My Essential Tools For Writing Poetry

It seems simple, grab a pen and a sheet of paper and get lost in writing a poem. It doesn’t always work that way when writing, but there are a number of tools that I have found over the years, that help me when the ideas do flow, to get a poem from first draft to finished product. Most of these are things that everybody has access to, some might be tools you already use yourself, or some may be entirely new to you. There is no one way to write, whether it’s poetry or fiction, all of us have our own methods and we all know what works best for ourselves. Here are just a couple of the tools that I have found over the years, that help me in the writing process.

The most important thing for me is having somewhere to get my ideas written down, no matter how rough or mediocre I may think they are at the time. I use a couple of different mediums whilst writing and often find it beneficial to read the work in a different medium than how you wrote it. I will always begin a poem in my notebook. It is easy to get things recorded, usually very cheap and I love how you can just pour ideas onto the page. I also like to use the notes app on my phone. All phones have them and are completely free. Sometimes I will write up the random ideas from my notebook into my notes app, to begin to remove the clutter from my writing and start to see something more coherent. It’s always a handy tool to have, as you never know when you may get inspired and not all of us remember to bring a notebook whilst out on a walk or on the way to the shops, allowing you to get your ideas written down at any time. I would also recommend taking photographs of things that inspire you. If you are out on a walk and begin getting ideas for a new poem, photograph what sparked that inspiration so you can revisit it later.

During the editing process of my poems, I use two essential tools that help me get a poem from the first draft to finished product. The first one that Is an online encyclopedia. I use this once I have been crafting away at the poem and feel happy enough with it, to then begin desiccating each word and see if it achieves the desired meaning or effect. A caution with this would be to only use words you understand and are comfortable with their meaning. I find it very useful to see words that I perhaps haven’t thought about, which may be better suited to create the image I want to portray. But definitely don't get carried away finding a replacement for each word, just the ones that don't sit right when you read the poem aloud.

The second tool that I use is for editing is Grammarly. There is both a free and a premium version of Grammarly, and although it can be funny with poetry as it doesn’t understand the line spacing, I do find it helpful to find any grammatical errors which I haven’t spotted during my initial writing and editing process. The free version is fine for finding simple errors such as spelling, though I do use the premium version myself as it has been helpful with essay writing for my degree.

An honourable mention would be the Poetizer app. It is entirely free to use and you can share your poems and read thousands of other works of poetry, written by people in the same boat as you. If you are looking for somewhere to get some feedback on your work from some like-minded people, I would definitely give that a go. They recently did a fantastic exhibition of poems dedicated to the people in Ukraine during this difficult time, having thousands of poems shown on the John Lennon Wall in Prague. All the poems are available on their website which can be accessed on the ‘WeStandWithU’ tab at the bottom on poetizer.com (You may find a poem of mine in their somewhere if you look deep enough).

That is just a few of the tools to write Poetry, and I hope you have found it useful/helpful. I would be intrigued to see how others go about writing as we all have our own way that works best for us. Be sure to comment below if you have anything not mentioned here that you find really useful. To summarise, here are all the tools mentioned above.

1. Note book (Seems obvious)

2. Mobile Notes App

3. Camera

4. Online Encyclopedia (Use words you are comfortable with).

5. Grammarly

6. The Poetizer App.