How to Write Better Poems | A Poet Explains 

This is my favourite poem. “The Look” by Sara Teasdale: Strephon kissed me in the spring, Robin in the fall, But Colin only looked at me And never kissed at all. Strephon's kiss was lost in jest, Robin's lost in play, But the kiss in Colin's eyes Haunts me night and day.

instead of separating poetry into "good" and "bad", i think it might be better to figure out what makes poetry "effective" or "ineffective" for whatever purpose/audience you have in mind! experiencing poetry, and art overall, is pretty subjective; your goals and priorities may vary widely depending on whether you're writing poetry to read aloud, be published, sort out your own feelings, etc

I feel like her cat's confused on who why she's talking out loud when there's no one in the room 😂🤣

"all pollen and puff" is such a wonderful line I for one would love more poetry criticism!

Today I learned that I can't tell the difference between good and bad poetry lol

I actually really like a lot of the poets I read in school, especially Emily Dickenson. I don't always "get" the "meaning" of her work, but it connects to something inside of me and I like it. Some "classic" poems are really too wordy or pretentious, but many only sound that way because they're old. We aren't used to the way that they talk or the allusions they use, but to the audience at the time it was easily understood. There are lots of great points in the video too and Zoe knows way more than I do for sure but please don't diss my faves

"You don't just blindly grab things out of your fridge and dump it all into a pot and it's dinner." ... I came here to learn about poetry, not be personally attacked, Zoe.

My notes: - make the reader feel like they’re in the poem. Add specific details but don’t over do it - show don’t tell - metaphors: make new connections between things. Make familiar things strange and strange things familiar. - think of poems as food: there are no bad ingredients but they don’t always work well together.

Title suggestion: "To bee or not to bee?", with the implication that a dead bumblebee isn't beeing anymore.

00:00 Introduction 2:19 Part 1: The What & The Why 07:45 Part 2: The How 08:14 On Being concrete & specific 14:42 On Metaphors 20:24 On Sounding good 23:25 On Purpose 28:24 Part 3: Writing a Poem 41:50 Conclusion 44:10 Greetings & Credits Respectfully hoping that this will guide anyone through this edifying video essay!

Writing a poem on camera is a literary power move. It would be intimidating but well done you.

I love writing poetry. It's the only artform I feel like I can keep to myself I can throw some flowery language in my notes app and then never look at it again I can freely express myself in a way that regularly structured paragraphs could never show I can explain my emotions in a way that makes sense to me It's something I've always struggled to do through drawings - and struggled even more with writing regularly structured stories or essays

Aggressively affectionate cats are part of why I love this channel.

So, I got inspired by this video and I tried something. Title: Spell In this little sanctuary of green and white My eyes are drawn to you like a pole finding its opposite And I watch your hands, pearly white One pressing upon grey chords The other elegantly curved around the wooden bow Gently coaxing music out of the instrument against your shoulder Flowing ever so softly like a mother’s lullaby The wind carries the melody to me as it tousles your hair Midnight flowing against daylight In the contrast, that darkness seems to glow as bright as the sun behind you My chest rises and falls with the bow and the tune And I find that the violin isn’t the only thing under your spell.

I think my favourite definition of poetry is "making the intangible tangible". It really put things in perspective for me.

Hearing your cat purring so much makes me unreasonably happy. My English class is currently doing poetry and I just submitted a poem I made about my feelings of anxiety and depression and how it feels to me. Hopefully it was pretty good.

This is a seminal work. You have made the single-BEST video about poetry I have ever seen. I have attended workshops by world-famous spoken word poets, I have read every book on poetry I could get my hands on, and I do not think that a single dollar of what I've spent is close to the value of this (free!) video you have just made. Sincerely, thank you, because you have just taken this love of mine which has decayed into a skeleton I shoved in a too-small closet, and shown me an angel wearing a dollar-store skull mask. I'm a spoken-word poet, and I am completely self-taught. I never went to school for poetry, I barely attended any poetry events, I mostly just holed up and wrote what I wanted to. So I felt really insecure about what I did and why I did it when talking with other poets…even when I've written stuff that has made people cry. I know that I write good poetry, but I never could express how or why that is. You have just vindicated every part of my practice, and I'm not gonna lie, I'm crying writing this comment because section by section you have just dismantled my bruised craft and pointed out how every piece shines in the moonlight. Thank you so, so much. You are quickly becoming my all-time favourite youtuber. Also, I blame you bc now I need to create a patreon account and resist joining your highest tier JUST so I can learn more about poetry from you.

That Iron poem is hysterical. The comedic effect of shrugging and saying there’s a metaphor in there somewhere is excellent.

"put words together that sound weird" mayonnaise candy

As a fellow published poet, I appreciate this video on so many levels. You put exactly into words what I wish I could say to people when they talk with me about poetry, particularly the way they dislike it so strongly. So many people misunderstand poetry, especially due to what we were taught in school, as you said, so it is refreshing to hear a view much like my own.

