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Write Your Poetry One Line at a Time

Grow your poem from the first line, here’s how

By Gregory D. WelchPublished 2 years ago 9 min read
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Write Your Poetry One Line at a Time
Photo by Rachel Coyne on Unsplash

Does the thought of writing a poem freeze you up? Does the idea of growing a collection of poetry both excite you and absolutely terrify you? This article is all about how to write poetry, one line at a time.

Maybe you’ve written some amazing poems, but find yourself freezing up from time to time, especially when it comes to sitting down and writing that first line. Or maybe you push through and finish a piece but aren’t quite happy with the end result for some reason.

Maybe it’s that first line again.

Poetry — like any work of writing — hinges upon that all too intimidating first line. But how the hell are we supposed to write them? What defines a truly great first line, and how are we supposed to grow confidence in the face of the task?

That’s some of what we’re about to explore in this piece. Keep reading and let’s chat about it.

Some great first lines in poetry:

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary” — Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven

“Do not go gentle into that good night” — Thomas Dylan, Do Not Go Gentle Into the Good Night

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself” — Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

“The woods is shining this morning” — Wendell Berry, Grace

Start with powerful questions:

  • What have you experienced?
  • What does it remind you of?
  • How does it make you feel?

What have you experienced?

Before Covid hit, I was driving to work one morning. It was early, the dawn was breaking, and the world had that silky-ethereal texture to it. Thin with cold wisps clinging to the ground like fresh frost and fog dancing just above the fields.

I took a curve in the bend of the road near one of the little country churches (the one where I had my first fight as a kid, and ironically where my great uncle was shot down by a jealous man at the turn of the 20th century). I was preparing to tell my neighbor good morning, as I had done often. He passed away early on Christmas morning in 2019 and is buried in the little cemetery atop the hill on the other side of the field that rolls up to the edge of the road there. On the opposite side of the hill is the church, a little creek, and more countryside just beyond.

I spotted movement. Just a hint, enough to draw my eye.

A little red fox came crashing out of the thicket by the creek, ran across the road, went up and under the fence, and darted up the hill. He was a beautiful sight. Fully unexpected and altogether wonderful. He cut a red path across an otherwise grey-blue morning, red fur and the mystery of nature carving its way up the hill to greet the rising sun.

And from that experience, a poem found itself hooked into my mind, my being, my imagination, and soul. I knew I had to write it, and here I am, still writing about it.

You see, poetry is like that.

It always begins with the life we live. Poetry is first written into the tender flesh of our moments, our days, and is transferred from what we’ve experienced to how we describe it and share it on the page for an audience.

And our poems, like that first hint of movement at the edge of the creek that drew my eye, begins with a powerful first sentence threading its way through what’s about to happen next.

What does it remind you of?

Poetry is a bit like lacing a pair of shoes. You have to wind things together, pull them tight, tie a knot or two, and combine things that might feel impossible the first few times but could eventually come together in a stronger whole.

Learn to spot the connections.

Poetry is built on linking thoughts, ideas, and especially imagery that might not seem to go together at all — until they do. This is the magic of poetry that I especially love.

When you see one thing, take note of other things it reminds you of. Jot that down somewhere, and if it keeps pulling at you, take time to figure out where. There’s likely something to it.

The real secret ingredient to all of this is being observant. And not just in the usual sense and meaning of the word. But also, reflective, and balancing inward-looking with outward. Simply put, pay attention to the world around you and what it's showing you.

And this isn’t a once-and-done practice, but a continual effort. Adopt the mentality of practice and note-taking and before long connections will be showing up everywhere. You may even begin to notice chains of connections (a pair or a few connections that sync with a pair or a few other connections). This is powerful stuff.

How does it make you feel?

Similarly, you want to pay attention to your feelings when observing the world around you (or reflecting on the world within you). When you discover one feeling or another becoming more noticeable, engage it, don’t just feel it. Explore it. Ask questions of it and try to understand it at a deeper level.

Maybe even go so far as to try and connect these feelings to other things you’ve recently observed.

What color is the sadness? What taste does the happiness hold? What smell does your anxiousness come as?

