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 Poetry: September 05, 2012 Issue [#5238] |
  Poetry This week: What Do I Do With All These Poems? Edited by: Crys-not really here   More Newsletters By This Editor   1. About this Newsletter 2. A Word from our Sponsor 3. Letter from the Editor 4. Editor's Picks 5. A Word from Writing.Com 6. Ask & Answer 7. Removal instructions 
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Next, organize your poems into a logical order. Maybe your poems are related and tell a story, perhaps of your own life or of a made up character. If you're not lucky enough to have a coherent story line, then I recommend grouping your poems by topic to start off. You don't necessarily have to have defined sections labeled "love poems" and "death poems" and so forth in the book, but it can help if you have general headings in your mind.
I like to put poems within their categories into a logical order. Of course, I can't really define what "logical" is. 
I think of each grouping of poems as telling their own story, and each story making up a "chapter" of the larger work itself. So, I may start with a subdued poem and work my way up to the most dramatic poem of the "chapter." 
Of course, just as if you were writing a novel, the beginning and ending of a poetry manuscript matter a lot. They say that people decide within the first page of a novel whether or not the book has hooked them enough to keep going. I think the same thing is true for poetry. I like to start with a poem that brings the reader into my manuscript and that really shows off the best of my work. In the recent chapbook I have been entering into contests, that poem is my "Ars Poetica." It just seems like a proper way to begin a collection.
It's much harder for me to chose a poem for the end of a collection. I don't want my choice to be anticlimactic, and I certainly don't want to chose my weakest poem. I like to chose something just as strong as my first poem, something that will leave the reader with a lasting impression of my talent. My choice is often a poem that brings out strong emotions for that very reason.
However you decide to organize your poetry collection, at the very least do it with purpose. Readers notice when a poetry collection haphazardly tosses them around from topic to topic, emotion to emotion. They will feel cheated if they can tell you didn't put any thought into how you're displaying your work. When a collection makes sense to you, the odds are better that it will make sense to your readers. 
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