I can definitely tell you're an excellent teacher. You have a natural ability to boil down big concepts until they're accessible.

This video is great as a starting point, but rules are meant to be broken and art is subjective. A lot of the things she talks about apply to a certain type of poetry, but you can completely ignore all of it and still make good poetry. Artistic movements constantly change the rules in interesting ways, and the poets she says are good or bad aren't OBJECTIVELY good or bad, they just don't align with her contemporary vision of poetry. Always remember that art can be whatever you want it to be, and this video gives you tools, not absolutes, for writing poetry.

Just putting this here, Cheddar cheese On your apple pie A pretty please And a sweet goodbye

“They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.” - Nietzsche on poets And thank you for posting this. We are soon going to be passing out awards for the Griffin Poetry Prize in Canada, and I have just made the mistake of buying a collection by one of the nominees. Not sure why I bothered. Most of the modernists stick their heads so far up their own behinds that they enjoy the view.

An analysis on poetics is not something I’d typically watch but you blow my mind with each video so I’ll watch literally anything you post

I find your takedown of T.S. Eliot's poetry bizarre. When he wants it to, it certainly captures emotion. You cite the ending of Prufrock, which is an excellent example of that. The parts of his poetry which are less easily accessible aren't 'bad', they're just designed for you to puzzle over and revisit them. You might not know instantly what the words themselves mean, but they will probably still make your feel *something*. Personally I think Eliot wrote the most arresting opening to a poem in all of literature: 'Let us go then, you and I/ When the evening is spread out against the sky/ Like a patient etherized upon a table;' Eliot never mocked the public for finding his work inaccessible. (He also wrote much less allusive and fun literature: take 'Cats'.) If anything he was harshest on his overly analytical critics... the footnotes he left on 'The Waste Land' were specifically designed to confuse them, and to inspire 'bogus scholarship', as he later called it. You describe William Carlos Williams not liking Eliot as if he were representative of all of Eliot's contemporaries. Yes, he didn't like Eliot's poetry. WCW himself was a Modernist, and he felt threatened by the different brand of Modernism that Eliot espoused. Direct quote: 'It was a shock to me that he [Eliot] was so tremendously successful. My contemporaries flocked to him - away from what I wanted.' ... they were poetic rivals. That doesn't mean that Eliot had no contemporary admirers; far from it. I also think it's quite ironic that a large part of your argument about how to write poetry is... directly borrowed from Eliot's own theory of poetry. The part about the 'music of poetry' could also be taken word-for-word from Eliot's essay 'The Music of Poetry'. Eliot believed that the best poetry was musical; that it blended emotion and intellect in equal measure. I think your dismissal of him is based on straw man logic.

"you don't want the garlic to be the only thing people remember from your food" tell that to my friend who once made garlic chicken with so much garlic that I could only taste garlic for the next two days

I'm a songwriter. Everything I write starts with something I just think is kinda neat. Like I wrote about trans invisibility saying people filter out everything they don't like. They see the world in black and white. But we live in the rainbow past the clouds. For me, taking two common ideas and mashing them together, mixing metaphors but then it turns out it's actually an extended metaphor and the pieces fall into place, is what I like doing. I'm pretty proud of the result. These were the lyrics I wrote: You see the world through filters You see in black and white You filter out the monsters To help you sleep at night But what if those were people You filtered from your sight Outside the world you know Are the ghosts you still see through If you remove the filter We were always here among you If you refuse to see us We will once again fade out Keep your greyscale sky We will live in the rainbow past the clouds A bit of introspection Could help you see your flaws Instead you use projection Assume that we're the cause You filter out the spectrum You stay indoors While outside the world you know Are the ghosts you still see through If you remove the filter We were always here around you If you refuse to see us We will once again fade out Keep your greyscale sky We will live in the rainbow past the clouds Transgender and translucent I travel through the sky Some see the faintest traces Some see a different guy I try to show you who I am I try But outside the world you know Are the ghosts you still see through If you remove the filter We were always here around you If you refuse to see us We will once again fade out Keep your greyscale sky We will live in the rainbow past the clouds Past the clouds Past the clouds Past the clouds We will live in the rainbow past the clouds

I like your cat It's bright like oranges Like autumn leaves From the ground, now just four inches

The sanest viewpoint I have read on poetry and it’s purpose in our culture . Thank you for caring about the art form .

Most bees are female!! But I'm just using this as an opportunity to recommend The Bees by Laline Paull. It's written from the perspective of a female drone and it's scientifically accurate and mind blowing and I suggest reading it any chance I get. Also The History of Bees by Maja Lunde if you're hungry for more Grade A Bee reading.

