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Michael Jackman
Singer-Songwriter, Multi-instrumentalist, & Poet

Tagged: teaching creative writing

White Mountains, New Hampshire

Poetry Podcast: “Stopping by Woods”

A short poetry podcast by yours truly that I think you’ll really enjoy. I take a nice, easy dive down into one of Robert Frost’s poems to show some of the cool inner workings. This was fun for me to do. I got to write the script, do the recording...

trying to teach students not to use clichés

With experience as a writer comes certainty about clichés (and their exceptions). Don’t use ’em exclamation point period. These worn-out formulas add nothing to the writing. Setting aside characters like Hamlet’s Polonius who spout clichés as a way of demonstrating that very fact. Yet I have students in upper level...

listen to an amazing poem by Gwendolyn Brooks

Here’s Major Jackson reading an amazing poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, “Negro Hero.” The reading is part of a series celebrating the 110th Anniversary of the Poetry Society of America.. Check out the series here: poetrysociety.org/features/reading-through-the-decades.

A little advice on poem titles

I think poets should avoid certain kinds of titles. Particularly one-word titles such as, for example, “Claustrophobia” or “Illness.” Now, not all one-word titles are a problem. I mean the kind that explain or broadcast the poem’s “theme” to the reader. By “theme” in this case I don’t mean literary...

poems are not school papers

So many of my intro to creative writing students can’t get out of the habit of writing poems like papers, planning a “topic,” and outlining the “points” they want to make. They think of poems as “meanings” decorated with pretty, poetic language. No! The purpose of a poem is to...

Poetry: Six Essential Principles

Here are six essential principles for writing lyric poetry. They are based on my many years of writing and studying “ars poetica,” the art of poetry. Keep these principles in mind when drafting and revising. 1. Poetry is Music A poem isn’t just words in a certain order. A poem...