Category: writing process
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4 Ways to Jump Start Your Poetry
4 Ways to Jump Start Your Poetry: Imagine you’re driving on an unknown dirt road and come to a five-way stop. (work with me here) Not using a GPS, or a map, you need to make a decision on which way to go. You know where you’ve been. Excitement rises at the possibilities. Each direction…
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There’s a (Better) Title Out There
Bless me oh poetry gods, for I have sinned. I gave my poem a boring, abstract title that even made me lose interest in it. How many poems have you seen with a title like ‘Love’, ‘Justice’, or ‘Morning’? Your brain is left scrambling even before you dive into the poem. It may set up…
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More on Revising Poetry
Revising your poetry. You’ve got a notebook (computer) full of finished poems and wonder “What comes next?” Do you slap the results in an email and rush to submit them far and wide? Or do you carefully revise your work, and create the strongest poems possible? Revising poetry is the way to go, more so…
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How to Organize Your Poetry into a Chapbook
It all sounds so easy. Write poetry. Organize your poetry into book format. Submit chapbook. Profit! Well, maybe not the last one. We all know how much poetry pays. Sometimes it’s tempting to fold poems into paper airplanes and send them out into the world. I favor the “tie a poem to a balloon and…
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All You Need — Love Poems
Ah, love poems. February 14th is coming up fast. Perhaps you want to write a love poem to your significant other. Or maybe you need a love poem to yourself. Nothing wrong with that. A love poem to the furry presence in your life? No problem. Read it to your cat or dog and let…
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Killing Pesky Clichés
One thing we see a lot of here at Gyroscope Review is a good poem—that suddenly goes wrong. In their haste to put a tidy bow at the end of the poem, the poet wraps it up with a cliché. Instead of ending strong and leaving the reader to marvel at the deft wording, the…