Hey Zoe! I'm teaching a poetry course to 10th graders right now and I loved much of what you had to say here. I'm all about breaking down misconceptions about poetry and the misguided idea there is a secret meaning to unlock. Poetry offers SO many pleasures! I gotta say, though, your assertion that T.S. was a bad poet is a tad... subjective, to put it mildly. He definitely appears to have been a dick, and he definitely believed poetry should be difficult, but neither of these seem to speak to the quality of his poetry. While Rupi Kaur is a poet you can read on the airplane or before bed and get some good feels from, Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a poem that requires attention and can be returned to throughout one's life, revealing something different every time. It's been one of my favorites since I read it in 10th grade myself just cause I enjoyed the texture of it. After all, there are gorgeous images, intriguing metaphors, and sonic beauty just waiting to be soaked in. There are also lots of allusions and complex meaning for those who enjoy the intellectual joys of poetry as much as the physical or spiritual. Just because a poem is challenging, doesn't mean it's bad, my friend. I urge your followers to give poetry--in "school" poetry--a second look after learning from all you offer here. : ) With respect, a fellow English teacher

"This is why I don't have the cats in here when I'm filming, because AAHH" had me literally loling. Much needed laugh today.

Rupi Kaur has always been so hyped in my opinion. Her poems seemed wrote by a child to a child. 😅 You have actually made me go back to my poems and realized there are actually fine for a non-writer at all. I'm musician so, they pretty much looks fine

Mother THREATENS Desmond? threatens to remove him from the room? oh! oh! jail for mother! jail for mother for One Thousand Years!!!!

On this exact topic, I once wrote a poem on my fear of turning like some of the pretentious poets we read about, and also in general about my fear of being an incapable poet in the first place who pretends they're good. I resolve the poetry by basically telling myself that I'll still write even if I probably have no clue and I'll not always get that much inspiration, because I like to write, despite everything It's embarassing to share but I felt like it was too much of a coincidence that I came across this video out of the blue. It's simple and straightforward compared to other poems I made, but if I can inspire even just one person, that's good enough for me! Title: Bad Poetry "Looking far outside, yet so near, I gaze and hear, as I write and fear of ending there, in a tone-deaf glow, in that tone-deaf chamber, that we all know. Will you look at me? Are those eyes of content? Or is it just a farse as you Hide your contempt? I'll write bad poetry, and so will we all, Pretending to know, as words come rough. I'll keep writing wearily, wording each thought, Pretending to be, as if that'll be enough."

I have seriously just within this last week been thinking seriously about how I need to learn to appreciate poetry. No joke. This video is showing up at the exact right time.

0:00 The Alchemist" by Zoe Bee - Complementary example 8:50 "Unnamed Bad Poem" by Zoe Bee - Bad Example 10:06 "I do not need the kind of love..." by Rupi Kaur - Bad Example 10:38 "After Years" by Ted Kooser - Good Example 13:38 "Newcastle Bar & Grill" by Thea S. Kuticka - Good Example 17:07 For Annie" by Edgar Allen Poe - Good Example 18:05 "Yellow Tractate" by Brenda Hillman - Good Example 19:48 -"Iron" by Gabbie Hanna - Bad Example 21:41 "The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot - Good Example 29:39 "Ode to the Bumblebee" by Zoe Bee - Good Example 41:51 A patch of violets, visited twice" by Zoe Bee - Complementary Example

Hearing you talk about poetry is wonderful, I would love if you could talk more about the actual creation of metaphors. I was told I can write "like a mystic rat that speaks only in metaphor" and other people didnt understand my metaphors. I cant tell how much is my autism meaning I think differently, how much is me having little experience for poetry, and how much is just people I share it with. I tried to write a poem about throwing a stick really hard, and feeling ascendance in that whipping motion in my arm since I couldnt explain the feeling well with other descriptors. Throw and Fall Run that stick thrower through the door. Run that sick forest rain red. Ridicule every bit of existence. We rank the moments of this place by the weight of our foot prints. Those foot prints dig through dirt, wet. Wild how those thorns sting, stuck inside. Prick the arm stinging scabs to be picked. Stories of scars form from minds place in the woods. Mind changes range from wind up to release. It sticks to mine, the fleeting feeling. What state of being there was waft into water. We threw ourselves into the air. We wait to fall as we fly into our colorful rain.

Never seen someone write poetry live as they explained their trail of thought. It was very nice. Such a pretty poem.

