When is a “Poem” called a Poem? Know this before you write and publish your poem

I created a website for people to write and publish poems online for free. I feel that if there needs to be a platform for creative people to express themselves, my platform should be that place. That special place where you can express creatively what you want. But of course, what I admire about the people who submit their poems to me is their unhindered and unfiltered words. Unlike me, they’re always open to expressing what they feel.

I also always admired poets who could write freely without hiding behind a veil of words strung together. I was always a private person, making it difficult for me to write poems where I could truly express myself. Nonetheless, poetry was something I was always drawn to because the words would flow naturally.

When I wrote poetry, I wanted to use metaphors, similes, and rhymes, but never truly reveal what I meant in the poem. My sister, after reading my poem, would say, “It’s deep. Dark, but deep. I like it. I didn’t understand it, but I like it.” Mission accomplished.

I would never reveal what I was going through but they were quite dark, which was what most people felt after reading my poems. I never wanted anyone to know the true meaning. So, I would write it in a way that helped them resonate with the words but by associating it with their lives.

Over the years, I realised that poetry was not so I could hide behind the metaphors that naturally flowed but so the reader and I could enjoy or experience the journey together. In my eyes, poetry is meant to be a bit convoluted but, in a way, to comprehend through feeling. This form of art is what makes it so different from the more linear forms of writing.

But this was a challenge. I didn’t want to express myself to the point of revealing what I truly felt. I was a private person (still am) and my poems helped me talk about things I wouldn’t in regular conversations.

That’s why a few of the famous poets whose poems were readily available evoked within me a growing and special fondness for them.

Fearless Poets versus society’s condemnations

Here are a few stanzas from this amazing poem called “Glittering-Minded Deathless Aphrodite”. It was written by Sappho who was an ancient Greek lyric poet from the Island of Lesbos. This wonderfully talented poet had written about 10,000 lines of poetry in her lifetime, from which only 650 poems have survived the light of day.

That man to me seems equal to the gods,

the man who sits opposite you

and close by listens

to your sweet voice

and your enticing laughter

that indeed has stirred up the heart in my breast.

For whenever I look at you even briefly

I can no longer say a single thing,

but my tongue is frozen in silence;

instantly a delicate flame runs beneath my skin;

with my eyes I see nothing;

my ears make a whirring noise.

A cold sweat covers me,

trembling seizes my body,

and I am greener than grass.

Lacking but little of death do I seem.

Most of her poems were addressed to women that dealt with love, desire, and female sexuality. Her work was controversial in her time. A little fact: the word ‘Sapphic’ referred to lesbian love. So, a woman from the 6th century BCE could write what she truly felt while I was making sure all my poems were riddled with metaphorically rhymed riddles.

***

Moving way ahead to 1999 when Ai Ogawa, an American Poet and Educator won the National Award Book for Poetry for Vice: New and Selected Poems. She had an uncompromising style of writing, giving voice to poor, marginalised, and abused speakers.

Among the many, I choose to share this poem Ai wrote. It was called “Killing Floor”. Again, taking just a few stanzas…

On the day the sienna-skinned man

held my shoulders between his spade-shaped hands,

easing me down into the azure water of Jordan,

I woke ninety-three million miles from myself,

Lev Davidovich Bronstein,

shoulder-deep in the Volga,

while the cheap dye of my black silk shirt darkened the water.

My head wet, water was caught in my lashes.

Am I blind?

I rub my eyes, then wade back to shore,

undress and lie down,

until Stalin comes from his place beneath the birch tree.

He folds my clothes

and I button myself in my marmot coat,

and together we start the long walk back to Moscow.

He doesn’t ask, what did you see in the river?…

Ai Ogawa’s original name was Florence Anthony which she later changed to Ai, meaning ‘love’ in Japanese. She said that her name reflected the affair her mother had with a Japanese man she met at a streetcar shop. I admire how people are able to finally share anecdotes of their personal lives and how many times these torrid truths are revealed through poetry.

And lastly, this one poem by Sahir Ludhianvi –

Dekha Hai Zindagi Ko Kuchh Itne Qarib Se (Have you seen life so close?)

Dekhā hai zindagī ko kuchh itne qarīb se

Chehre tamām lagne lage haiñ ajiib se

Ai rūh-e-asr jaag kahāñ so rahī hai tū

Āvāz de rahe haiñ payambar salīb se

Is reñgtī hayāt kā kab tak uThā.eñ baar

Bīmār ab ulajhne lage haiñ tabīb se

Har gaam par hai majma-e-ushshāq muntazir

Maqtal kī raah miltī hai kū-e-habīb se

Is tarah zindagī ne diyā hai hamārā saath

Jaise koī nibāh rahā ho raqīb se

Google Translated to…

Have you seen life so close?

