How to Write About Friendship Without Writing a Love Poem

Friendship is the most underwritten subject in poetry, and the poems that do it well are rare. A judge on the three moves that turn a friendship poem into a real one, the test that tells you if the poem is about the friend or the friendship, and the one image that always works.

Friendship is the most underwritten subject in poetry. Everyone writes about love, and almost nobody writes about friendship, and the poems that do are rare and usually better than the love poems. The reason is simple: friendship is harder to write about because it has no script.

Love has a script. Love has the roses and the candles and the forever and the always. Friendship has no script, which is why the friendship poem is the poem that has to be invented, not copied.

The three moves that turn a friendship poem into a real one

Move one: the shared history. The friendship poem that works is about the thing you have been through together, not the feeling you have for each other. The poem that says 'we have been friends for twenty years' is a poem about the idea of friendship. The poem that says 'the way you held my hand when my father died' is a poem about a specific friend, and the friend is the friendship.

Move two: the ordinary thing. The friendship poem that works is about the ordinary thing, not the extraordinary one. The poem that says 'you are always there for me' is a poem about the idea of friendship. The poem that says 'the way you leave the light on in the hall' is a poem about a habit, and the habit is the friendship.

Move three: the distance. The friendship poem that works is about the distance, not the closeness. The poem that says 'we are so close' is a poem about the idea of friendship. The poem that says 'I haven't seen you in three years and I still know how you take your tea' is a poem about a real friendship, and the real friendship is the distance.

The test that decides

Here is the test I use on my own friendship poems, and it is the only one that matters: is this poem about the friend, or is it about the friendship? If the poem is about the friendship, it is a cliché. If it is about a specific person doing a specific thing, it is a poem.

The cliché is the poem that could be about anyone. The real poem is the one that could only be about one person.

The one image that always works

The image that always works in a friendship poem is the one that is so specific it could only belong to the person the poem is about. The way they laugh at their own joke before they finish it. The way they hold a pen. The way they stand at the kitchen counter on a Tuesday. The image that is so small and so specific that it could not be a symbol; it could only be a fact.

The friendship poem that works is the poem that has one of those images in it, and the image is the thing that makes the poem true.

Where the friendship poem goes wrong

The trap is the poem that is about the feeling instead of the person. 'You are my best friend' is a feeling; 'the way you leave the light on in the hall' is a person. The feeling is the cliché; the person is the poem.

If you want to see a friendship poem that is about the person, the prompts library has a set on the people who matter, and the contest window is open when the draft is ready. Friendship is not the subject. The friend is.

Keep reading

For the craft side, the love poems collection covers the deeper method. The metaphor module is the page to read next, and the sonnet form is where the work goes when it is done.

By Writory Editorial, for Writory.

Keep reading in the Writory Library

Enter a Writory poetry contest