Personal to Universal

As poets, we often put a lot of ourselves into a poem. Our time. Our effort. Our sweat and tears. Parts of us, and our lives — sometimes very large parts — can appear in our poems.But if the poem is very personal, ask yourself if it rises above the purely individual (your immediate life and experience) to become more widely relevant? Is it accessible to people beyond you and those who directly know you?It’s often easy to forget that poetry is actually an art. It transcends a diary entry; it eclipses personal journalism. But poets can overlook that. Poets can often push back on critiques and feedback that will improve a poem because the person critiquing has suggested a cut or change to factual personal circumstances. And the poet may respond “No. But that’s how it happened.” They get “stuck” in the truth of the experience they have written into the poem, and are unwilling to let it go for the sake of a better poem.The beauty of poetry as an art, and not a diary, is that the poem does not have to reflect the truth exactly as it happened. The facts are no more than raw materials to create a poem that moves or challenges the reader. The poet should manipulate, adapt and polish these circumstances unto they fit the needs of the poem. This malleability of the truth gives the poet a greater chance of writing something that touches other people, rather than something that is dismissed as a personal angst poem of the author.Our goal as poets is to touch readers; to move them. Affect the way they think and feel. And one of the best ways to do this is to give them a poem they can relate to. One they can immerse themselves in because it has “universal appeal”. The poem becomes a wider vehicle; it is now about them and their experience, and not about the poet per se. The poem is not closed off to them because it is too constrained in the rigid personal issues of the poet. Always remember your reader. Unless you are writing for immediate family whom know the story, you can sacrifice the facts for wider reader appeal.As the old adage says, NEVER LET THE TRUTH STAND IN THE WAY OF A GOOD STORY.

Universal to Personal

On the flip side, we have the transition from the universal to the personal.Does the poem you are writing deal with one of the ‘big ticket’ subjects like love, war, peace, death, etc? Is it a global event on a grand scale, e.g. the pandemic situation, tariffs on goods? If it is, does the poem show this from a new perspective? Is it fresh and original? Or is it simply stating what has already been said many, many times before? Are you rehashing old themes without new angles to draw the reader in? It is usually better to avoid the big issues, or, at least, not to try and deal with the whole thing at once. Don’t tackle a global issue in a single poem. Instead focus on one specific or smaller incident or image from the grand collage. In the long run this will usually be worth a lot more than overwhelming generalizations which tend to result in cliché-ridden verse.In these instances, try to find the personal story within the big issue. If you are writing a poem about WWII, don’t try and cover the entire period. Find a personal story or character within this setting that can carry the emotions, frustrations and heartbreak of the time. Show this person (or couple’s) story and bring this huge global event home to the reader on an intimate and personal level. They will relate to this far better than grand generalizations about the war.Always remember your reader and audience are key. As a poet you want them to be INVESTED in your poem and story. You need to consider perspectives of the universal and the personal when you write your poem, and where your narrator needs to stand in this regard.

Mary B