How to Make a Poem that Flies
by
Brod Bagert
If you want to put some life in a poem,
a little extra heart,
you might find that personification
is a pretty good place to start.
Make things act like they’re alive!
It’s a poetry delight.
Watch how I use it now to say—
“It was a stormy night.”
The clouds began to growl!
The wind began to cry!
The moon got scared and disappeared,
she didn’t say goodbye.
So in your poems, or in your prose,
or in your conversation
look for little clever ways
to insert a personification.
It’ll get to be a habit,
one of those everyday things,
one of the ways a poet learns
to give a poem its wings.
Then if your poem can find someone
to read its words out loud,
those wings will fill with air and soar
above the highest cloud.
