In the build-up to National Poetry Day on 25 August, writer and editor Gail Ingram shares a poetry exercise that will give inspo to avid poet or newbie alike.

Celebrated Canterbury poet James Norcliffe says there are three ingredients for great writing: insight, originality and craft. Here are a few things to consider when choosing these ingredients.

Insight This is what you discover through the process of writing your poem and what the reader gains from reading it. Be inspired by the small everyday moments that touch you, frighten you, evoke something powerful that you want to understand. As you write, examine your inspiration closely; pay attention to the details – for example, was the colour of his hair caramel or camel? Ask yourself which word or image best fits the moment/feeling you’re trying to capture – if the man was sweet, then ‘caramel’, goofy then ‘camel’. Pay close attention to the details of the moment/feeling and insight will come.

Originality You are original and the way your talk is unique to you, so use your own voice and idiosyncrasies of expression to show us what you perceive. Avoid sounding like ‘a writer’. Experiment with language – put words together that don’t usually go together – ‘blue sky’ won’t stir a feeling, but how about ‘blue-cheese sky’ or ‘shy sky’ depending on what feeling you want to evoke. Veer away from clichés and abstract words. Keep going back to the moment that inspired the poem to find the exact word, sound, simile or metaphor that fits your experience.

Craft Poems differentiate themselves from other writing by using line breaks to create a shape on the page and, literally, layer the meaning. Poems look for patterns in language – using repetition of sounds, phrases, language features, or by using rhythm, rhymes and line lengths. Read other poetry and borrow the patterns you find for your own poems.

What better place to start than your place. Here’s a poem I wrote about one of my favourite pieces of street art, which will be very familiar to the people of Ōtautahi. I wrote it from the point of view of one of the elephants painted on the wall in Manchester Street. A poem like this, when the poet is speaking through another voice, is called a persona poem. Can you see any patterns or repeated bits of language? Listen.

Elephant on Manchester St

From this slab I look out at you,
grey city street, smell
the leather, the creak
of shoes hurrying past,
the briefcases, the fumes
rising from the asphalt. A whiff of
cardamom from a passing truck
takes me back to
the sound of a distant trumpeting
the pull and chew of fresh bamboo
in the lime damp of a morning,
this crinkle of time
on my concrete skin.

The main repetitions in this poem are around senses and sounds. It’s about the poor elephant stuck in a city of very different smells, sights and sounds than his home country. He senses ‘the smell of leather’, ‘the creak of shoes’, ‘the fumes’, ‘a whiff of cardamom’ and ‘distant trumpeting’. There is repetition of phonic sounds too – can you hear the ‘s’ sound repeated in the second line – ‘city street, smell’? The ‘c’ or ‘k’ sound also repeats across the poem – ‘creak’, ‘briefcases’, ‘cardamom’, ‘back’ ‘crinkle’, ‘concrete’ – and there are other echoes of vowel sounds – ‘shoes’ and ‘fumes’, ‘chew’ and ‘bamboo’ – sounds to evoke a time and place.

Another important feature is that the end of the poem swerves away from what is essentially a list of the senses felt. The last two lines are an observation that time has wrinkled (the cardamom smell took the elephant back to another time and place). The end of the poem not only adds another layer of meaning to the poem but makes the poem feel like an ending.

Your turn

Write a persona poem from the point of view of an object in your city – it could be a sculpture in the gardens, a pōhutakawa tree along Ferry Road or an ugly piece of furniture in a shop window. Have a particular object in mind that evokes a feeling in you. What does your chosen object observe in a particular moment? Think about that moment. Is it Friday rush hour or the wee hours, or is it windy or rainy?

The particular moment you choose will influence what is observed. Use as many senses as possible. What does the object see, hear, smell, feel, taste in that moment? For extra points, use alliteration and sounds that echo. What do the sounds and smells remind your object of? Another time? Another place? Finish your poem by making an observation about your object’s experience.

Title tip When you’re writing a poem that assumes another voice, the title is a good place to let the reader know who’s speaking. My title, ‘Elephant on Manchester St’ also adds a specific location. A date or time may also guide the reader, as well as adding another layer to the poem.

Process – first draft Poetry, like all writing, is a process and a practice. The first draft you write is about your discovery of the moment, the laying down of your raw feeling and experience on paper to gain insight. The first draft is the compost for your poem to grow. It is often messy, mawky and muddled. In the flush of getting it down on paper, you may think you’ve laid down the best dirt ever written. But be careful. It is still only dirt. It hasn’t been shaped into a blooming garden yet.

Tip Write fast. Don’t correct yourself. Shoo your inner critic away. Expect not to get it right and expect to make terrible mistakes (sometimes the mistakes are the most beautiful bits).

Second, third and fourth drafts Poetry is a craft, a creation shaped from vivid language and sound. The second draft is about finding the patterns and sounds in the messy language of your first draft and bringing the insight you found in the first draft to the surface so the reader can find it too. Bring your inner critic back to help you sharpen your language.

Shaping your work Experiment. Shift the order of sentences to see what happens. Shape your poem into lines – end a line with a word or rhythm you want to emphasise. Create patterns with the language. Add alliteration and repeated sounds. Delete unintended repetitions of words and ideas. Replace explanations and abstract words with specific concrete language and imagery. Put words together that don’t usually go together and avoid cliché. Be original and strange. Use the senses – all of them. Read out loud to check the rhythm.

Feedback Part of any learning is getting feedback. I’ve learned my craft by having other poets examine every word, line and stanza for shape and meaning. In this way, I’ve learned not only how to make my own poem more effective at communicating but also what works and what doesn’t.

Tips For critical feedback, ask another wordsmith (not your best friend) to read your poem and comment on specific words or lines or stanzas they don’t ‘get’ or don’t think fit with the theme or don’t flow. Listen openly without reacting – you may learn something. You can choose later if you want to take the advice or not. It’s your poem.

Best advice ever Play with your words, have fun, surprise yourself.