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Ways to improve your poetry. Post your techniques, tips, and creative ideas how to write better.

5/2/2012 1:56:13 PM

Josie Whitehead
Posts: 7

May I suggest that if you haven't already tried it, write for children - but not just silly little rhymes. Children love wonderful new words, and images in their work. I write for children and you'd be surprised that children tell me that poems which I thought were more for adults, they love, and sometimes adults tell me they like the children's poems. Learn to write for every age group. It's hard. The educational neuroscientists are telling us that they want more rhyming and rhythmic poems back in the classroom. It helps children to develop phonological awareness, a key literacy skill. It really pays to learn about metre in its different forms, ie iambic metre/trochaic metre, and the lovely poems written with anapaests. Di di DUm di di DUM. They flow along so well and are quite easy to write. There is a great market out there for children's poems. It is not an optional subject in school classrooms in English speaking countries. Hope this advice is good.

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They say that writing poetry keeps the mind young, but writing poems for children heads that I think.

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