Three Steps for Beginning a Poem

Morning is an important time of day for many reasons, not least of which is that it’s where we tend to begin.

At the start of a new day, we take stock of what happened yesterday, what is happening now, and what may happen in the near future.

All of this typically occurs as we lie in bed, searching for the will to rise, or over a blessedly caffeinated cup of coffee.

Starting a poem is similar to waking up in the morning: sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it’s not.

In either case, starting a poem kindles a battle in the heart and in the mind, a battle against time, as well as a battle to find inspiration.

As a result, when I am trying to rouse myself in the morning, or to begin a new project, I find it helpful to physically move. This usually takes the form of a walk.

One way or another, I am actively clearing my head, as well as experiencing a fresh change of scene.

In the same way, starting your poem requires you to take active, intentional steps in your writing.

The irony of all this is that not much can really be said about “how” to begin a poem, because it is truly a matter of individual preference and experience.

This all comes with developing a writing lifestyle that suits your particular blend of creativity.

As I have mentioned in previous articles, this is all part of the everyday journey. Here I offer a few steps to consider as you start to write.

Setting: A Simple Start

As you probably can imagine, there are many different ways you can start a poem. Let’s start with where you plan to sit. Or stand, if that’s your preference. 

Setting is an important initial step, for both the writer and the poem being written. The writer must create a place, whether fictional or real, that both writer and reader alike can connect to.

To do that, you need to choose a location or an experience.

For the writer: You may want to sit outside if you are planning to write something about nature.

If it’s too cold or wet out, consider sitting near a window. If you are writing something about community, write in the kitchen, or at a coffee shop where you can witness the bustle of people in fellowship with one another.

This may be counter-intuitive for the majority of introverted writers (myself included), and perhaps too distracting for one’s tastes, but the fact remains that we as writers live in a world where we make use of our surroundings in imaginative ways.

City streets can be as inspiring as quiet mountain valleys, allowing you to take in the mixture of chaotic and peaceful life humming around you.

When it comes to establishing place, as a first step, it is important to ask yourself where the speaker in your poem is, at the very beginning.

But just as there is no “one size fits all” environment for the poet, there is no “one size fits all” setting for the poem. It all depends on what is inspiring you during the moment in question.

Setting, a creation or change of scene, is the essence of a new beginning, which is why it is the simplest place to begin.

For instance, Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” begins with snatches of description of Ulysses’ Mediterranean home:

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags…

Immediately, the reader gets the sense that one is sitting in a home, by a fire, and listening to a somewhat more personal (yet hospitably presented) reflection.

A life story in context. The figure here is a king (a word clearly associated with wealth and power), but a king housed in a “barren” land, and wrestling with a feeling of purposelessness.

Setting can create warm intimacy or cold distance, depending on the general impact you are aiming to have on your readers.

Tennyson begins his poem about this mythical warrior Ulysses with a very mixed vibe, underscoring Ulysses’ complex “twists and turns” as a larger-than-life character. Your setting could be a brief phrase, or a long, involved stanza.

Either way, you are establishing your own frame of reference as a launching point. Either way, it is an easy place to begin.

Images: An Emotional Exercise

Next, let’s talk about our feelings. At risk of sounding overly introspective, we often diagnose how we are feeling.

In a similar way to choosing a setting, the poet here can get a lot out of simply looking around, as well as looking within.

It is useful to think about how a particular setting may or may not be emotionally appealing, in objective terms. But what emotional associations do you have with your settings, what memories or mental pictures do they bring out?

Perhaps a rainy Tuesday morning is the perfect vessel for a reflection on inner peace or, by way of contrast, inner turmoil.

The setting is the surface; meanwhile, the spirit of the poem comes to life when you find these mental and emotional connections between objects, people, and places.

Returning to Tennyson’s “Ulysses” for a moment:

…I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea…

As you read through this section of the poem, notice how the speaker’s surroundings conjure up memories and associations, people he loves and cares for, regrets he keeps hidden, and the determination he clings to.

Life is considered a “drink” to be enjoyed, yet the speaker finds no joy in “meting and doling unequal laws.”

Using time, Tennyson causes his speaker to look back on the memories and experiences that have formed the speaker into the man he is in the present. 

“Life as a drink” is a motif and mood that pervades the entire poem and unites it into a coherent whole.

The beginning of a poem is certainly just a beginning. But that doesn’t mean that in forming it, you ought to neglect the bigger picture.

Thinking of these mental associations and connections as they relate to the poem’s setting, how the setting affects the speaker, is important as a next step in figuring out how to develop the poem beyond a simple starting point.

It may help you to list these mental images in bullet-point format, just to get your ideas out there before you integrate them into the structure of your poem.

Voice: Finishing What You Started

At this point, you may not know what your poem is going to end up looking like, as you take these initial steps. And that is completely okay.

That shouldn’t stop you, however, from considering what your resulting tone is going to sound like.

For any writer, one of the greatest challenges is establishing voice. Everyone has a unique voice that nevertheless alludes to others’ voices.

As you experiment, you should be constantly turning to other poets to see what they did and learn why they did it.

As one biblical poet put it: “There is nothing new under the sun.”

The point here, however, is to find a good intersection between mood and tone that best fits the setting and images you’ve chosen to include.

It’s admittedly difficult to find an concrete example of voice, because you can find one in every poem that’s out there.

If there’s no voice, there’s no poem. Voice may change over the course of the poem, up until the point you write the last word.

What’s important is that you are paying due attention to how these components play off each other: Setting, Imagery, and Voice.

It’s as if your poem is a painting, and you’re taking a step back to examine the picture forming amidst all the brush strokes.

Conclusion

The reality, though, is that I could write whole articles on just setting, imagery, or voice alone.

Here, however, I want to emphasize that all these “parts” intersect and interact to create a way forward for your poem—a direction, in geographical terms.

We all have different ways of navigating our personal writing styles and figuring out how our minds enjoy fitting words together.

When it comes to introducing personality into your poetry (effectively “mapping out” originality), you are ironically required to step outside your own frame of reference.

This is, in essence, what Tennyson does in “Ulysses.” 

A lot of the themes are of course reflections of ideas from another time and place, yet the fact that the character of Ulysses is someone we universally recognize or have some curiosity about, the ideas themselves become universal. 

Toward the end of the poem, as Ulysses is looking back on his whole life, and anticipating the cosmic journey beyond, Tennyson writes:

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.

Poetry as an art form concerns itself primarily with the individual’s perception of reality.

Poetry is sensory and emotional; likewise, poets are emotional people who generally place a lot of value in how they experience or encounter their reality.

The fact that poetry is inherently an individual’s art is not in question.

The question is what you do when the words you write take on a life of their own.

As you go forward from your beginning, to effectively finish what you have started, it is important to keep these initial steps in mind and go back to them, not only to make sure you are on the right track, but that your reader is tracking with you.

- Graham Jackson

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