Writing About Hope Without Writing a Preachy Poem

Hope is the most preachy subject in poetry and the most likely to be a sermon. A judge on the three moves that turn a hope poem into a real one, the test that tells you if the poem is about the hope or about you, and the one image that always works.

Hope is the most preachy subject in poetry, and it is the most likely to be a sermon. Every contest pile has a stack of hope poems that are about the light at the end of the tunnel, the dawn after the dark, the way things will get better. The sermon is the thing that makes the poem a poster instead of a poem.

The hope poem that works is not about the hope. It is about the person who is hoping.

The sermon trap

The sermon poem is the one that tells you how good hope is. The faith, the strength, the belief, the way the hope is the thing that keeps you going. It is accurate and it is flat, because the hope is the subject and the subject is the one thing the reader already knows.

A poem about hope should not describe the hope. It should describe what the hope did to the person who is hoping.

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

Move one: put a person in it. The hope poem that works has a person in it, a parent, a friend, a self. The hope is the stage; the person is the play. The poem is about the person in the hope, not the hope itself.

Move two: give the hope a body. The hope should be doing something to the body, the hands that are holding on, the eyes that are looking up, the feet that are still standing. If the hope is just sitting there, it is a backdrop. If it is doing something to the body, it is a subject.

Move three: let the hope change you. The best hope poems are the ones where the speaker is different at the end than they were at the beginning, and the hope is the thing that changed them. The hope is the agent; the poem is the change.

The question that decides

Here is the question I ask when I am judging a hope poem: is this poem about the hope, or is it about the person in the hope? If the answer is the hope, it is a sermon. If the answer is the person, it is a poem.

The sermon poem says 'this is how good hope is'. The real hope poem says 'this is what the hope did to me'. The difference is the difference between a sermon and a life.

A worked example

Bad: 'I have hope and I believe that things will get better and I will not give up.' The hope is the subject; the speaker is absent.

Better: 'I still leave the light on in the hall, the way I did when he was here, and I do not know if I am doing it for him or for me.' The hope is the agent; the speaker is the person who is changed by it. The poem is about the person who has been changed by the hope, not the hope itself.

Where it goes wrong

The trap is the poem that is a celebration of the hope. The celebration is not a poem; it is a sermon. The poem is the thing that the hope did to the person who was in it, and the doing is the work.

If you want to see a hope poem that is about the person, the prompts library has a set on faith and the self, and the contest window is open when the draft is ready. The hope is the stage. The person is the play.

Keep reading

For the craft side, the hope collection covers the deeper method. The volta module is the page to read next, and the contest is where the work goes when it is done.

By Writory Editorial, for Writory.

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