Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Makar – National Poet
      • Our Waking Breath: A Poem-letter from Scotland to Ukraine
      • A Woman’s A Woman
      • The story of the Makar – National Poet of Scotland
    • Best Scottish Poems
    • Spiorad an Àite
      Spirit of Place
    • The Trysting Thorns
    • Poetry Ambassadors
      Tosgairean na Bàrdachd
      • Poetry Commissions: Walter Scott 250
        Coimiseanan Bàrdachd: Walter Scott 250
      • Poetry Ambassadors 2021
    • Poetry Ambassadors 2020
    • Posters
    • Podcasts
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • SQA set texts
    • Learning resources
    • Designing sensory poetry activities
    • Children’s poems in Scots
    • National Poetry Day archive
    • New to poetry?
    • Advice for poets
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
    • Exhibitions
  • Shop
    • Poetry Highlights
    • Entropie Books
    • Stichill Marigold Press
    • Poems for Doctors, Nurses & Teachers
    • Scottish Poetry
    • Poetry Pamphlet Cards
    • Help
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Jobs
    • Company Papers & Policies
    • Our projects
    • Our building
    • FAQs
    • Find us
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • Helena Nelson
  • >
  • Eight Tips for New Poets
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

Eight Tips for New Poets

Helena Nelson

1. Read modern, current verse
Byron, Blake, Burns in the bin.
Ancients out, Armitage in.

2.Subscribe to two or three good quality small press magazines.
What dreams may come? But here’s the rub:
they will not print poems in exchange for your sub.

3.Join a Writers’ Group.
Consult the Poetry Society to see if there is one in your area.
If there is none, it is scary. If there is one, it is scarier.

4. If you use traditional forms, do it in a new way.
For several hundred years the sonnet has stayed the same
because nobody dared change it.
Rearrange it.

5. Create an audience for your work.
Practise reading poems aloud.
Invite friends round. Dispense drink. Read to the assembled crowd.
Retire upstairs to your study, unbowed
but bloody-minded.

6. Win a National Competition.
If you’re hesitating whether to win or wait,
win. Don’t hesitate.

7.Write your name and address on every sheet submitted; but not © Hugh Snowball.
The former is professional & subtly revealing.
The latter suggests you are pompous & regard your poems as worth stealing.

8. Do not submit your poems with a eulogistic letter citing previous publications.
If your work has Merit, the rest is history.
(How so much garbage is printed every month while yours is returned
is a mystery.)


Helena Nelson

From Down With Poetry! (Glenrothes: Happenstance, 2016). Reproduced by permission of the author.

Tags:

Poetry By Heart Scotland post-1914
Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Helena Nelson

Helena Nelson was born in Cheshire, and now lives in Fife. She is a poet and publisher, the founder editor of HappenStance Press.
More about Helena Nelson

Online Shop

Browse our range of poetry books, cards and gifts in our online shop.
Shop now

Events

Discover our poetry events at the library & online.
Find forthcoming Events
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2022.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library