The Art of the Unsaid Editor: Lilli ☕ 
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"Poetry: the best words in the best order."
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it."
~ Dylan Thomas
"I want to write love poems so sweet that the ink on the paper attracts honey bees."
~ Rudy Francisco
"Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary."
~ Khalil Gibran
"You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you."
~ Joseph Joubert
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A common misconception about poetry is that it requires a massive vocabulary or an inheritance of tragic experiences. It doesn’t. Poetry isn’t about decorating a page with pretty words; it’s about stripping away the clutter until only the bone-deep truth remains.
If you are trying to write poetry today, you are competing with a world that loves to over-explain. Your superpower as a poet is doing the exact opposite.
1. Trust the concrete object
Abstract nouns like love, grief, freedom, or loneliness are heavy lifting for readers. They are concepts, not experiences. If you want a reader to feel heartbreak, don’t write about heartbreak. Instead, write about the two half-empty coffee mugs left on the counter, or the silence of a phone that used to buzz at 11:00 PM.
Trust the physical world to carry your emotional weight. If you name the object accurately, the feeling will take care of itself.
2. Treat line breaks like punctuation
In prose, a line ends because the margin dictates it. In poetry, you control the margins. A line break is a breath, a pause, or a sudden pivot in meaning.
Consider how a line break can create suspense or subvert expectations:
I thought I saw you standing in the rain
Compared to: I thought I saw you standing in the rain, it was someone else
3. Evict the “Poetic” Voice
New poets often feel they need to adopt a Victorian accent or use words like thus, betwixt, or shattered soul to sound like a “real” poet. But the most powerful poetry sounds like a human being talking to another human being, just with the static removed.
Write in your own vernacular. The modern world is full of modern imagery: neon signs, grocery store receipts, text alerts, and highway gridlock. This is our landscape. Don’t be afraid to put it in your verses.
The world doesn’t need more flawless rhyme schemes; it needs your specific, unrepeatable way of looking at a Tuesday afternoon. Sit down, notice something small, and let it be enough. |
| | | Perilous (E) How do you ravish a person worshipfully? Asking for me. |
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Comment(s) received from my last Poetry Newsletter "Struggling to Understand" :
Fivesixer  wrote:
Maybe the sigh was Frost's way of acknowledging that many would take the poem more seriously than he intended?
Thanks for sharing my poem, Lilli!! 
 That's entirely possible, Norb! 
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Poetry: July 08, 2026 Issue [#13840]
