Poetry: Art vs. Craft
There are two halves of poetry, both equally important: art and craft. The art involves the emotion conveyed in a poem, while the craft refers to the structure. This isn’t a post about how to successfully do either, but to get writers to think about the importance of each and consider whether your writing contains both. While this post is about poetry, I believe it has an importance in other writing as well.
A lot of people tend to have a dominant side whether that side is creative or logical. I’m split down the middle. Creativity and logic are two dominant and sometimes contradicting aspects of my personality.
When writing, I’m guided by my intuition, which developed through years of reading. It’s a good system that allows me to naturally follow writing rules before I realize there are rules that I should be following. But the focus is on the emotion and story that I’m trying to convey and I allow the art of the piece free reign. Regardless of how good I think my writing intuition is however, it’s no replacement for knowledge of the rules. I’m happy if I write well by accident, but I’d prefer it if I did it purposefully. That way I know I can repeat it.
The editing phase allows the logical side to take over, where I focus on the craft and the rules of writing to rework my pieces. It gives me the opportunity to shape the story into the way I originally envisioned it and catch the many areas where I know the rules and yet I missed them in the first, second, or twelfth draft.
At a poetry workshop I attended last month, the speaker of the event, poet Art Elser, spoke about line and stanza breaks. During this discussion, I thought about how I break my lines and stanzas in poems. And when I really dug into it, I realized there are reasons for my breaks, but I didn’t know what the reasons were off the top of my head. It’s something I do intuitively. I usually insert line breaks where I find myself naturally pausing when I read them and stanza breaks come to separate ideas in the poem. There are some other reasons as well, and some poems the breaks are more purposeful than others.
In a series of poems written by several different poets that Elser shared at the workshop, I was able to see and consider how the line lengths and stanza breaks created movement through the poem and provided a little bit of a subliminal influence on the experience of reading the poem. The shorter the lines, the quicker the reader is pulled through the poem. It influences how quickly the piece is consumed. And there was a tendency for poems with shorter lines to be about a lighter subject matter. Some even humorous.
By contrast, the poems with long lines contained heavy subject matter such as death or an experience with illness. This was useful to me as I thought of two poems in particular where my intuition was to keep the lines long in more of a prose format, but I went against that and cut them shorter. With this knowledge, I can go back and edit them in a purposeful way and know why I was drawn to keep the lines longer and feel more confident in formatting the poems that way.
While there are many types of poetry forms that dictate line and stanza breaks, I’ve always been drawn to free verse. I prefer the flexibility it allows. It also will allow me to experiment with line and stanza breaks now that I have a few ideas from this workshop to guide me. I plan to take a look at some poems I’ve written and examine where I put breaks in the piece and see if I can determine why, and then take the piece and reshape it. Make the lines longer or shorter as the feel of the poem dictates and perhaps change the stanza breaks. Find what is most appealing visually by adding or removing white spaces in the piece.
I like the balance of craft and logic to art and creativity. It creates a beautiful harmony. In fiction writing, I’m constantly learning and sharing knowledge about the craft of writing. I have years of experience under my belt now. The craft of poetry is something I’m just starting to get into, so it’s still more elusive. Perhaps I have a little more skill at poetry than I’m willing to give myself credit, and I may share some of the information I feel more confident about in a later post. But it’s an ongoing journey just as fiction writing is, and I really enjoy the opportunity to learn and grow by being more thoughtful and purposeful through examining parts of poetry such as line and stanza breaks.
Are you more creative or logical, and does your writing on first draft fall heavy on the art or craft end of the spectrum?
I tend to be a bit of an overthinker when I’m writing. If I come up with a cool idea for a character/situation, I think, “Ooo! That’s cool, but how does/would that work?”
I know what you mean. I have created some rules that I set for myself when writing. I try to do my research before I start writing a novel. Then, if there’s something that I realize I need to research while I’m writing, if it’s something that is quick I’ll look into it, but if I realize it’s going to take more than a few minutes to answer, I make a note to research it during the editing phase.
I also have a strict rule about not editing while I’m writing. Small typos, I’ll edit, but I know myself too well, and I can get consumed in both research and editing and not get any writing done.
I try to give my creativity as much room and as few restrictions as I can during the drafting stage. It works out the best for me. It’s not a complete separation of the two sides, but there’s a distinct one that rules the different phases of the writing process.
I am glad that our discussion of how various poets used their line and stanza breaks to create mood, pace, and movement through a poem was useful to you. Like you, I learned these things by lots of reading of poems with the idea of “how did she do that?” Intuition is powerful, but it also needs some help learning new “rules” to improve our craft. Thanks for this post. Art
For a long time, poetry seemed like an exclusive club. Something that I could admire, but not participate in. A member of my writing group, Sheryl Lain, opened up the world of poetry to our group. We all find ourselves writing and sharing poems now. The art has really guided me in my poems up until this point with the craft trying to wiggle its way in but still feeling elusive, and I feel that your talk opened up the craft side for me.
I think as writers, there’s this beautiful thing that happens where we hear the right advice at the right time.
Thank you for stopping by and commenting, and thank you for the wonderful workshop.
To be honest, Mandie, I just write, but I appreciate this post.
Honestly, that’s the best place to start. What you’re writing and who you’re writing for will help determine how you’ll want to develop your writing. The very act of writing is a great way to learn about writing though. It’s kind of like on the job training.
