Organizing a Poetry Manuscript: Where to Start

How to begin transforming a pile of poems into a book

I’ve been teaching poetry for over twenty years and have played a role in shaping manuscripts (mine, peers’, and students’) for nearly that long. I’ve learned and intuited a lot about the process over those years, read hundreds of contemporary collections with this question of organization in mind. What I’ve learned is this: There’s no formula. There are no rules. There’s no sure way to structure a collection so that you are 100% satisfied and so that it wins the mind-heart of an editor, guaranteed. 

But—and I wish I hadn’t had to learn these insights the hard way!—there are smarter ways to tackle the challenge of structuring a manuscript. There are better questions to ask, more nuanced approaches to grouping/ordering poems than the ones we tend to start with (chronological, geographical, topical). There are some so-called “truths” about poetry books that we need dismantle if we want to avoid endless churn.

From time to time, I teach a class called Mapping Territory: How to Organize a Poetry Manuscript. I’ll be offering it again on September 17 and November 13 by Zoom. (Click on the dates for details.) The most common challenges I cover in that class:

1. Development Stages. We think it should go like this: I write a lot of poems, then I organize them into a book. But it often doesn’t work quite like that. Plus, when exactly should we start thinking about a manuscript? Understanding the stages of development helps us see the work to be done and avoid pressuring ourselves in unhelpful ways.  

2. When to Tackle the Poem Pile. How do we know we’ve got enough/the right material for a book? Seems like a simple question that will have a quantifiable answer. It’s not, and it doesn’t. I think beginning the process earlier than we think we should is the best strategy.

3. Themes vs. Topics. These are not the same! But we often confuse them. Understanding the difference between these, tracking them in poems, gives you the power to see your manuscript’s territory—and how to navigate through it. Plus, how important is theme to publishers? Should you write to a theme—or let themes rise from the work naturally?

4. Selecting and Ordering. How poems “talk” to one another—the LP or mixed tape theory of ideal book structure. There’s no secret to structuring a manuscript that you don’t already know intuitively if you’ve been practicing the art of making poems. But, as with lines that are beautiful but aren’t doing the work, you’ll have to make choices. And choices are hard. Clarity helps.

5. Openers/Closers. I know you’ve heard that you should put your “strongest” poems first. This is BS. Who’s to say which poems of yours are “strongest”? Plus, however engaging a poem may be, if it’s not hooking the reader and acting as a doorway into the book’s territory, it won’t make a good opener. Closing poems need similar special attention.

It’s not you—it’s the lack of transparency

Had I understood how to develop a collection better from the beginning (say, during or just after my MFA), I would have allowed myself to focus on developing my voice and my poems toward a book sooner. 

On the way to publishing Bloodline, I had so many versions, I can’t remember them all. Some versions were even finalists for big book contests. I added and subtracted many poems. I tried multiple structures, varying titles. I tried things sideways, upside-down, reversed. But it wasn’t until my husband, a fiction/nonfiction writer, helped me see a possible theme that Bloodline began to take shape. Focused by that insight, I did the work. After that, not just one but two publishers offered to publish the book—and it went on to win the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. 

If you’re struggling to organize a book, I get it. Rest assured, you are not suffering from some defect. It’s just that the process hasn’t been clearly articulated. It’s like trying to land a plane in fog, blindfolded. Smarter questions remove the blindfold. Better approaches reveal the runway. The process is so much more fulfilling when you can see where you’re going. 

So, where to begin? Start here: What question is your manuscript trying to answer, over and over? Uncover that and you’re halfway there.

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Mapping Territory: How to Organize a Poetry Manuscript

Class Description: You know how to craft a poem that makes a complete journey. Yet, when it’s time to organize a book-length manuscript, you may feel lost amidst your poems’ many themes, images, narratives, voices, and POVs. This session explores useful tools to map a collection’s terrain, including how to identify primary and secondary themes (They may not be what you think!), establish the major legs of the readers’ journey (how to group poems into sections), and use titles to transform a sheath of poems into a book that guides the reader thoughtfully through its territory. 

What Participants Say

“This was one of the best and most helpful classes I have taken. It was well organized, with helpful details and great examples. Filled me with ideas and spurred me on. Thank you, Radha.” -Sue

“Excellent class! It covered very important material—and Radha is an intelligent, intuitive instructor. More of this, please!” -Paige

And on book development: “Radha has worked with me on an experimental book length manuscript. Her feedback and gentle guidance has been invaluable, allowing me to see new ways of organizing the work, as well as new ways of looking at each individual piece. It's a much better manuscript—and I'm a much better writer, whether I'm writing poetry or prose or in the liminal spaces in between—for the work we've done together.” -Janie

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