! I can add more description, further adjectives, maybe enrich the nouns.... and also include a metaphor!

The argent river dances its relentless flow
to kiss the angry maw of a contentious sea

Now it's a little close to becoming a little pretentious, but let's pursue this for the sake of poetry! At this point I can decide whether I want to add some more lines with or without a rhyme scheme... I'm changing the tense from present to past at this point too for effect. 

The argent river danced its cold relentless flow

to kiss the angry maw of a contentious sea

I sat on the river bank and watched...

I need to complete this poem now, splitting up the lines to improve the flow to 6 syllables for each line. The technical term for this is 'accentual syllabic iambic trimeter'. Fancy name,  but it doesn't matter what it's called as long as the poem sounds good and flows well. I'll add another metaphor, enrich it with an adjective and extend the clause with a simile to finish.

The argent river danced 
its cold relentless flow 
to kiss the angry maw
of a contentious sea 
I sat alone upon 
the jealous verdant banks
and watched the silent flow
mute as the fallow swan 

And there it is. A few minutes of writing and thinking and I have an Octave which has some narrative, some assonance and casual rhyming, and plenty of flow (pun intended). I hope that helps, but I write in a different style to you and it may not resonate with you. This post is just to offer some insight into my own writing process.  Each of us can develop their own process for writing poetry.

Steve Wheeler

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Be generous

Warning. The following article might be tough reading or controversial and may offend some. If you wish to come back at me on any of what follows, please do so, but please do so in a polite and civil manner. I'm more likely to respond to you if you do. If you fall out with me because of this, that will be unfortunate and it won't be what I intend, but that's life.

Here's my observation: Most poets prefer to read their own poetry to that of others. Many are inward-looking and can be self-centred. I know, because in the past I behaved like this myself. That was ... until I discovered an important truth. But I will elaborate on that a little later.

I have seen plenty of evidence of selfish behaviour on the Facebook groups I have managed in the past two years. Poets are generally very willing to post their own work, but pay scant attention to the work of others. They enjoy gaining feedback, but are less willing to make the effort to read and comment on other poets' work. There are some that never ever comment on the poetry of others. This means that many poets are ignored, failing to attract any comments or likes. They become discouraged and despondent. Because all poets also crave attention. It's a vicious and ironic circle. The very self-centredness of poets ends up isolating them from their own communities. 

Let me tell you how the Facebook group algorithm works: The more active a poet is in reading, reacting and commenting on the work of other poets in a group, the more their posts become visible on the timelines of those others. The obverse is also true. If all you do is post, post, post, and pay no attention to the work of others, then you are likely to become isolated and ignored, because, literally, no-one will be able to see your work. On Facebook poetry groups, it's all about the connection.

Here's the important truth: A great benefit of reading the work of other poets is that you gain better insight into diverse themes, styles, genres, techniques, rhyme schemes, formats and alternative approaches. It's a fact that ever since I began to read the work of other poets avidly, I have learnt an incredible amount about how to improve my own work, and I have discovered a treasure trove of different formats and approaches to writing poetry. 

And I'm still learning! I don't go a day now without reading at least 40-50 poems from other writers. It gives me inspiration too. Sometimes a line or a phrase will set my thoughts running, and before I know it, I have written a poem that I would never have even thought of, it I hadn't read that particular piece by another poet. 

So please... when you next venture into one of your Facebook poetry groups, don't just do so to post your own work. Be generous. Do take some time to read, react and comment on the work of others in your group. Give freely of your time and efforts. Others will appreciate the time and care you take giving your feedback. It is sure to pay off for you in the long term. And it will mean that you truly become an active member of the community.

Steve Wheeler

Image from Pixabay used under a Creative Commons Licence