I have a doctorate in English with a focus on modernism. Admittedly, my dissertation is on Woolf and Lawrence, not specifically poetry, but I do teach a number of modernist poets. The straw man of Eliot you set up at the beginning belies the quality of much of his poetry -- even "The Waste Land." I think there's room to critique that poem as pretentious, but that pretentiousness is precisely because the allusions and languages that modernists of his stripe use are, to the common reader, alienating. It is not because the poem is a puzzle to be solved. Most modernists reject the idea that there is a "solution" to the poem. Barthes characterization of writerly texts (and indeed the death of the author) applies fantastically to modernist poetry. The idea of poetry as a means of conveying one's own inner state to another is what leads many of my students to miss the brilliance of the work of an author like Sylvia Plath. They're so taken with the idea of the poem as an expression of a suicidally depressed woman in a failed marriage with daddy issues that they miss the thematic complexity of much of her work. To my mind, poems challenge our fixed conceptions, breaking open their thematic focus without resolving it. The expectation of resolution in any poem is anathema to my modernist understanding of poetry.

Poetry is painting, with words. Emotions in you.

I'm a poet by hobby (and hopefully by profession in the future) and I've found it interesting to see how different writers interpret similar prompts. When I was attending writing workshops in college, it's so cool to read vastly different things based on a picture of a cracked egg on sand. And to me, that's what's so cool about good poetry. It's very telling of how somebody communicates their emotions - and the good ones make me feel mind blown because nobody could've thought of it other than the writer.

Nice cat purring ASMR vid! There was some poetry stuff you forgot to edit out but it's still really relaxing anyways

That poem again but in the style of poetry Zoe doesn’t like: “I poked a bee on my window screen To see if it was still alive. There’s a metaphor there somewhere, I guess?”

"you don't just blindly grab things out of your fridge, dump it all into a pot, and its.....dinner'" boy do i have news for u

I wrote a poem for school once where I was meant to compare two similar things I think, I can't remember the name of the type of poem, it's been a while. Anyways I decided to go the weird route and compare two things that were actually seen as quite different, but in a way, the same; a desert and an ocean. I spoke about how they were both beautiful, yet unforgiving, how even the vast stretch of lifeless blue of the waters or the endless rivers of burning, shimmering gold were really filled with life and beauty. How their nature was unfeeling and seemingly frigid, hostile, and without compassion; they could both drown you at a moment's notice, yet cradled life like no other. The words to describe them couldn't be expressed as gentle, really, but maybe something else. Not loving, either, but something else, something new. From these unforgiving stretches beneath the sky they held something that grew in so many colours; red, green, blue. Yet in the night when the cold came you'd expect the wintery bite of ice or frost to eat and consume what was left of it. But no, their survival was less like a storybook, and more of a canvas painted with grey, blue, and white. Not a story from beginning to end, but spattered with unseen life. Or maybe she was right, and it was a dumb poem lol

Honestly I think a cliche well used can be wonderful, I think they're often unfairly maligned, but I can see how when we're talking specifically about poetry, anything too familiar risks being ineffective.

An excellent way to know your video is having an impact is just to look at all of the spontaneous poems people are writing in the comments. You inspired your viewers to create! That's one of the best things a RU-vid video can do. Thanks!

I think writing poetry is like giving your readers LEGOs, but not the thematic ones

'And good poets - like food scientists - have studied enough and have learned enough about chemical makeup of the stuff they’re working with that they have a good idea of what will work and what won’t. There are always new things to discover, but they don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time they write a metaphor or pair two foods together.' Yes, yes, yes! This clicked with me so much! Thank you!

For your consideration, inspired by Desmond, I present “Ode to Loud Cat” : Louder than a score of students snoring in a morning classroom Or the surf upon a leeward beach by a naval base on Guam Not an ’87 Corvette engine idling at an Exxon station Not the stellar radio hums from the edges of Creation Have you papers, bills or lessons calling urgently to thee? No work or task or laundry hath priority o’er me! All else must wait when I vibrate while plopped upon your lap So I decree you cuddle me. 'Tis time to take a nap.

Thank you for helping me see poetry in a new light. I have been writing and thinking the wrong way. Your video has definitely made me a better poet than I was before I watched it. I am going to improve my poetry with this new insight. Thank you soo much

When she was talking about metaphors and cliches and stuff I couldn’t stop thing about WAP and how it compares sex to junk food, like Marconi and cheese or McDonald’s, even “get a bucket and mop” kinda evokes the image of like a fast food worker

Great video that really summarizes some of my pet peeves when talking about poetry! Although, your example of a "bad" poem about metaphor, Iron, I actually really liked! I felt like the poem wasn't actually literally saying "there's a metaphor but I don't know it," it seemed like an ironic nod to what the metaphor clearly was, a metaphor for seeing if something would hurt you by doing something reckless, that the author used to imply something about their mother. Of course, maybe you're right and the poem did just suck, but for me it did give me an image that I found compelling.

i write lots of things just for myself, ive always struggled to call them poetry, its mainly to remind myself what something i was feeling or seeing was like, because i can not picture things in my head and my memory is often failing, but i think having watched this video will help me put more of what the feeling or sight was like into these thing i write. thank you 💜

My favorite poem is "Flies" by Peter Hammill, it never fails to crack me up. Flies As I opened the back door, two flies were copulating on the cooker: I found this very significant. Late at night, my hand groped for the aerosol. They stayed together for the first few seconds, wings scorched in the sudden fire, minds disintegrating in the deadly mist. Quite suddenly, the male tore himself away from his penis and dropped to the floor. She remained, rolling around on the white enamel and then fell through a crack into the oven. Perhaps she had been a virgin and though this was what always happened. I ate my egg with a few pangs of conscience. Later that night these disappeared when another fly shat on me from the light bulb above my bed.

