How to be a successful poet by Sir Andrew Motion

Sir Andrew Motion is an English poet novelist and biographer who was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1st May 1999 to 1st May 2009.

He has won the Arvon Prize, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, Eric Gregory Award, Whitbread Prize for Biography, the Dylan Thomas Prize among others.

Below are his top 10 tips for being a successful poet 

1. Let your subject find you.

My parents were not writers and they didn't really read very much either. My Dad once told me he had only read half a book in his life. I had a wonderful English teacher called Peter Way. He walked straight into my head, turned all the lights on and he gave me my life really.

If I get stuck I go for a walk or if I don't have much time, I wash my hair - it seems to wake my brain up.

When I was 17, quite soon after I started tinkering around with poems, my mother had a very bad accident, which eventually killed her. So I found myself wanting to express my feelings about that in ways that were relieving to me.

It sounds a slightly self-aggrandizing thing to say, but I've always thought that death was my subject. You don't find your subject, it finds you. Writing poems for me is not simply a matter of grieving, though very often it is that, it's wanting to resurrect or preserve or do things that pull against the fact of our mortality.

2. Tap into your own feelings

I never quite believe it when poets say that they're not writing out of their own feelings, and when that is the case, I tend not to be terribly interested in what they're doing.

I don't mean to say that they are writing bad poems, but those aren't the poems that I like most. The poems I most like are where the engine is a very emotional one, where the warmth of strong feeling is very powerfully present in the thing that is being given to us. I think poetry is a rather emotional form and when it isn't that, I'm not very interested in it.

3. Write about subjects that matter to you

I didn't always cope with being commissioned very happily as Poet Laureate to tell the truth. The best poems get written, not by going in the front door of the subject, but round the back or down the chimney or through the window.

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,' said Emily Dickinson and that's always been a very important remark for me. It can be quite difficult to do that if you're standing in a very public place.

People who live in public, as I very suddenly found myself doing, can get very bruised in the process if they're not used to it. I found all that public stuff extremely difficult to deal with. I never wanted to cut myself off, but wish I had devised better ways of protecting myself.

4. Celebrate the ordinary and be choosy

Honor the miraculousness of the ordinary. What we very badly need to remember is that the things right under our noses are extraordinary, fascinating, irreplaceable, profound and just kind of marvellous.

Look at the things in the foreground and relish stuff that can lose its glow by being familiar. In fact, re-estranging ourselves to familiar things seems to be a very important part of what poetry can do.

If you can, be choosy about what you do, so that the things you do write are the things that you do best.

5. Use everything in your toolbox

Don't go live in an ivory tower, read the newspapers and involve yourself in the world. Where do you think subjects come from if not the world?

I haven't written a rhyming poem now for many years, I seem to have lost my appetite for it but I haven't lost my pleasure in reading them. I think anybody that insists on the presence of rhyme is really not thinking hard enough about what poetry is or can be.

Having said that, it is important to bear in mind that as poets we have a kind of toolbox, in which there are all kinds of different pieces of equipment, not available to any other kind of writer and rhyme is very importantly one of those.

So never to use rhyme in your poetry would be a bit like buying a car and never getting out of second gear. Use everything in your toolbox.

6. If you get stuck, go for a walk or wash your hair

Wordsworth once said that the act of walking was closely related to the creative process. I do love walking and if I get stuck I go for a walk or if I don't have much time, I wash my hair - it seems to wake my brain up!

Even when I'm on a hair washing day, rather than a walking day, I walk up and down my study, just to get myself going.

Poems are so crucially to do with the movement of words through a line or a series of lines, and that is just as important as their shape and the way that we understand them I think.

7. Let your work be open to interpretation

People will interpret your poetry in different ways, but provided the interpretation that is brought to the poem isn't plainly bonkers, I actually enjoy that, I rather hope for it.

Your poem can be a world in which your readers can go and live themselves and seek out things which resonate for them. And it would be completely bonkers of me to try to restrict their reaction.

In Auden's beautiful eulogy for Yeats, he said, 'He became his admirers,' and I think that's kind of what he had in mind actually. You give your work over to your readers and provided they're not crazy, it's absolutely open to them what they find in it.

