5 Things To Make Your Poetry Pop

If you really want your poetry to pop, use concrete images of the five senses, sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Try to work images for all five senses into the poem, and select descriptions of each that evoke memories or induce emotions in the reader or listener.

Examples:    

Smell = Grandma’s fresh baked vanilla cookies floated into the living room

Sight = Rescuing, playful, chubby, white cat from animal shelter

Sound = Crickets and bullfrogs competed for American idol of midsummer nights

Touch = Wiping the throbbing bee stinger off swollen pinky toe

Taste = Milk soaked chocolate chip cookie disintegrates on tongue

Use any or all the senses. A good exercise is to pick a general adjective like hard or soft and try to write a poem with all five senses to describe the adjective without ever using the adjective in the poem. You can do the same exercise with general nouns like love.