It’s strange to start looking at the faces.

O soul, where are you staying?

Calling from Prophet Shalib

How long is this life again?

The disease will be cured by treatment.

Every village is waiting for a feast.

The path of magic is found in the word of love.

This is the way life has given us.

as if someone is living in love

Sahir was his pen name, whereas his real name was Abdul Hai Fazl Mohammad. Sahir, very skilfully, mixed romance and protest in his poems, leading poetry in the direction of the progressive movement. His spectrum of poetry existed in the combination of songs, music, and lyricism, making his ghazals, poems, and songs more tasteful.

Poetry on a deeper level

What is the objective of writing a poem? If you want to write and publish your poem, you need to know what you are writing. I have not referred to any literary books to find out, so pardon me if I missed out on a pertinent objective, if any.

· Objective #1: To express the reality of one’s emotions using poetic elements skilfully.

· Objective #2: To make sure that the reader understands the poem with its originally intended meaning and also that the poem evokes a feeling.

1. Objective #1: To express the reality of one’s emotions using poetic elements skilfully.

Be it personal emotions or a message of the world that you wish to convey in your poem, it has to have the necessary poetic elements. I get various submissions from people to publish their poems on my website, Poeticia. From the heavy influx of submissions, what I most often read are letters more than poems. They had linear forms of writing unlike how poems should really be written.

Some of them read more like stories and less like poems. So much so that I had to finally create a section specifically diverted to storytelling.

For instance, here is an example of a submission which I cannot call a poem. To maintain confidentiality, I am not sharing a real submission that I received. So, I am creating an example to help you understand.

“I walked in the dark as the lights went out

Now I can only feel pain because of the way you betrayed me

They told me not to follow you

But I chose to follow you”

Can you call this poem or a note?

There is a big difference when it comes to releasing your pent-up energy in the form of poetry and expressing yourself through art. Therefore, objective #1 stands clear as day that one must express the reality of their emotions using the elements of poetry skillfully. Otherwise, what is written is simply linear sentencing which everyone does.

2. Objective #2: To make sure that the reader understands the poem with its originally intended meaning and also that the poem evokes a feeling.

This objective is about expressing through words read by the eyes but felt by the heart, mind, and soul.

I once received a mildly tolerant submission but again with no poetic elements to it. It just had the repetition of the ‘position’ in it, mixed with complex words that would not encourage any reader to pull out a dictionary.

To make sure I didn’t completely deny the submission before giving it a final chance, I shared it with a few people I know. Some were writers while the others were non-writers, poetry lovers, and non-poets.

This is what they had to say:

· “It reads like a management report”

· “Feels like I am reading a presentation report”

· “Too many big words to unnecessarily impress; trying to show off”

· “His perception about the position of a wife in the household is offensive but it’s a platform to publish what they feel so they have the freedom to write about it.”

The submission did not evoke even an iota of the feelings or meaning intended by the writer. Rather it evoked feedback that felt more like I was at my workplace asking my CEO to give feedback for my team writer’s blog content.

Many people think that writing a poem is about repeating a word over and over. That’s all this submission had — repetition but nothing to express the true meaning of the poem.

Another example:

“Halloween is amazing

There is no daylight cheer

Just the scary night

Halloween is great

Because I love its dark side”

I had received a submission written around the topic of Halloween. The above example is not taken directly from the submission but this is mostly what it felt like when I read it. The writer was going nowhere with the words. All I got to know was that the person loved Halloween.

So, taking the two examples above, I ask — Why do we want the reader to feel the words?

I think it’s so that they feel what the poet felt while writing the poem. That’s what helps create empathy for the words laid out skillfully.

Most often, people whom I have to respectfully call amateurs, think they’ve written a poem. Hence, they feel they’ve achieved objective #1. However, there is a deliberate order I have marked for the two objectives. You have to achieve objective #1 before you can move on to achieving objective #2.

If you have not added the elements of poetry such as imagery, symbolism, metaphors, assonance, alliteration, etc., then how can it be called a poem? Objective #1 not achieved.

Objective #2 cannot be met because the reader may understand the poem written in linear form but there is no evocation of the senses, which beats the purpose of a poem.

Therefore, understanding how to write a good poem is important.

Striking a balance between raw emotions and artistic expressions

Some don’t achieve objective #1, and hence, don’t meet objective #2. Then there are those who express more than they’re supposed to, again without using elements of poetry.

Here, I’ll take an example about poems that are intended to be more intimate in its form and message.