8. Read your poetry out loud

Reading your poetry out loud is crucial and absolutely indispensable because wherever we reckon the meaning of a poem might lie, we want to admit that it's got as much to do with the noise it makes when we hear it aloud, as it has to do with what the words mean when we see them written down on the page.

In a really fundamental way, I think poetry is an acoustic form and we've slightly forgotten that in the last thousand years. Since the invention of the book, the aliveness of poetry has been perhaps slightly pushed to the edge of things.

9. Find the right time to write

Find your own writing time. Everybody will have a slightly different time of day, I have yet to meet the person who thinks the early afternoon is good, but I expect there is someone out there who thinks that that's a good idea.

For me it's very early in the morning, partly because the house is quiet and partly because I feel I'm stealing a march on things and that makes me feel good.

I think there might be some kind of hook up between what happens in our minds when we're asleep and writing imaginative material. I think good poems get written, as no doubt good paintings get painted, as a result of these two things coming together in an appropriate way.

10. Read a lot, revise and persevere

Read lots, write lots of course too, but assume that your first thoughts are not your best thoughts, so revise, revise, revise and don't expect every poem to work, because it won't.

Don't go live in an ivory tower. Read the newspapers and involve yourself in the world - where do you think subjects come from if not the world?

Persevere. I think right at the beginning of your writing life you really have to accept that within a few years, or possibly even a few months, you are going to be able to wallpaper quite a large room with rejection slips. But don't let that put you off - if you've got it, you've got it!

Beautiful

If they tell you that you have an accent,

Let them know that Africa is a continent.
Tell them that you are proud at least you have an origin so original so distinct.
If they complain that your skin is too dark,
Tell them that Africa is full of beauty and your skin colour the pride of Africa,
The décor that makes Africa uniquely beautiful.
Let your African blood flow in the Niles within you,
And let them know that whether black, white, red, albino we all have the same colour of blood.

 
Never die young trying to please the world,
Stay happy and true to your self.
You are beautiful in every single way of your African heartbeat.

                Dear Mentor

I want to grow your words on an Island surrounded with wisdom and stardom.
To them I want to give a home better than the Dome in Rome.
If Romeo wasn’t a Roman but a romantic superhero,
Then you’ll always be my wordsmith Superhero.
If I can’t forget that Juliet was born in July,
Then how can I lie that I will forget your wise words that have been deeply rooted in my mind?
Inside of me, you’ve planted seeds of positivity that have borne possibility and prosperity.

I want to show the world how rapid your words have made me grow and glow,
Like a jelly fish in the dark.
If the world would ever claim that your words will get me lost,
Then I want to get lost above the skies and dance with the stars.

I wasn’t born a believer of words; I was born a lover of money.
But you taught me that wisdom is the freedom of the brain and bridge to true riches.
That I could take it anywhere with me without fear,
And not even a serial thief would rob it away from me.

Your voice was not commanding,
But loud enough to wake me up from MY STILLNESS to ACTIONS that gave a way to success.
When I felt weak, you reminded me that I wasn’t born boneless,
I am built of strong bones and no matter how small, how weak, how light I felt,
Even the strongest storms would never blow me away.
They would only make me stronger.
You taught me to portray a stronger image to the world.

Poetic Woman

She looks into your eyes and sees Mount Everest. Realizing that the summit is crowded,  She discovers the ocean and the sand where she can rest her feet and overthink again. 

If you have to take her to a new place, then go blind and allow her to take an evening stroll in your mind. Let her watch the sunset through a different pair of eyes and when the moon arrives, allow her to make a wish.

Sometimes you’ll love her company, sometimes not. Especially when she discovers a new place in your heart; where she can stop and dance with your thoughts or when she discovers a forest on your chest, where she can sit on a tree and write a poem.

When she is happy, she will always kiss you with a blissful silence and hug you in a poetic move. 

You are alive because hope is alive

Where I come From

By Munira Hussein- 
a poem that tells a true story and create a real image of our dystopian society.

Where I come from,

Dust flows like a river

It even rises like ocean waves

The sun shines brighter than silver

  Where I come from

The grass is dry and bitter

The people are dull and thinner

  Where I come from,

Cars drive by once in a year

A jet might never fly through our air,

Darkness brings us together,

We sit by the fire and sing.