After watching several of Zoe's videos (including her Lovecraft series), I was inspired... so I tried to capture the feeling of my anxiety. I haven't written poetry in years, so please go easy on me. A storm lingers in the center of my skull, Threatening to flood my thoughts with piercing pellets of ice-cold rain My eyes cloud over as I gaze into the distance, And in an instant, the rain begins to moisten my skin The future looms like a vague, unidentifiable Lovecraftian horror, Standing ominously on the horizon. At times its overwhelming shadow fades into the surrounding darkness, Allowing me a moment of respite in my ignorance But a white-hot flash illuminates what I've feared all along: One cannot know the unknowable. And so I sit in my discomfort, Twisting this truth around and around in my head, Knowing that this knowledge I now hold is both a gift and a curse How does one live with their uncertainty? Is ignorance truly bliss? Will I ever know for sure? The rain falls faster and faster until my skin turns pink and raw And the monster laughs a booming, evil laugh Sometimes I think he enjoys my suffering; But sometimes I think it was just thunder.

Man, whenever I watch this video I feel so inspired. This is a little poem I just wrote: I stand, silently looking upon visages of pompous pasts I am filled with admiration I ask my anxious self: Will I too be one day carved by masterful hands out of delicate alabaster, to be silently looked upon, by future visionaries? Will I in the search for glorious immortality just end in the eternal lines of those six thousend figures, who are magnificent alone but mediocre when together? Is it just part of being human, of having only one pair of eyes, that you construct the, oh so, obvious lie of "I can be outstanding"? But I see, as I walk across this path, the kind demeanour of an elderly philosopher, eyes closed, mouth half opened. Her pores so lifelike, yet still just an image of a past I can never meet. But I know, this is not the smile of a philosopher, who after six decades of work, just found the great formula, the great Axiom of Morality. No, this is the smile of an old lady, accepting mediocrity, understanding, what I did not yet understand, that a single pair of eyes can still see a lot, can still see a miracle. Thank you for your work :)

This taught me that all my online classes would be improved with my Profs' pets on camera

I think a good book i'd like to recommend is *The Sounds of Poetry by Robert Pinsky* ; its a bit of an older book (about 23 years old) but it's still extremely relevant. Its a short little guidebook that explains things in as plain a way as possible. Pinsky (a previous US Poet Laureate) has a great way of explaining some of the fundamentals of poetry. I really enjoyed reading it, and I'm currently rereading it. Otherwise, my own take on this video - i disagree with some of what you've said, especially about the forms of poetry being overly done and that it doesnt inspire deep feeling. I primarily write free verse and i've started to delve deeper into writing in other forms and reading poetry in non-free verse. Its honestly a wonderful experience for me. As much as i love the "inside" of the poem, the "outside" can do soooo much to inform the "inside." I think the true issue of how its being taught in school is how dry and sanitized it is. It takes away the emotion and standardizes what meaning academics say we should take away from different poems. I was thankfully one of those kids who could persevere through this dryness and love poetry and prose anyways, (with the exception of one 10th grade teacher who made me hate faulkner with a PASSION) but i didnt realize that my understanding of poetry was still stunted until i had this one professor in college. She completely transformed my understanding of poetry and she really encouraged us to find our own understanding in the poems and literature excerpts we read. I felt a lot more confident in being able to read and write a poem; she was actually the one who gave me the book i mentioned at the top. Poetry has theory to it, and though I am a big proponent of the idea that you don't need to abide by everything or even know much to start writing, knowing theory helps to further your understanding of how far your writing can go. I know there are so many stuffy terms in poetics, but thats the same for any craft or skill. The unfortunate thing is that so many academic places make it inaccessible to the beginner. Which is why i recommended the book that I did. Pinsky really tries to make poetry as accessible as possible while still being able to convey some of the basics in poetry. At the same time though, he doesn't decry older forms. There is something special in being able to connect to the people of the past in this way, in writing in the forms that they created. Or even just reading what they wrote. The more we allow alternate interpretation and readings of old poetry and plays and prose, the more that people will love it. Shakespeare is a great example; there are so many alternate versions of his plays that there is something for most people. There are even alternate ways of verbalizing them. And the same goes for his poetry. There are poets today that reference his works and create intriguing things that beg you to at least glance at his poetry with new eyes. Even just knowing how the original accent actually sounds makes the idea of his poetry more lively. I saw another comment here that said that they thought better terms were "effective" and "ineffective" poetry - and i heartily agree. People don't know how to read poetry with more intensive forms to it because a) they were taught in that dry, stuffy way, but also b) it just may not be an effective poem for them, whether its just at that moment, or ever. Poetry can absolutely be highly subjective, in matters of taste. Of course, there are objective ways to measure how "good" or "effective" a poem is, which is why poetry from Rupi Kaur, Atticus, and Gabbie Hanna are so decried about in the community - their poetry tends to be too vague, simplistic, and gives off the air of unfinished to the nth degree. But they are "effective" in drawing in an audience in some fashion or another. Even if they write "bad" poetry, they've been the doorway for some people into poetry. Which I think is a good thing; my opinions about each of those "poets," aside. Essentially, we just need to find new ways of presenting poetry and the theory of poetry to people. There is absolutely an objective way to analyze poems, just as much as there is a subjective way to read and find meaning in them. I definitely think more institutions should talk about slam poetry more, because it's so lively, and it encourages people to think about poetry as sounds instead of just words on a page. Sorry for the ling comment, i just really love talking about poetry.

