A studio for aspiring poets
The Poet's Craft
Poetry is not a mood. It is a set of choices: where the line turns, which word carries the stress, what the image will and will not say. This site teaches those choices, then points you at the groups, presses and prizes that keep a poem in the world.
Learn the measure. Then forget it.The line will remember for you.What you refuse to nameis often the poem.
Twelve rooms of the craft
Work through the craft pages in order if you are starting from scratch, or jump to the hole in your technique. Every page is written for people who mean to finish poems, not merely admire them.
- TechnicalitiesLines, stanzas, enjambment, caesura and the architecture of a poem
- LanguageDiction, sound, syntax and the music inside ordinary words
- ImageryMetaphor, simile, and making the abstract visible
- RhythmStress, metre, feet and the heartbeat of English verse
- RhymeSchemes, slant rhyme and knowing when not to chime
- Free verseWhat free verse is free from — and what still has to work
- StylesLyric, narrative, confessional, spoken word and more
- Traditional formsSonnet, villanelle, haiku, ghazal, sestina, ballad, ode
- Poetry groupsWorkshops, stanzas and online communities that will read you
- Poetry pressesMagazines and publishers who still take unsolicited poems
- CompetitionsMajor prizes and deadlines, updated for the current year
- Further readingHandbooks, anthologies and craft books worth buying
How to use this site
- Learn the architecture of a line, then the metre that makes it walk.
- Put pressure on diction and image until the abstract has nowhere to hide.
- Decide whether you need a received form or the harder freedoms of free verse.
- Read living poets. Then send work to magazines, join a group, and — when a poem is actually finished — a competition.
About Stewart Ferris
Stewart Ferris is the author of more than fifty books, a former publisher at Summersdale, and the writer of practical guides including How to be a Writer and How to Get Published. This site is his studio for the particular craft of verse: not inspiration as a lifestyle, but the tools that let a poem stand up on its own.
More books, news and projects: stewartferris.com.
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