What National Poetry Day means to poet Dommy B and his tips for young poets

By Dommy B | Author, Family, Interview, Poetry, Guest Blog

Poet Dommy B has created us a guest blog to celebrate National Poetry Day!

I love National Poetry Day! It reminds me of something else which I have always loved. When I was a lad, Christmas was always a special time for me. Christmas was a time when people spent time together, had fun, gave each other gifts, and were kind. For me, National Poetry Day is Christmas for poetry lovers! 

What does it mean to be a poetry lover? Well, you do not have to love every poem. I am a poetry lover, definitely, but even I don't love every poem. That's OK!  I think some people hear or read a poem or two which isn't for them and then think 'nah, poetry's rubbish.' But the thing is, there are so many different kinds of poems so different from each other! 

There are funny poems, angry poems, scary poems, love poems, joiny-in poems, loud poems, quiet poems - there are as many different kinds of poems as there are different kinds of song or movie or any other kind of book. So National Poetry Day gives us a push to check some new poems out - and you never know, we might even find a brand-new favourite poem! 

We can spend brilliant time with other people, have fun with words, give gifts of maybe books or maybe the gift of reading a poem to someone else or sharing a link to a cool poem online or maybe going to watch a live poetry event performed by a great poet. 

All of my poems are about being kind. All of them. Some look at how the world can be less good when people choose not to be kind, whilst some celebrate how awesome it is when people are super kind and have great times in each other's company. For me, when we use our imagination, as poets do when they write poems, it is a chance for us to imagine the kind of world we would then like to go out and be a part of making into a reality. A kind world. A happy world!

Every year, I look forward to National Poetry Day, and this year, after us all having an unusual and challenging time over the past year and a bit, I am especially excited about what I know will be a magical, memorable and marvellous day.

To celebrate National Poetry Day I thought I'd share some tips for budding poets out there:

• If you would like to write your own poetry, what do you find interesting to write about? If you can choose to write about something which you think is really, really cool, it is more likely your passion will shine through, rather than if you write about something because someone else has told you they think a thing is a good thing to write about.
• How is your poem different from other poems you have already read? Copying is not so good. Being original is fantastic! Don't worry about being 'weird' - being 'weird' is great in poetry! The more unusual, and less like other people's poems, the better.
• Make sure people can understand what you're saying. Test your poem out on a family member. Not just to see if they think it is good, but do they understand the tale you're telling? For example, if you want to write a poem where a butler kills a king, and you read your poem to someone, and that person says 'I love your poem about the king killing the butler', well, it is good that they liked the poem but it is not good that they got what is meant to be happening in it completely the wrong way! Sometimes we get so excited making up stuff we can miss out important details.  If your poem doesn't make sense, what can you add, or take away, so that it does?
• Keep it short! Poems are usually quite to the point. If you keep having new ideas of new things which can happen in your poem, maybe make lots of different little poems rather than one big, possibly confusing one.
• If your poem tells a story, make sure it has s atrt, middle and end and that these three bits are of similar lengths. Sometimes we spend ages on the start and then want it finished so write a really quick end. That is not so good. Give the end as much attention as you give the beginning.

I hope you have an awesome National Poetry Day. Here are some of my poems I hope you will enjoy!

All the best,

Dommy B

Check out some of Dommy B's work, here's his poem 'Dragon in my Homework', find out more about National Poetry Day on the official website here, and make sure to follow Dom on Twitter here.