  Where I come from,

Tribes are at war

Diversity for us,

Is such a loss

Education is parked in the stores

Love is thrown down ocean floors

Oceans not found within our walls.

  Where I come from,

Children are taught to sow

Seeds of bitterness so sour

And reap sweet fruits

Of hatred and vengeance.

   Where I come from,

Neighbours don’t borrow

They walk in, pinch your salt

They sit down, eat from your bowl

They don’t knock, neither do they shut

 Where I come from,

Goats bleat in the morning,

They are our chirping birds that sing of glory

Cows moo away the evening

They are the trumpets welcoming our rest.

 Where I come from,

the grass is green when it rains

the farms are lined

with green soldiers that sway

  where I come from,

parties are unheard of.

Though the youth smoke and chew,

Hospitals lack doctors and nurses

Schools lack tutors

Businesses lack a market

Yet the youth walk around rugged

 Where I come from,

Civilization is unplugged

Conservation is preserved

Forward movement is declined

So we dwell in darkness

when the world chose light

we opted for a cave,

the few elites ran away,

brain drain,

I hear them say

Where I come from

Where I come from

When We First Met

By Elizabeth Opiyo

The first time I met Seth,
I was confused and infused
I couldn’t wait to tell him that he was cute,
I wasn’t sure if Electric was the right word for his eyes that had already been locked into mine.
I lacked the exact slang word to use; between hottie or a hunky.
And I was thinking of a hot selfie with him at the same time,
But when I got the chance to tell him,
I only said “wow!”
And he asked “What?” And I replied that I’ve seen my dream car.

I thought that fate was responsible for all this and I wanted us to go for a first date,
It felt like the ether together with the angels had paid me a surprise visit,
And they gave me a brand-new smile’.
I saw him in everything that came my way.
The reason I talked, smiled and sleep walked.
The reason I cried when I was supposed to be sleeping.
I wanted him by my side,
To soothe the feelings that I could not hide.

I wished to make him the one friend I would never offend,
His flaws I wanted to hide under my toes,
Because I only trusted my shoes at keeping secrets,
I wanted him to put a ring on my finger,
And between the same fingers,
his strength and his hope, I wanted to give a home,

Yes, I dreamt and wished for this,
Until I forgot and abandoned me,
The little innocent girl I used to be,
I never knew that I had grown up into a woman I wasn’t familiar with,
A woman who had become her own enemy,
A woman who had left her place in the world,
Locked up her thoughts in prison,
And found a dreadful space in the cruel heart of a beast.

With a little introspection and self-realization,
I was strong enough to walk back… back, back, back,
To that little pretty innocent girl I had left in the world of reality,
Just to hug her tight and instead of telling her sorry,
To let her know that the lesson was worth the hurt,
Just to remind her to forget the pain and start again,
A life full of self-love and hope,
Because hope never died,

Hope was only waiting for me to decide.
For I was only one step away.

What If They Cared A Little?

Written by Elizabeth Opiyo
A poem on Poor healthcare

A beautiful Saturday morning

Seems like the moon has true love for the sun

That he has sacrificed his life to let her shine

Under the blazing hot flares of the sun I bask

Wondering why we could never afford medication for mum and dad

This confounding question really makes me emotional

Stopping me from overlooking the beauty of the sun

And I run into our small creaky hut;

Daddy is down, silent and long gone

I run to the shade confused

Mummy is out, silent, a life she doesn’t own,

I stare with rage, my confused desolation;

My lost concern, my new life in isolation;

I am between the distances, tied to space;

So now I remember, their sickness had earned a pace;

That mad doctor, that cruel nurse;

Or maybe it’s the hospital, maybe not their fault?

But what if they cared a little?

What if they showed a little compassion?

What if they saved the time?

Time wasted on the queue, time to diagnose;

What if that day, they could treat before pay?

And paid more attention, just a little for the theater;

But they were adamant when it all started,

Cut them profusely and never startled,

I needed it, but I needed them too;

The transplants, the imprints of their love;

But they faced the monster, and risked it all for me,

So today I am gone, lonely in decision,

And I’m still scared of those cruel monsters

Who call themselves nurses but instead of nursing,

They are cursing and shouting at their patients;

Killing even the little hope they have left.

I know that there are some with wondrously beautiful hearts,

But such are rare to find.

