Recently, I decided to produce a brief and monthly newsletter, so I’d better explain why and what!
I wanted to do this because I became aware over a 50 year+ involvement in poetry, poetry education, and poetry theory, I had amassed, quite literally, a lifetime’s body of work, ideas, and experience that others might find useful, inspirational and even transformative. Hence, the need to develop some outlet for it. This is the why.
But on the other hand, what? Here the word ‘brief’ and ‘monthly’ come in. Clearly, people do not wish to be overloaded with everything that is in one’s cupboard. Such material needs to carefully curated and released; as well as that, one needs to be sensitive to feedback and requests from readers. So, I imagine the newsletter will develop in form and content.
As it stands at the moment – I am about to issue number 3 – each issue has 3 sections and the total content is only about 1 A4 sheet’s worth, easy to read in a couple of minutes. The three sections are: how to write great poetry, which has a practical bias; a great quotation about poetry that is food for thought; and finally the third section is an update on the work that I am doing in this field.
If you would like to be on the Mailchimp database and receive your monthly dose of poetic news, then contact me directly at: james@motivationalmaps.com and say, Poetry Newsletter for me, please! And I will gratefully oblige. If you want any of the back issues, 1 and 2 at the time of writing this, please also request them.
I shall be providing 12 tips (so a year’s worth of content) on how to write great poetry. To give you a flavour of what I mean, here is the first tip from Newsletter #1:
- Poetry Tips # 1 How to write great poetry – Rule # 1
The first way to write great poetry is to write bad poetry!!! Don’t be parsimonious – write lots of it. Stop thinking that because I’ve written it, then it must be good! Study “Changes” – why is it bad? Give 3 reasons. Newsletter # 2 will show you why this is bad.
Today we are happy
in our present.
Tomorrow it is our past.
The changes wrought about
are not substantial
and cannot last.
Because they change.
But what is the worst line or stanza you have ever written? Find 3 reasons why you think it is bad. If you can do that, then you are on your way to improvement.
Want more tips? Subscribe now and welcome! – James Sale
The English Cantos 