Developing Your Own Poetic Style
Anyone who writes poetry will have heard of the sonnet. Of the various forms, the most well known is the Shakespearean sonnet, written in iambic pentameter with three quatrains in an ABAB / CDCD / EFEF rhyme scheme and a final GG couplet at the end.
Simple enough to try, very difficult to perfect. That's probably why Shakespeare gets so much credit.
I’m not going to try to explain how to perfect a sonnet. Instead, I’m going to take the explanation I just gave and break it down into individual elements, looking at the underlying structure of each with the goal that you can take the ideas presented and use them to develop your own poetic style.
The concepts I’ll explore are meter, rhyme, structure, and theme. To that list, I will also add a fifth element - consistency.
The best way to teach is with an example, so I’m going to deconstruct the most recent poem I’ve written, Lady of the Dawn, and demonstrate exactly how I put these concepts into place.
Measuring Meter
Poetic meter, as defined by Poetry Foundation, is “the rhythmical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse.”
Looking at the first three lines of Lady of the Dawn, I used eleven syllables per line, with a rhythm of one unstressed / one stressed / two unstressed / one stressed / two unstressed / one stressed / two unstressed / one stressed:
to-NIGHT you’re so CLOSE I can FEEL you in-SIDE
your THOUGHTS in my LAUGH and your SMILE on my FACE
to-NIGHT we just WALK, it’s not YET time to RIDE
For the fourth line, I added an extra unstressed syllable at the start. This switches the final line of the stanza to twelve syllables:
with the TIDE that will GUIDE us in-SIDE to our PLACE
A Rhyme Within a Rhyme
In the example above, I put three mini-rhymes inside of the fourth line before ending it. That’s fun!
A quick side note about developing your own style - when a technique truly gives you joy, it’s intrinsically a part of your voice. Work with it and try to perfect it.
But back to the poem, the ending of each line matches the standard ABAB scheme. A deeper analysis would express the full pattern as A / B / A / AAAB to include the mini-rhymes, adding a layer of complexity to the flow of words.
By linking the last two lines together with that extra unstressed syllable, the reader or listener gets a quick succession of four A-rhymes in a one stressed / two unstressed meter. This builds up the intensity to deliver an even stronger impact when they land on that final B-rhyme PLACE.
Structure and Theme
Every poem has its own theme, or the main idea behind the symbolism you use. Structure allows you to turn the theme into a story.
The theme of Lady of the Dawn is transition, and I gave each stanza its own segment of time to convey a stage of that transition.
The first section takes place in the middle of the night:
Tonight you're so close I can feel you inside
Your thoughts in my laugh and your smile on my face
Tonight we just walk, it's not yet time to ride
With the tide that will guide us inside to our place
The second section is set during the time when night reaches its coldest point and morning will soon come:
The shadows entwine with our flames in a dance
As dark and chilled breezes meet warmth on our skin
The temperature drops in a call to advance
One more glance of romance in a trance, then begin
The final section shows the dawn as a single ephemeral moment before moving its eyes forward toward the promise of the day ahead:
Remember me like this when these days have gone
As soft blossomed light painting colors on grey
Keep tight in your heart the most elegant song
On this long road stay strong, break the dawn into day
Structuring each stanza to encapsulate a portion of the symbolism of the theme will take the reader on a journey from the beginning of your poem to the end of it.
Consistent Inconsistency
Going back to the meter shift I mentioned earlier - on the surface, it would look like I broke form at the end of each section. The final line was not consistent in meter with the first three.
This was done deliberately, and that inconsistency remained consistent for each stanza, giving the poem an overall consistent structure even while breaking it on a line-by-line basis.
I’ll refer back to the old classic, the sonnet, where the rhyming pattern of the first three quatrains breaks for the final couplet to end the poem with a lasting effect.
When you are inconsistent for a reason, and consistently keep the same inconsistency, it takes on a life of its own.
The form that life takes is yours to design.
This post is a submission for The Library of Infinite Knowledge, a resource set up by 