Just Write Good Poems

and other myths about developing a poetry collection

Developing a book-length collection is like making a long journey through roadless territory. At its best, it is as exhilarating as it is frustrating. But frustration is inevitable. We’re going to hit blocks in the process that make us doubt the whole endeavor.

What I wish more poets knew is that the worst setbacks often have little to do with talent—or time, or faith, or some intangible force of culture. More often, blocks are the result of false beliefs about the manuscript development process itself. 

Certain pernicious myths cause us to develop bad habits. They perpetuate tangled thinking that holds us back. Too often, admired instructors or peers have actually planted them in our minds. Any of these sound familiar?

1. Just write good poems. Oh, gosh, it would be such a relief if this were the challenge! It’s hard enough to write excellent poems, as we all know. It takes years of apprenticeship and experimentation to develop something like our “own voice,” not to mention an essential dexterity with craft, before we receive some form of validation, such as having poems published in literary journals. This is where the Just Write Good Poems myth steers us wrong. Our manuscripts will not be snatched up by a delighted press just because we’ve established a track record of publishing in journals. No, I’m truly sorry to say that this is just the beginning. Developing a manuscript is an art in itself. The good news: That art is not unlike the process of writing an excellent poem, so if you’ve honed that ability, you’ve probably got some of the foundational skills needed to develop a book. 

2. A book of poems is the “best 40 poems” you wrote in X number of years. This one dovetails with the first myth. There is a grain of truth in it: All successful manuscripts are written over a delineated time period, whether that’s two years or ten. And the poems contained in them are inevitably among the poets’ best. But just as not all successful poetic lines make it into the poem you are writing, not all of your excellent poems will serve your manuscript. What’s more, this approach encourages us to pursue anything and everything that occurs to us, rather than focusing on writing excellent poems along certain threads—the topics and themes most deeply present in our lives during those years—that will ultimately unify the manuscript. 

3. Oh, and: It shouldn’t take more than X number of years to develop a publishable manuscript.  Frankly, this is just B.S. and says more about our hurry-up culture than it does about the purpose of making poetry that speaks across distances, and maybe even across lifetimes, if we’re lucky. As the poet Carolyn Forché replied to a question I asked about how to embrace poetry’s slow process in a fast world: “Take the time that is needed. Resist [the sped-up culture].” Forché publishes a book of poems about every ten years. I think the poems she writes are more likely to endure because of her (relatively) slow process that allows for wisdom to percolate in language of incredible perceptiveness. 

4. First-book contests aren’t looking for ______________ (the kind of poetry I write, the subjects about which I write), so I should change my style/subject matter. To think we can mold our deepest work based on a contemporary set of rules is totally counter-productive to the book development process. (Although I do think cultivating a small number of influences is extremely helpful and important to the ultimate success of the manuscript. More about that later.) The world does not need more poems like X because, well, X already exists. The world does need your deepest work. Excavating that deep work is one of the hardest and most rewarding parts of the book-development process. Don’t cheat yourself and the world by thinking otherwise.

5. After taking a lot of workshops (or earning a degree), I should be able to develop a book-length collection on my own. I was discussing a related myth with my workshop students the other day: The Poet as Loner—someone who goes off into a cave or the local Motel 6 to write poems channeled from the depths of their soul. The lone genius is a dangerous myth, in general, but even more so in the manuscript development process. I do not know a single published author of a book-length collection who did not have many mentors, guides, peers, and friends contributing to their process. Choosing those people wisely is important, but to assemble your personal community is essential. No poet can be her own editor. In the simplest terms: If you want your work to reach any audience, develop a relationship to that audience in order to receive the feedback that helps you shape the poems (and sequences of poems) that will resonate beyond the confines of your own heart and mind.

I wish I could say that these kinds of progress-inhibiting myths just disappear once you’ve published a book. But that isn’t true. Often subsequent books come with even more challenging beliefs and expectations than the first! But they are still just myths.

If you’re feeling stymied, consider if one of these falsehoods is at the root of your frustration. Over time, you’ll get smarter about the challenges that serve you and the ones that don’t. Seeing them for what they are—myths!—helps loosen the tangles in us that keep us from the real work. Then, we can get to work—and rediscover our joy.