Btw, i'd completely support this channel doing more literature stuff while also mixing in leftism, i think itll be good

now i remember going into highschool with a newly grown fascination for writing poetry but by the time i graduated the urge to write at all had basically been destroyed almost a decade later i started writing things again, including some poetry thank you for this video ✒️

Oddly I found the “purses and bottles of after shave” much more engaging than the longer explanation, which i found dull and needlessly long. The problem with poetry is that it’s so wildly subjective that you feel excluded when everyone agrees that it gives off one idea and you went the opposite direction. For me, identifying a store by purses and bottles of after shave is more interesting because it raises the question of why that would be the go to description, while the “good” example is just “oh some atmosphere, how artistic”

This video is awesome! I’m studying English Literature at A Level and, with regards to the poetry part of the course, am getting so tired of being told to dig for ‘deeper meanings’ that most likely aren’t there. I hate how I have to constantly attribute aural effects such as choices of metre, rhythm and the sounds created by certain words to a specific message that I’m apparently entitled to identify. It kills my love of the craft and gives me a bitter taste of being one of those ‘pretentious dweebs’ (academics). And so, I have taken it upon myself to pursue writing poetry, so that I can just enjoy the art-form as I desire and speak with MY voice instead of countless others. Every one of your videos really resonates with me and is genuinely educational. Thank you. 🙏

Songwriter trying to escape a rut here, devouring this perfectly timed video!

You were completely unfazed by the entrance of your cat and its mission to find a comfy spot. I salute you! I' e been a writer for a long time, mostly for magazines etc. and I've just recently been searching for something a bit more enriching. Poetry was something I'd never tried in any serious way until just this week. I'm still exploring it and learning but I'm enjoying it.

people like you and those that hold these ideas are the reason I write poetry only for myself. I don't want to measure up to your ideas of what is good. I don't care. But I do find it interesting what you had to say about the topic. I generally appreciate your perspective and videos. But listening to you on this made it clear again to me, why I don't show others.

I think you can still do fun stuff with the fire-love cliché Love is like taking a shit after taco tuesday Hot, painful and full of corn See? Riveting

Man I really liked the relationship between the bee and our hesitation to confront death, thought I’d take a shot at the concept! She clings to the Crinoline covering the window; Her yellow knee highs hold steady And her wooly sweater keeps her warm. (I think?) A sentinel, that one For three days and two nights she stands firm, My little gilded guardian. It is after supper, Food packed, Dishes washed and dried, When some faltering sunlight peaks through The holes In her wings I approach with anxiety and curiosity Similar to a mother spying on her sleeping baby, Holding her breath until she can confirm Yes, (Exhale) She is alive. She’s lucky, cause My little bumblebee? Only moves with the wind.

this is a more concise and effective poetry lesson than I've had in the three years of my writing degree??? thank you so much?

As a poet and a translator of poetry, I truly appreciate your "explanation" of poetry, and in particular the emphasis you place on playing with words and language, thinking new and unusual thoughts-images. The wings of your bumblebee remind me of a poem whose translation from German I revised a few years ago, and which I'd like to share with you all:

After having seen your process, I learned two things about my own writing: 1. This kind of poetry is not my style. 2. I need to rethink my approach to metaphors.

