Three Tips to Power Up Your Poetry

April is National Poetry month, so I’m giving you three practical ideas on how to improve your poetry, with examples. Spoiler: These will help you improve your prose as well.

The thing I love about poetry is that it packs a punch in a page. (More on alliteration later). It is a concise, delightful form of expression that forces you to give over emotion in the most vivid way possible. But obviously, doing that is part of the challenge. When poets, or writers in general, attempt to capture emotion, they tend to either slip into melodrama or resort to cliches that give no meaning. That is not what we’re going for.

While I do not edit poetry, I do write it, and when I was a volunteer editor for the Baltimore Review, I read hundreds of poetry submissions for the journal. So I’ve seen the good, the beautiful, and the downright dull. We’re trying for beautiful today.

Note: In some of my examples, I will reference a poem I wrote called “Death Metal.” It was published in Sky Island Journal. You can read it here. And if you think I am super morbid after that, you can read “Ultrasound” and feel better.

Now, on to the tips!

1. Get Past the Telling

I’m not saying “Show, don’t tell” because, although true, what I’m actually saying is that your first draft will have telling. Your job when revising is to get past the telling.

Think of telling as a surface-level explanation. “I was exhausted.” It gets the job done in interpreting a situation. But in poetry, we want to do more than understand. We want to feel. And to do that, we need specific word usage, imagery, and subtext.

Here’s an example:

Grandad’s dead, she said.

I felt a wave of sadness.

Two problems:

A)     Filter word, “felt,” tells

B)     A wave of emotion is cliché (sorry)

What specific words, sounds, images show sadness? What action may be done in the moment that can reveal subtext?

Grandad’s dead, she said.

His last letter is still on my desk,

buried under bills.

I never wrote back.

Try your own version. Leave it in the comments.

2. Use Strong Language

There are verbs, and there are VERBS. There are descriptions, and there are descriptions. The first word that comes to your mind will not often be the most powerful one. It’s simply the one you’ve heard or used most often, and so that’s what your mind generates.

If I’m describing, off the top of my head, how the ocean glitters on a summer day, the language I’ll reach for will not be fresh. And very often, it won’t be strong enough to deliver the message I want.

Take the description I used in “Death Metal.” I was trying to parallel a jammed beltway to a trucker’s inability to console a widow after a terrible (fictional) accident. Here is the previous version:

Your words

are blocked up.

Just like the beltway....

When I ran this by a poetry group, they felt I could find stronger language for that second line, especially for such a catastrophic situation. I changed “blocked up” to “choked.”

Say I’m writing about an interesting person I passed on the street. Someone who’s wearing a mask in 2026, not out of health reasons but paranoia. Here’s what I might write at first:

I passed Fear yesterday.

He had a mask on, eyes down.

Could he breathe?

On a revision, I’d want to revisit the “passed” language, which doesn’t contribute much. I’d want to look at verbs that reflected my emotional state, whether that’s curiosity, concern, or innocence. Perhaps “I jogged past Fear” to hint that I’m moving forward in a figurative sense. Then I would use language further on to show how he seems stuck in time.

Likewise with “had [it] on.” These things aren’t bad, but it’s language that could be improved. The job of any writer is to dig for the deeper words. To strike gold, not rock.

3. Alleviate the Alliteration

Once you’re in alliteration mode, it’s hard to get out. In “Death Metal,” a previous version was littered with alliteration: “pretty platitudes,” “trailer tripped,” “seeds of sorrow,” “weeping widow,” etc.

Since alliteration is so easy to do, it can also come across as…a tad amateurish. Certainly, it’s one of the easier aspects of poetic language, and it’s not hard to overdo it. When that happens, the alliteration draws attention to itself and takes over the poem.

It can be difficult to cut alliteration since poets naturally love the sound. And we love our writing. It’s painful to cut. But very often it’ll strengthen the line. Find each instance of alliteration in your poem and ask yourself:

• Does this strengthen the line?

• Is there alliteration right before and after it as well?

• If I had to remove three instances of alliteration, which would I choose?

I’m not saying to remove all your alliteration. Just don’t stuff your poems with it.

Did Someone Say Poetry?

Like I said in the beginning, I do not edit poetry, but if you want honest feedback on a poem, send me a message!

About Adina

Adina Edelman is a book editor who works with authors of memoir and fiction, especially historical, mystery, sci-fi/fantasy, literary, and middle-grade fiction. She’s all about mining your message, unearthing the gold in your story—not just the grammar errors.

Adina has worked on over 140 titles in the past six years (and published one of her own). She offers 30-minute coaching sessions alongside her editing services.

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