The Essential Elements of Great Poetry

Like great art poetry is filled with intangible ingredients that defy description and duplication. Even scholars and professional poets cannot define what truly great poetry is, but they have been able to define common element found in great poetry.
  1. Your unique perspective and original creativity are the seeds of great poetry. If you try to copy another poet or stray from your true self then your poetry will suffer
  2. Images in your poem must be original and provide vivid detail that ignites the senses.
  3. Discourse of your poem should avoid cliche expressions by using original phrasing.
  4. Similes and metaphors like discourse need to avoid clich comparisons. Comparisons must be unique and original in order to help the reader make new connections between the compared terms.
  5. Formal poems such as sonnets should adhere to the form.s basic structure. To learn more about the many and varied formal structures for poems visit the recommended reading section of our writing resource center.
  6. Rhythm
    • Fixed meter should follow rules of prosody and not sound mechanical. Metrical poems should maintain their structure of stressed/unstressed syllables without making the language seem rigged and monotonous.
    • Free rhythm should have a distinctive beat. Free rhythm is not composed by chopping prose into shorter lines.
  7. Line Breaks
    • Enjambment occurs when a line carries over from the preceding line. It should be used to create suspense and help the poem move swiftly.
    • End-Stop occurs when meaning and rhythm pause at the end of the line. Effective end-stop uses strong end-words for both meaning and music. Readers should be compelled to stop and ponder the meaning due to the strength of the end-words.
  8. Word Music
    • Direct rhyme should flow naturally and not be forced. The rhyme should exist because it adds to the sense and sound of the poem not just because it rhymes.
    • Indirect rhyme is used to create a subtle echo of sound. This is most often created by the repetition of consonants or consonant patterns, especially at the end of words.
    • Strong poems ring with such internal music caused by assonance and consonance.