t seems we find ourselves repeating ourselves -a lot- both in the classroom and on The Gazebo. To help avoid that, at least on The Gazebo, we've collected some notes we've made over the years we'd like to share with you. Some general "do"s and "don't"s - but mainly "don't"s. As always, we'd remind you these are rules-of-thumb, not god-given commandments, but they're good rules-of-thumb and you should at least consider them when confronted with these situations in your own work.

The Three Words That Should Never Be Used

OK, we'll admit it. there aren't any words that should never be used, but there are some that should be avoided at all costs. Here's three of our favorites: nice, just and got.

Why these three? Look at them closely. What on earth does "nice" mean? Surely there must be a dozen better, more accurate words to describe something than "nice", aren't there? It works well in sarcasm, we suppose, or when something is so awful we simply don't know what else to say. "Oh. Your new poem? Very... nice." We can think of many situations when it works in everyday conversation ("Hey, nice putt!) but in poetry it always strikes us as laziness. Avoid "nice".

What does "just" mean? If you think about it for a second, it doesn't mean anything. "Only", perhaps. But more often than not, when you see it in a poem, the poem would work just as well without it. (As in this last sentence. Did you catch that?) Occasionally we'll see "just" pop up in rhymed and metered verse, along with another rhymer's favorite, "that", and in those cases it's usually because by throwing in a quick "just" or a "that" they can get the meter to work. Oooh, clever, no? Well, no. We see it all the time and know exactly why those words are there, and now, so do you. Lazy, isn't it? Cheating a bit, too.

The last of the three, "got", like "nice", is a word where there must be dozens of other, better choices. Off-hand we can think of a few poems where "got" was precisely the right word (no, we're not going to tell you which ones, do your own research!) certainly more times than we've seen "nice" work successfully, but it should be treated with care and respect. We wouldn't want anyone to think you'd been lazy, would we?

Other Words That Should Never Be Used

Some words change all the time, as the use of language changes through fashion and idiom. We don't think anyone's said "gay" recently when they meant "happy", have they? "I'm feeling quite gay today!" No. The word's associated with homosexuality -at least for the time being- and really can't be used simply to describe happiness anymore without the risk of being either misunderstood or unintentionally funny. It was the same with the word "fabulous" back in the sixties. It was so closely identified with the Beatles, "the fab four", to use it, even in the most sincere and accurate sense, was to be perceived as having a rather limited vocabulary. "Ah. The Tut exhibit was fabulous, you say? How... nice." We don't think fashion should dictate what words can and can't be used, but it certainly has to be taken into consideration.

But the words we're really thinking of are the ones that have been used over and over until they've been done to death. A recent competition on The Gazebo was to use as many of some done-to-death words as possible in a single poem. The list included heart, soul, mortality/immortality, morn, beautiful, hallowed, awaken, lament, wholly, anguish, dwell, futile, void, abyss, ablaze, cherish, longing, and yearning. All perfectly good words in and of themselves but Lordy, Lordy, have they ever been done to death, especially in, say, (shudder) "love" poems.

We're not really saying don't use these words, we're saying think long and hard about them before you commit them to a poem. Then think long and hard about them again before sending the poem to an editor. And, especially, think long and hard about them before ever posting the poem to The Gazebo. Puh-leeze.

Using Parentheses In Poems

When we see a poem that contains parentheses, our first thought is that whatever is between them is probably unnecessary information. And most of the time, we're right. Parentheses are often an aside, a stage whisper, something the writer simply couldn't resist putting into the poem and more often than not -as we said- contain unnecessary information. By all means use parentheses if that's what the poem wants or needs but after having added them it's a good idea to pause and take a second look. Do I need this information in the poem? What is my reason for putting this in parentheses?

Using Three Dots At the End of Lines

This one's easy. Don't. Ever. OK, maybe three times. In your entire life. And never more than once in the same poem. It's lazy. Three dots at the end of a line (much beloved by bad poets everywhere) implies there's something left unsaid, something presumably deep. Which begs the question: Why not say it, then?

Using Line Breaks For Emphasis

This is something we see often - and often in otherwise fairly acceptable poems. Breaking lines for emphasis suggests two things, neither of them good. First, it implies you don't have the wherewithall to say what you're getting at and second, it implies your readers are so ignorant they won't understand the import of what you're saying unless you emphasize it. This rule-of-thumb, incidentally, also applies to putting words in italics, bold face and/or CAPITALS, as well as capitalizing words like Death, Fate, Destiny etc. It's dumb, it's lazy and it's insulting to your readers. Why do it?

Centering Poems

More and more we've seen
this one on literary web pages.
We're talking
about people centering
their poems
on the page

Ever wonder why they do it? Back in the old days, when poems were typed up on the old Royal manual, one didn't see too many poems centered on the page. Too much work, for one thing. All that retyping and whiting out. Then word processors and computers came along and all the bad poets quickly discovered the centering function. Suddenly centered poems starting popping up all over the place. Why, you could even run them off and send them to the print magazines. It made all it look so creative and poetic, right? Wrong. It's merely another sign of laziness and -ninetynine times out of a hundred- a good indication that what you are about to read is going to be really, really bad.

Leaving out "the"

We were tempted to give an example of what we're talking about but decided against it. There's enough examples of this kind of writing on the poetry newsgroups. Someone, somewhere, decided that leaving out the "the" articles in poems somehow made them sound more heartfelt and meaningful. It doesn't. All it does is make every piece written this way sound exactly like every other piece. It isn't clever, it isn't creative. It isn't even original. It's merely another sign of bad poetry.

Manufactured Words

Occasionally we come across what we like to call manufactured words. There are dozens of examples of these but a good one is the use of "ly" at the end of a word. "Tranquilly", "Heartbreakingly". Every time we come across one we wonder why the writer simply didn't choose another word? We guess because they sound so poetic, right? Wrong.

Too Moving to Critique

We know you've seen this before. The poem about the baby dying in the hospital. Or the homeless waif out on the street. Or the deeply, deeply personal one about how Daddy abused the poet when he/she was six. We mean, it's all so sad, so true, you can't actually say anything about the poem without coming off like a completely insensitive clod, right? Wrong again. This is the cheesiest and most obvious form of emotional blackmail. Don't be deceived by it. Even more important, don't do it yourself.

Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar

Er, well, obvious, right? Er, well, no. You'd be surprised how many people we see submitting their works for critique, in the classroom and on The Gazebo, who don't know how to spell, don't understand the use of apostrophes, can't grasp the basic elements of grammar and use the wrong words entirely. We're not talking about typing errors here. Here's a couple of examples: I got you're letter today. She paid me a nice complement. Her eyes shined like diamonds.

What us absolutely baffles us is how people who cannot construct even simple declarative sentences (something one picks up in junior high school) seriously believe they can write poetry. Like someone trying to compose a symphony without knowing the first thing about music, isn't it? Like wanting to be an architect without having a clue as to which end of a hammer is used for hitting the nail.

If any of this rings true regarding your own work, here's our sincere advice. Take up some other artistic endeavor. Poetry isn't for you.

There's More

There's always more. We'll be adding to this page as we discover/remember the clunkers that regularly appear in our classes and on The Gazebo's pages. Check back often. And don't be disheartened. No-one said writing poetry was easy, for Heaven's sake.

© Bob Charles & Jackson