I cannot believe this content is for free. Say you read something so illuminating and so close to what you're looking for and you know it's backed up by knowledge? I replayed a few lines just to hear it over and over again. Now I'm thinking why am I even in my uni that teaches...(you know that sentence has to be carefully structured with no negativity but has a point?) How I wish you were my teacher! But I'll follow and watch every single one you upload. My new favourite teacher! ❤️

I watch critiques of bad poetry (like gabbie's) and it's fun and all, but I think you have the knowledge and ability to create content that is more constructive. Maybe instead of "_________ 's poetry is bad" content, you could make "(insert bad poetry device here) poetry is bad and here's how to fix it" content. Then it doesn't feel like you're attacking one person, but addressing a common problem found in several places. Metaphor laziness and pretentious abstraction might be good places to start, since you mentioned both in this video. Thanks for being awesome, and I'll watch no matter which direction you choose! :)

You just calling TS Eliot “bad” like that was wild, and William Carlos Williams’ perspective was one of many different perspectives at the time. I hear all of these poetry instructors saying things like “poetry isn’t a series of riddles that you have to interpret to appreciate” and, as a poet an avid lover of poetry (and lover of your channel), I kind of have to roll my eyes. That’s wishful thinking on the part of the poetic community. Poetry reading sometimes involves extremely complex lateral thinking, and the objectively best payoff does come from those “aha” moments when you figure out what the author intended. Currently I am reading through (extremely slowly, as you do with poetry books) Tracy K. Smith’s “Life On Mars”. Reading academic papers and analyses on the book augmented my understanding of it and helped me interpret the poems more accurately, giving me an appreciation for that book I wouldn’t otherwise have had. Your example of the series of images used in the “I watched her walking away” poem: do you know how many people would fail to completely appreciate what that poem is about or how exactly those images represent heartbreak? And that, I would agree, is a pedestrian example. I recently read “The Museum of Obsolescence” to my mom after reading it a few times and parsing out the language carefully so I understood it. Upon first reading, she had no idea what any of it was about. As I sat and explained the reasons Smith used certain figurative language, she lit up. This is a woman who used to say to me “I don’t like poetry.” What people don’t like is work. Showing them that the work is worth it, that’s better in my book than the profligate dismissal of it. Poetry is riddles. I’m sorry. It often does amount to that. Not always, but often. And you have to enjoy the exciting connections you may make upon reading a poem over and over again to understand one, because those types of poems can afford one the most rewarding reading experiences.

I have a bumblebee, that's actually a cat, because just like schrodinger's to check is to know if she's dead or alive.

I love how you broke down writing a poem by ACTUALLY talking about your though process with the bee!

getting a master's degree in writing (14 years ago now) burnt me out on writing poetry pretty hard... this video is so restorative. thank you 🌹🐝

I love this! I was honestly pretty opposed to poetry throughout school until one of my English teachers told me I had written a great poem. Now in college after going from music to creative fiction, I’ve landed myself as a poetry major. I’ve only taken two classes so far, but I’ve grown to love it so much. A part of what I want to do as a poet is to write very easily understandable pieces. My sister and I are both autistic and can find some of the harder metaphors in poetry hard to understand. I’ve found joy in reading good poetry and hope to be able to bring that joy to others who have been off put by the academic nature of poetry they’ve been conditioned to fear.

This was fantastic, I’ve been pretty put off by poetry in the past because I’ve always experienced it as either the Tumblr style marketable and shallow stuff or academic poetry that just made me feel dumb. This was actually really informative, also I love the staging and lighting and ESPECIALLY the cat thank you

"Turn wheresoe'er I may, by night or day. The poems which I have read I now can read no more." Thank you for your insightful instruction! I came here to write better poems for my songs. I will certainly be revisiting your work for some time to come. Cheers!

19:48 "do not do this" idk, that humorous delivery was pretty amazing.... 😂😂

Mine: The Young Man Sometimes when she saw someone turn around The corner, or pass through a restaurant door, Or when spring with its symphonic score Of buds performed and surged without a sound, She felt him, a presence, an absence, and more... There was no longer grief, but a strange pain, A part of her that thought the young man hadn't died, A part that thought she would meet him again. But she knew, she knew it was fantasy, Though the fantasy bore a grain of truth. Certainly the vibrancy, the light of this youth Looked through the eyes of the passersby, Looked through the eyes of those Sitting at the restaurant tables, looked from the sky When summer was absorbed in poetic blue, When winter was absorbed in the sharpest prose. When the young man was alive, they would share... Presence had reached an exuberant pitch Of love, adventure - but his absence would stitch A raiment of wisdom which she would wear, Being led back to her majestic heart, Being guided through life - breathing art. Cote-Des-Neiges Street, Montreal Softly submerged is Cote-des-Neiges street in the strangeness of new shops, delight of couples, in accordion-twilight, and in absence of stores where we used to go, a child and his mother 40 years ago. I feel you gazing at me through a church tree - from the horizon's crimson glow, a wound still fresh, and as a window's rose-struck glaze. I see you in a thousand other ways, hear the accordion, voice of you, the accordion growing faint, fading - a still more piercing voice of you. The mind intercedes, a tale ten times told, offering itself like sagacious gold to a stubborn, clinging child who half-believes. But the heart doesn't follow, the heart still grieves. A Glass of Water Drunk One June Morning June wears a dress of a waterfall's roar, glory gone galloping, crashing against jagged rocks, splitting apart - like cognition cracked in the face of disease. The water nevertheless winds its way, an egret poised within it, the egret spreading its wings, soon steeped in the glow of ever-widening rings. The water makes its way to where it's purified... A boy attending high school turns on the kitchen tap and drinks a glass of water. Refreshment reaps a sigh. His eyes open wide... Laughter ripples, the light of some idea poised within it - an idea spreading its wings, in time delighting in ever-widening rings... A youthful penchant for winged words grows and gives birth to other birds , the idea never leaving him, the idea whose different incarnations suffuses, spirit-like, many nations...

