April is national poetry month, so it seemed appropriate to write a post about poems. In line with the general theme of my blog, I’m focusing on what writing poetry can teach us about writing novels. Having studied poetry as part of my university course, these are the three important things I found:

Creative metaphor and expressive language
Language is essential in all writing, of course it is, but this is particularly true of poetry. Poetry can teach us a lot about prose and finding our unique creative voice. When writing a poem, you’re forced to truly consider language that expresses your feelings, thoughts and message. It also encourages you to get creative with metaphor, getting your message across in ways that are thought provoking and able to be interpreted in different ways.

Cutting out unimportant words
Poetry is all about being concise, and words become extremely valuable. To ensure…