5 Poetry Manuscript Pitfalls

What no one tells you about turning your poems into a book.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

I’m excited to invite you to a workshop I’m offering called Build a Poetry Manuscript That Captivates Editors on April 19th. If this post resonates with you, I hope to see you there!

Five Common Pitfalls We (Don’t Have To) Learn the Hard Way

After years of working with poets and developing my own manuscripts, and leading a small community of poets who are developing books, I've come to realize that these pitfalls aren't just occasional hiccups—they're almost universal experiences. Every poet I've coached, every workshop I've led, reveals the same patterns of struggle along the poetry manuscript development journey.

The process of putting together a poetry manuscript is certainly uniquely challenging for each poet. Each body of work comes with its unique challenges, too. But if you know that these common stumbling blocks aren't signs of failure—they're natural part of the creative process that nearly every poet encounters—and the steps to take instead, you’re more likely to create a publishable book, and faster.

(Those essential steps will be covered in Build a Poetry Manuscript That Captivates Editors on April 19th.)

1. Sequencing Before Seeing the Territory

I can't count how many times I've heard from frustrated poets who started the manuscript building process by spreading their poems across floors, tables, and walls, and spending days trying to arrange them into a perfect whole.

It's almost a given—this overwhelming impulse to immediately start arranging poems before understanding the book's broader terrain.

In this common scenario, poets get stuck trying to move poems around like puzzle pieces, hoping some “perfect” arrangement will suddenly make everything click. If you’ve tried this, don’t blame yourself. You’re probably working off of advice from mentor poets who, when asked what to do, suggest methods like this.

The thing is, a manuscript is not a bunch of objects to be sorted. It’s more like a territory to be explored.

What published poets who suggest this method haven’t divulged is all of the pre-work they’ve done prior to sequencing: They’ve mapped the work's emotional and thematic geography. They understand the poems’ underlying currents. They know how poems will converse with one other across the manuscript.

Sequencing can only happen after you understand the big picture and the nuances therein contained. This takes time—time that we don’t want it to take. It almost always requires that we get multiple perspectives from trusted, perceptive readers.

2. Insisting on Every Poem

Every poet has poems they're deeply attached to—published or yet-to-be-published pieces that feel like milestones in their writing journey. I've watched poets agonize over including every "successful" poem, even when those poems don't serve the manuscript's larger vision.

In my own first manuscript, I held onto poems simply because they'd been published in journals I respected. It took me years to understand that a strong manuscript isn't a collection of individual achievements, but a cohesive artistic statement. To transform your gathered poems into a more beautiful whole, you simply can’t include everything.

3. The Chronology Comfort Zone

We're trained to think and write linearly—time flows forward, stories have beginnings and ends. But poetry rarely follows such neat trajectories. In the manuscript building process, most poets at first default to a chronological or strictly narrative structure, missing the more nuanced ways their poems can constellate and create momentum together.

Your manuscript isn't a diary or a linear narrative. It's a complex emotional ecosystem where poems can create surprising, non-linear connections.

4. Leaning Too Hard into Coherence

Poets have a tendency to cluster poems by form or to create sequences with monotonous emotional tone. But variation is the heartbeat of a compelling collection. Just as a landscape isn't uniform, your manuscript shouldn't be. Strategically dispersing poems of similar form and/or tone, allows the manuscript to come alive.

5. The Paralysis of Perfectionism

So many poets get stuck in what I call "creative churn"—endlessly revising, afraid to declare the manuscript complete. The shadow issue here is—yes, you know it—the terror of rejection.

All published poets have hundreds of rejection letters. Rejection isn't a reflection of your work's worth. It’s part of the publishing landscape. The poets who succeed are those who keep moving forward, who see rejections as stepping stones to reaching the right editors—and readers.

How to Finally Finish Your Manuscript

It's easy to endlessly revise without moving forward. Take it upon yourself to get to know the manuscript-building process and honor the individual steps as part of a larger process. Set deadlines, seek community feedback, and commit to finishing.

These strategies and practical steps will not only help you transform individual poems into a book that is a more powerful whole, they’ll help you reach your publishing aspirations quicker.

Get the details for the Build a Poetry Manuscript That Captivates Editors workshop. See you there on April 19th!