Sometimes I feel like shutting my memories forever

So that I may never remember

These facts, the fact that I live in a country,

Where I cannot afford healthcare

Where I cannot afford the therapies for my cancer,

The pills and the medicine without well wishers

The fact that these health givers,

 Will still treat me as if I’m a drain,

No matter my pain;

No matter my dying condition,

And even that innocent child,

 Will never know their kindness

Even at the last minute of their life.

I wish you could feel this pain like I do,

Then you could recollect your compassion,

That caring heart that you spare for your loved ones

And assure me that everything will be fine,

Instead of staring at your watch,

Counting on the hours I have left on this bed,

The hours I have left in this world.

I wish I could forget.

It hurts a lot that we live in a country where fear is the only strength that we have left. The sounds of bullets, bomb blasts and the cries from horrific deaths are the songs that we can't stop our ears from hearing. Terror has painted horrific images in our hearts that we cant stop our eyes from seeing, dreams that we cant help to wake up from. Death after death, pain after pain, our eyes have shed painful tears that Only God can measure. 


I wish I could forget is a poem I created believing that One day, Kenya will be safe. 

I may forget everything,

but I cannot forget that stunning beauty that attracted all the nations to you. 
I cannot forget that innocent face,
and that dazzling smile that welcomed everyone home.
The charming queen you used to be, 
and that love that made us feel at home.

But what happened my motherland?
A country that grew up so beautiful, so peaceful, so colorful, so cheerful, 
so wealthy, so healthy,
and like mother-hen, you fed and protected all your family.
You were a home to the tourists, a hope to the refugees and a role model to many.

I believed in you Kenya,

and you raised my hopes so high above the planet's horizons,
only to find out my dreams shattered and scattered, by the winds of terror.
A nation that once taught me the meaning of brotherhood, has turned completely so foreign, so strange.
Home has never felt like home since you were torn apart.

What happened my motherland?

Why are you so gloomy?
Why are you so bloody?
Why have you turned to grey?

Look, Look, Look at the way we live in fear today
Who robbed your peace away?
Your confidence, your happiness your love, your strength, your beauty.
Why would you let them steal your peace and tear you into pieces?
Pieces that are no longer willing to unite again?

Where is the freedom that our heroes fought for?
Where is it, if we don’t feel safe in our own country, in our homes, in our schools, 
on our roads, not even in the church?

The movies we used to watch, have turned into reality. 
Hard to accept. Hard to forget.
And every day we watch a series of losses.
Losses of shortened innocent lives set to the graves.

How will we wake up from the nightmares of the post-election violence?

The violence that took our parents away?
Our siblings, our relatives, our neighbors, our friends.
That violence that left many crippled, disabled and depressed.
The violence that burnt many to ashes, to nothing.
That man-made violence that left orphans and widows, 
in the IDP Camps, in the streets anguished and alone.

How will we wake up from the horrific dreams of 

GARRISA GENOCIDE?  
MANDERA GENOCIDE?
WESTGATE ATTACK?  
KAPEDO ATTACKS? 
MPEKETONI ATTACKS?

MUNGIKI KILLINGS? 

ASSASINATIONS?   
ROAD ACCIDENTS?
BOMB BLASTS? 
ROBBERIES? 
RAPE? 

How will we wake up from them if you cannot protect us Kenya?
If the leaders we expect to protect us are the betrayers? 
So loathsome, so corrupt.
If we live in a country where the eyes of a five year–old, 
have already been taught how a tear gas tastes like, 
and that child knows clearly the difference between that teargas,
and the smoke that blazed their home down into ashes during an attack.
If we live in a country where a two year old knows clearly the difference between the sound of a bullet and that of a bomb blast.

The untold thoughts that live in our hearts, 

those thoughts that make us feel like there is a funeral within us. 
The unanswered questions, the pain, the fear. 
Can never disappear without peace, without security.

But I still believe in you My motherland, 
I still believe in you My government.
I still have a dream that you can make a history of Peace, Unity, 
a true story of Security.

I still believe that, ‘A people United shall never be defeated.'
And this time around, it’s no longer a song; it’s no longer a quote nor a slogan, 
but an action.

It’s never too late and you are never too weak KENYA, to do away with the first two letters of the word inSECURITY.

Written By Elizabeth Opiyo