I am open to receiving submissions to publish a poem online on my website but the poem has to resonate as a poem and nothing else. Not a letter, not an essay, and not a paragraph. A poem!

I think I have received a minimum of two or three submissions that were written about sexuality but without any justice to poetry. The writing, again, was linear, which means that the submission felt more like I was reading a direct message of vulgarity. This does not mean that I judged the writer but it certainly didn’t help me feel the depth of those poems. There was no plot, there was no end, but simply the writer’s will to experience their urges.

I couldn’t locate the submissions that I had received but here’s a poem I wrote as a challenge by a fellow Instagrammer who requested me to write about BDSM. I had to research because it was the first time I wrote on a topic that made me uncomfortable. However, I wanted to make sure that I did justice to the meaning of the poem and the conclusion.

BDSM Erotica

Longing touches in sunken light

Holding on close and tight

Shadows leaping against the walls

Plugged emotions running wild

She pleaded in high moaning notes

Mounted squeezes impulsive grabs

Seeking moments of sumptuous bites…

As difficult as this was for me to write, I still wrote it. Maybe it was a way to get out of my comfort zone. However, I wanted to try writing a challenging poem, and this was a challenge. I tried as much not to sound vulgar or use direct words. My objective here was to help the reader gain a visual image in their minds. Not sure whether I did a good job but I was happy to try something other than what I usually wrote in poetry.

Expressions of vulnerability: Dealing with discomfort

While I lay out the faux pas of less skilled poetry writers, and in no way, claim that I am better at it, poetry is not for the weak-hearted. It involves deep-diving into one’s emotions and peeling out every feeling, layer by layer, and then displaying it in words that evoke the same within the reader.

But what we all know is that writing personal feelings in a poem is not what every poet is comfortable doing. At the same time, the need to express nudges at you, and so, must be fulfilled. I feel my greatest satisfaction and fear both lie in sharing my poems with the world.

What I also understand is that we have the answers within and when I write poems, I get a clearer picture in front of me. So, it is essential to push one’s boundaries when it comes to poetry while choosing to make their comfort zone their strength zone, something I learnt from a business coach.

What defines one’s boundaries as going too far in a poem?

I talked about expressing beyond the point of discomfort. Now, let me talk about how far is too far. For instance, the submissions I received either on profanity or direct sexual lines. Was it okay to write those poems? I believe the answer is yes but as long as one adds poetic elements to it and also adds storytelling to it with a direction would justify its purpose.

An example of what a linear form of writing is:

The sun is yellow and golden

The gardens shine because of it

I love the sun

It makes me happy

If you read the above, it simply talks about the sun and how it makes the reader happy. However, it requires more depth. So, if I were to divulge, this is what I would write:

The yellow-golden sun takes me deep

within the flames of its glory

The warmth in its embrace

melts within my mind clouds of sorrow

But the one I wrote above was simple and easy to write. It’s the raw emotions within that hide from the world.

For instance,

If I could speak the words of my heart

Eyes would wander away

The world would have nothing to say

If I could claim who I am

Conditions of the mind would sink

I would be forced to re-think

If I could finally say

My heart beats not for men

Would my heart beat never again?

I guess I just revealed something here, and yet, ensured to leave it to the reader to understand.

Therefore, what are the boundaries of writing and how far is too far? I guess it depends on the poet’s intentions to reveal how much they want to reveal. Remember, first identify the purpose of your poem. Once you write it, ask yourself this question — Does my poem meet its purpose?

A poet’s natural tendency to gravitate towards familiar and comfortable topics

I would say that if a poet wants to write love poems, then learn as much about how to write poems based on the topics of love. If one wants to write about socioeconomic issues, learn about them, and so on. It is important to write what one loves to talk about but never shy away from exploring other topics.

I feel that trying your hand at topics you don’t usually gravitate toward might open your mind to the different possibilities of poetry writing.

Ethical considerations and whether they should be followed while writing a poem

Poetry is art, and so the emotions expressed are raw and beautiful. However, one must consider that poetry is not about ranting. It is easy to recognise poems where the writer only meant to rant.

I get where they’re coming from but there is a responsibility toward what one writes and submits. Many poems submitted to me are unedited, filled with spelling errors, misplaced punctuations, SMS language, and most of all, profanity.

So, I do believe that we have an ethical responsibility when writing poems. Respect the art that one has access to and use it wisely to help those who can resonate with what you feel.

Poetry can help you find your voice, but it is up to you to draw the fine line between artistic expression, vulnerability, and ethicality. So, publish your poem online for free if you are looking for a platform to express yourself, but do so creatively.