Emotions are the fuel that feeds poetry and are often a solid place to craft a first line from. But a word of caution, emotions aren’t clubs to beat your audiences up with, so don’t. Emotions are the soft and gentle words of lovers, even the sad ones, subtlety goes miles farther than too hard or direct a statement.

Don’t misunderstand either, there are times when you need that snap of emotion to jolt an audience. I’m just cautioning you to be in control of these things instead of the opposite. Craft your poetry with purpose, and set the tone with your first line.

From observation to description

It’s one thing to see and experience something truly captivating, and another thing entirely to put it to words.

But guess what? That’s your job as a writer, your sacred responsibility as a poet.

The real secret to pulling this off is in how you approach the effort. Step one is to absolutely abandon any need for perfection. Become a constantly evolving, and always practicing writer instead. Embrace progress and growth and continued effort — applying your lessons, and pushing yourself to new heights however high you’ve climbed already.

Change how you think about writing and you will change your writing experience as a whole.

So, instead of trying to write a new modern classic with that description, write it plainly. What did you see? What did you experience? What did you feel? What do you think it means (or doesn’t)? Why should we care?

Just tell your audience the plain, undecorated, simple, and boring truth.

But don’t worry. We aren’t stopping with this unless after several edits of the rest of the poem you find you like the power of the plain and it adds something to the rest of the poetry you’ve written. Then it can stay.

But, if the plain, undecorated truth doesn’t add to the rest of the poem, add to it in the editing. We write in layers, adding them and peeling them away as we need to so that we can grow a poem from its many earlier incarnations. That’s the point.

Writing isn’t just putting words on a blank page, it’s growing them from previous efforts — writing, editing, starting over, going back to old drafts, and embracing the growth of the whole effort.

We aren’t just writers of words that make sentences, we are curators of experiences that make poetry.

To write a single sentence, write several

It’s just a string of words. It’s just a collection of thoughts turned into letters, tied together to form sentences. And yet, nothing is more intimidating or as powerful as that first sentence.

Remove the pressure of the sentence by simply telling what happened. Remember that you’re going to edit these words later, and perhaps edit them again after that. Find freedom in this fact, and take a breath, then write. Write one word, write two words, write three. Keep going.

It’s amazing how powerfully simple writing a sentence is, and yet how absolutely damning a task it can seem, can feel, can be.

Just tell your audience what happened.

Answer questions, describe how you feel, tell your readers what colors, what sounds, what smells, what thoughts raced through your head. Make messy sentences, clean them up later. Just remember to tell your readers what happened.

The real secret to writing powerful sentences, be the first ones or otherwise, is to strip away your expectations for them. To simply write. To simply describe. To be a journalist before you take on the task and responsibility of the poet.

Start your sentence by answering the fundamental writing questions:

  • Who
  • What
  • When
  • Where
  • Why
  • How

And don’t forget the power of good music. Rhythmic, something that matches your heartbeat, loud but comfortable, not distracting. You want to forget where you are, lose yourself to the music, to the moment, to the sentence. Just be. Just write. Once you get started, the sentences will find each other.

How to write a powerful first line

It can feel like an intimidating task, but it’s richly rewarding both in the effort and result.

The first sentence is an introduction, an answer to the questions every reader comes to our work with: Why should I read this? Why should I keep reading this? Why does this matter?

And once we answer these questions powerfully and effectively, we begin to enter into an unspoken promise between ourselves as writers and our audiences. We promise to write things that will keep them reading, that won’t bore them, that will entertain and inform, that will take them places, and answer that all-powerful question: Why?

We write by first remembering our own experiences, by sharing them wholly, humbly, truthfully, and to great purpose and effect. We carry this task first with one sentence, that first line, and trust the words to find one another, both in that first sentence and each one that follows.

Writing is an act of faith, and like faith of any kind, we must commit ourselves to the task of joining our efforts to what we believe those efforts can become.

We write that first sentence, that first line by knowing ourselves and sharing what we discover fully, completely, and in respect to our unique responsibility as a poet and writer.

And now it’s your turn. Please, feel free to write your first sentences to a new work in the comments, I’d love to see them.

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About the Creator

Gregory D. Welch

Kentucky poet & scribbler. Inspiring creatives to live a creative lifestyle. Creating with courage, passion, & purpose-fueled growth. Progress over perfection.

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