Unpopular Opinion: To Write a Poetry Collection, You've Got to Read a Lot of Poetry Collections
What I've learned from reading collections cover-to-cover
If, like me, you’re working on putting together a poetry collection, you’re probably all mixed up about figuring out the themes and anxious that you’re being too repetitive.
Doing something new is never easy and there isn’t exactly a blueprint for getting your art into the world. Art is subjective for an audience, but deeply personal to the artist.
This gap between artist and perceiver creates space for imposter syndrome to creep in, grab you by the ankle and pull you into its murky depths.
But, the only way out is through and there are two options for a writer who feels stuck:
Write more
Read more
This article will focus on #2, specifically, reading more of what you’re trying to make, which, in this case, is a poetry collection/chapbook.
If you’re unsure about where to start your poetry reading journey, check out this post I made about how to find poetry you love.
Read more poetry
Time and again, the advice I receive from established writers is to read more.
Roger Robinson says you should read 80 poems for every 1 poem you write.
At a recent poetry retreat, Hollie McNish said, if ever she gets stuck she picks up a book until she feels inspired to write again.
Michael Pedersen said to read and read and read until you get so inspired you don’t even finish the poem before your pen hits the paper.
It’s also worth mentioning, you should be reading more of the thing you’re trying to create. If you want to write a sonnet then read more sonnets, if you want to write eco poetry, read more eco poetry, etc, etc.
Read more poetry collections
As someone who is trying to write a poetry collection I have been reading more poetry collections cover-to-cover. Normally, I just dip into collections and select which poems I read based on title, length, or shape on the page.
There is a different type of dedication needed to read a full collection of poems in the order they are printed.
Most of our early experiences reading poetry are in school anthologies where we get a selection of a poet’s oeuvre and not the full collection.
It’s important to graduate from this kind of reading so that you can get a feel for the shape of a collection and interact with how poets deal with overarching themes, language and form. Also, make it easy on yourself and find something you enjoy reading.
Poetry is difficult. And whilst it is possible to read a collection cover-to-cover in 1–2 hours, it doesn’t mean you should.
Good poetry provides a very intense shot of emotions in as few words as possible. Good poetry needs room to breathe and will often need multiple readings. So, go easy on yourself and give yourself breaks.
What I’ve learned from reading collections
As I said earlier, I’m scared of recycling the same themes and images in my poetry, scared that the repetition will make the collection feel boring and uninspired.
However, what I’ve found in reading collections cover-to-cover, is that those repeating themes and images add depth and context to the poems.
In Kith, by Jo Bell, birdsong reverberates throughout the collection. Both Eve naming the birds and Birdsong at the Rec engage with naming birds at the surface level, but underneath deal with the speaker’s relationship to others and her place in the world.
The former poem gives a sense of unease. The speaker calls herself ‘Enemy’ to both the natural world and the personal relationship that exists in the poem. In the latter poem, the speaker is alone but for the birdsong. Here she confides her lack of ability to identify the birds, but, with her poet’s imagination, shows just how deeply connected she is with their songs.
Whilst these poems stem from a similar concept, the difference in tone and language add to the narrative arc of the collection and provide different perspectives with a different voice.
As poets we get obsessed with certain themes. I’m utterly obsessed with the ocean and will never not be able to write about it. The point is to use images of the sea and all its treasures to explore different concepts and emotions.
Good poems work on many levels and it’s in showing the complexities of human emotion that makes the poem interesting.
In her book, Swims, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett writes about swimming in different rivers throughout the UK. But the collection is about much more than that. We end up travelling to Fukushima, as well as exploring grief from the loss of a family member and the grief of experiencing environmental decline.
At no point in either of these collections do I get bored of the repeating themes and imagery. It’s time to put that fear to rest.
What poets say about creating a collection
At a Q&A event I attended with Jason Allen-Paisant for the launch of Self-Portrait as Othello, JAP admitted that he started writing his multiple award winning book before his first collection, Thinking with Trees.
He shared that Self-Portrait as Othello needed to ruminate for longer and for the themes to emerge over time. Thinking with Trees, on the other hand, came more urgently.
He wrote a blog about his excellent system for writing, which you can read on the Poetry School website.
I think the reason I’m so hung up on repeating themes is because I have an idea for a book about something very specific. However, the poems haven’t quite arrived yet. But, I do have a lot of poems and they deserve a place to be showcased.
Jane Commane, in her book How to be a Poet writes:
“All the best collections have something that will be on a spectrum somewhere between a subtle or a very strong or more formal thematic basis.”
She then goes onto say:
“I’m keen that fledgling poets do not develop an anxiety… that it MUST be heavily, obviously or very formally-themed as if it is a project.”
In practical terms, the poet Michael Pedersen says that he writes many, many poems over years and then looks at them as whole, picking out which ones work together in a collection.
This is what Commane means. The poems should naturally draw together like magnets. We write to make sense of the world, so particular themes and imagery will emerge organically in our writing in a way that only our voice can achieve. Reading collections as a whole has taught me to trust this process.
I also got some advice from Pedersen to self-publish your first chapbook. In doing this, you can make a lot of mistakes. Mistakes = Lessons.
You will also get to understand the process of editing, publishing and selling outside of the influence of a publisher who might have different ideas for your book. That means, when you work with a publisher in the future, you can draw on evidence to stand your ground and back your work, if need be.
Finally
It’s hard work reading poetry collections front to back but oh so rewarding.
Maybe I’m late to the party and everyone is already doing it. But, I suspect this isn’t the case and I hope this article will give you a little push to give it a go.
Note, that I’m reading to learn and I’ll probably go back to dipping in and out of collections once I’ve got my chapbook together. I’m not trying to shame you into reading books cover-to-cover but rather give you some gentle encouragement.
For now, my TBR pile is mounting high, so I’m off to carry on working my way through…
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Originally published at theorangeverse.com on July 10, 2024.