I admire your composure when the cat climbs up onto the chair, I would forget my entire script right there.

How did you know I was thinking about getting back into writing poetry for the first time since middle school? Damn you, Zoe Bee!

Zoe ma’am I wrote this poem after I came accross this video This is my first poem Can you suggest me Should I choose poetry as my career “The black dark image that flashes When I close the curtains Guarding my eyes The distance that seem to be haunting When I gaze the grains dazzling In the dark winter sky The creepy endless silence Of an old antique site Is all I find Every passing day gets lonelier and lonelier With everything around And still nothing to be found I cry everyday with no tears Hoping someone to see me crying I scream every day with no sound Hoping someone to hear me Whom I love loves me back Whom I care cares me back But still no one finds I m still lonely” Sorry ma’am for my grammatical errors I m in class 12 th and English ain’t my first language But I want to give it a try as my future Should I Ma’am Thanks for making me realise what poetry is I just randomly came across this video I first thought that poetry was all about rhyming and deep meaning I was interested in poetry but now I m in love with poetry

What is this madness - Matching syllables with flavors on the tongue We can't digest this fresh fermentation yet We drink her in We sip and sip We slaves to taste - Are we truly human consumers?

This video lusciously and concretely unravels-deciphers poetry and makes it, or the making of it, much more accessible. The part where instructor actually writes is very helpful. I think I need to watch a couple more times. Thank you!!!

I had never felt like a story had been written about me until I read Howl by Allen Ginsberg. It felt like someone was describing me and the people I know and just saying it. Incredible experience.

This is, to date, the best explanation of poetry that I've seen.

roses are red violets are blue why "cliche" is, like, "bad" I have no clue

This was very informative. I am a 15 year old who adores writing poetry. I learned a lot from this video. I desire to improve my skills and pursue my passion.

A Russian native speaker here. Отстранение doesn't really mean defamiliarization. It's more like - taking a step back, not being (emotionally) involved into something. Отстраняться - the corresponding verb can mean moving physically away from someone. It's really hard to translate and I don't thing your essay suffers from this inaccuracy, but I thought you might be interested to hear about it. :) Thank you for your videos. I absolutely love them.

Thinking of the bumblebee - some random thoughts, " wrapped in velveteen" ( alliteration/ assonace) and "a visual shock of black and yellow" "pollinator, honey maker" " there, on the screen- so still- resting or dead?" - these are just stream of consciousness ramblings, I haven't written in ages, but thank you for this being a prompt that got me to even think of writing.

Thank you so much for this video! Poetry and english in general have never been my strongest subject and every time I'm forced to write a poem for class I always feel it's inadequate compared to my peers and my deeper meanings always feel shallow. You explain everything very clearly and I have no doubt that this video has helped me structure my poems better. You're definitely one of the best educational youtubers I've seen in a while, I have a feeling you'll go far on youtube. Now if you excuse me I feel like writing some poetry. P.S I loved Aud's artwork, you definitely should have her do more videos.

I did a course on creative writing in university and this one video blows the whole thing out of the water. Thank you for the lesson. Can I please also share my current favourite poem? It's "Progress" by Bo Burnham. I almost forgot about you today. A sizable spill of coffee shot me to my feet, holding up my mocha-soaked notebook like an unclaimed child. A dozen eyes found me at once---a security measure meant to bring shame to a klutz breaking his social contract. Attention for shit living. When the pain receded I stood in place and imagined you brushing your teeth. I just love it. It makes me feel .. feelings. And it makes me feel like he has had the same feelings too. So maybe I'm ok.

As an anarchist poet and writer, I am so happy with your content so far!! Keep it up!

I always disliked poetry as a kid but the one that got me to start thinking about it more is "Two-Headed Calf" by Laura Gilpin. It's so simple and short yet it got me to actually connect to a poem for the first time.

Really, my problem is that I can't tell good poetry from bad. It's all good to me.