By Phillip Ziegler For beginners by another beginner whose wife is a terrific poet and valuable advisor. Offered with humility and in the hope of stimulating you to think about these things. I am certainly not the last word.
Revision Writing bad poetry is very easy.
Writing good poetry is exceedingly difficult and, in the beginning, impossible unless you are some rare genius. There are two or three 'great' poets every century. So assuming we are not among that splendid crowd, the good news is that we can write what moves us and work at getting better and forget about being great or terrible. But I personally think we should be striving to improve our craft, our skills in using the tools of poetry to communicate ideas, emotions, and to bring the muse into the world. If we take on the challenge, if we hope to write worthy poetry and not just say stuff in short lines, we need to read a lot of poetry, from all periods, not just what is in vogue today.