What’s your opinion on punctuation in poetry? I’ve seen it with and without. Usually I break my lines to communicate the cadence and flow. But I recently did very poorly in a contest and the judge’s feedback indicated that he/she needed more punctuation to clearly communicate the message.
My personal preference is to use punctuation. But, you’re right, there are those who use it and those who don’t. I’ve heard that the correct way to approach punctuation in poetry is, if you don’t want to use punctuation, then don’t use it at all. Not even periods. But if you want to use it, use it correctly and throughout. This includes commas. That’s the guideline I try to follow.
When I started out writing poetry I didn’t use punctuation at all, line breaks work in similar way… but I find that working with both actually add a layer to the poem that line breaks cannot communicate. I especially like the more obscure punctuation marks like the em-dash and ellipsis.
I’m glad you added this to the conversation Björn, because when I was typing my response yesterday I was thinking about how punctuation can add to poem and is sometimes used in a visual way as well. I opted to leave it out only because the original bit is a good place to start with punctuation.
I like how De Jackson over at Whimsygizmo uses punctuation. It almost has a life of its own. And I watch the way you use punctuation as well. I like that yours often has a softer, composed, and subliminal effect. It is interesting to see how something like punctuation can change a poem, and how differently and effectively poets can use it in different ways.
I liked your thoughts, even though I prefer to see it as form vs content. Sometimes the form helps me create the poem… for instance finding a clever rhyme might guide me to move into a certain content. A while ago I was so used to write in iambs I was constantly seeking the advice of the thesaurus. for words that better fitted the rhythm I wanted to have (even when writing prose)…. I think I go back and forth between craft and art, sometimes letting one take the lead sometimes the other… That’s why I cannot write with a pen, because I go back and forth across the page in a way you can only do on a computer.
I can see interchanging the art category with content. My poetry is laced with emotion, so it’s easy to identify that part as the art, but it encompasses the content as well. You have a broader spectrum of the type of poetry you write, so your description works well for me. Art Elser commented after you wrote this and talks about how the difference between art and craft or form and content is easier to separate for purposes of discussion but is more blurred in practice. I think that’s true, but with poetry I know I have more intent behind the art/content part and while I have some purpose behind the form/craft, it is not as thoughtful in my current practice. Or, at the very least, not as confident.
I find it interesting the way you and Art Elser discuss what works better for you in writing poetry as far as pen and paper goes too.
Two points: First, even though for the workshop I separated art and craft (Bjorn’s form and content) the line between them is very blurred for me. It is easier to separate them when discussing them and trying to make generalizations about writing process. Second, I find that writing in a journal with a pen is very conducive to a better process. My process starts with writing in the journal or thinking about a topic as I’m doing something else. I write in my journal, starting in prose, and then, when the time feels right, write out a double spaced first draft. The connection between brain and hand moving the pen across the page is better for me than ten fingers typing on a keyboard. I cross out, revise, until the page gets too messy and then copy out the revised poem. Same process with the ability to look back at where I started to see if I’ve gotten off track, have left something out, or have an entirely different poem that I like better. Then at some point I do reach that point where the computer is better for revision, and I type out what I have in the journal and continue revising.
I think you’re right about the blurring between art/content and craft/form. I appreciated the discussion separating them though, because I have been moving toward being more purposeful on the craft end and thinking about how I edit a piece. This workshop really snapped into focus what I was meandering toward.
I fall in between you and Björn somewhere on what I prefer for writing poetry. I write poetry in journals more than any other type of writing. Probably because it’s easier to get down an entire poem in a journal where only excerpts of novels make it in there, never the whole thing. But even when I find that I write poetry every day, it is something that comes to me and has to be written down immediately. This results in the ease of finding a notebook winning over turning on the computer. I also find that I write a lot of poems on a note-taking app on my phone, because sometimes that is the closest thing. As far as editing, that takes place either in the notebook or on the computer, never in the phone app. It’s hard enough to get the poem down in that thing to begin with without the hassle of trying to edit it there. It’s great for getting the words down, not so much for line breaks or serious editing.
I love learning about other writers’ processes, so thank you for adding this to the discussion.
If you want to see some poetry that has no punctuation, but also no special spacing to indicate the logic of the lines, look at some of W S Merwin’s poetry. I find them a bit difficult at times because I often have to back up at the end of a line when I realize a thought stopped in the middle of it and I was not aware of it until the line didn’t make sense. Using line endings rather than punctuation works for me, but ending a thought in the middle of a line without somehow indicating it doesn’t. Just my preference, because who am I to tell Merwin, a former US Poet Laureate, how to write poetry?
I looked up some poems by W.S. Merwin, and I see what you mean about the lack of punctuation and spacing. The few pieces I read, I found the lack of punctuation distracting, pulling me out of the piece a bit. I know I’ve read poems without punctuation before where it worked for me, so I know it can be done, and done well. I’m with you though, I wouldn’t argue with Merwin about his preference to not use punctuation.
I think punctuation in poetry is one of those rules you should follow and understand before you break away from it so that you know why you’re not using it. There are many rules in writing that can be broken successfully. But I don’t know if they’re ever broken accidentally with a good result. If it happens, I don’t think it is often.