How to Write a Poetry Book?

An aspiring Poet finds it very difficult to get guidelines about how to write a Poetry Book. It is a fact that writing a Poetry Book is as cumbersome as writing a Novel. However, formatting a poetry book is much more technical than that of a Novel. Therefore, in this blog, we will talk about how to format such a book and make it ready to be published.

Tip 01: Before you begin writing a Poetry Book, you must know the type of Poem you are writing i.e.

• A collection of free-hand poems: the poems where the rhyming scheme has no role to play. A paragraph or feelings are divided into lines of 5-6 words each.

Example:

You came into my life

As a ray of hope,

I wish you stay with me

At every thick and thin of it.

Oh I so wish to be

The ocean of your life,

For you to dive in it

Everywhile.

• A collection of rhyming poems: the poems where rhyming has a major role to play.
  
  Example:

I still remember your eyes

Soft like butterflies

So silent so deep

Like an ocean that never cries.

You should always understand the type of poetry you write and make sure all your poems belong to the same type.

Tip 02: The following things make a perfect poem:

• Division of perfect size of Stanzas – Freehand poetry doesn’t require the division of poetry into stanzas, but it is advisable to change the stanza where a paragraph or a feeling takes a pause. However, a poem with a rhyming scheme should have stanzas of 4 lines each.

• The correct size of a poem – There is no hard and fast rule for the size of a poem but generally a single page of 5 by 8 sized books should have 16 – 20 lines only. Therefore, it is advised to keep a poem of not more than 20 lines.

• Grammar and Punctuation: Grammar doesn’t have major role in poetry, but morally it is not the right thing to ignore grammar. However, ignoring the punctuations may hamper the flow of reading, so you should make sure that punctuation mistakes are not there in your poems.

• Avoid using short forms like ‘u’ for ‘You’ or ‘cuz’ for ‘because’. This is incorrect.

• Every poem should have a unique title. This gives individual recognition to each poem.

Tip 03: How many poems should your book consist of?

Generally, 40 – 80 poems make a perfect sized poetry book. This helps in keeping the book easy to handle, affordable and compact. However, you can go up to any number of poems you want to include keeping at least 40 minimum poems.

Tip 04: What should be the font name, size and line spacing while we are writing a book in a Microsoft Word file?

Font – Times New Roman

Heading Size – 14, Bold

Stanza Font Size – 12, Italic

Line spacing – 1.15

Line space – One line space after every stanza.

We hope with this blog you have got a fair idea about How to Write a Poetry Book and how to format it.

Good Luck!!

Learn How to Publish a Book in India