Writing About Money Without Writing a Complaint Poem

Money is the most complained-about subject in poetry and the most likely to be a rant. A judge on the three moves that turn a money poem into a real one, the test that tells you if the poem is about the money or about you, and the one image that always works.

Money is the most complained-about subject in poetry, and it is the most likely to be a rant. Every contest pile has a stack of money poems that are about the lack and the want and the way the world is unfair, and the rant is the thing that makes the poem a complaint instead of a poem.

The money poem that works is not about the money. It is about the person who is in it.

The rant trap

The rant poem is the one that tells you how bad the money is. The lack, the want, the unfairness, the way the world is stacked against you. It is accurate and it is flat, because the money is the subject and the subject is the one thing the reader already knows.

A poem about money should not describe the money. It should describe what the money does to the person who is in it.

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

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

Move two: give the money a body. The money should be doing something to the body, the hands that are counting the change, the eyes that are looking at the price, the feet that are walking to the cheaper shop. If the money is just sitting there, it is a backdrop. If it is doing something to the body, it is a subject.

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

The question that decides

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

The rant poem says 'this is how bad it is'. The real money poem says 'this is what the money did to me'. The difference is the difference between a complaint and a life.

A worked example

Bad: 'I am poor and I cannot afford the things I want and the world is unfair.' The money is the subject; the speaker is absent.

Better: 'I have learned to make a meal out of the things that are left, and I have become the person who knows the price of bread in three shops.' The money 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 money, not the money itself.

Where it goes wrong

The trap is the poem that is a complaint about the money. The complaint is not a poem; it is a rant. The poem is the thing that the money did to the person who was in it, and the doing is the work.

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

Keep reading

For the craft side, the freelance-income module covers the deeper method. The audience 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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