5 Ways Poetry Influenced My Debut Novel

Though I always considered myself a fiction writer, I made an unexpected shift to poetry during the pandemic. While sheltering in place with four young children, I found the idea of working on what is now my debut novel, The Very Unremarkable Life of Mrs. Etty Bloom, daunting. I was deep in revision and it felt too vast and complex an endeavor during those precarious and unfamiliar times, but poetry seemed approachable in its form. I took several virtual one-on-one poetry workshops with poet and Fulbright Scholar Rachel Kann, and within a few years, published a collection of poetry, girl woman wife mother, with Kelsay Books.

(5 Tips for Writing a Novel-in-Verse.)

It shocked me that I was a published poet before I was a published novelist, but what surprised me even more was how I was able to apply some of the craft tools that I learned in writing verse to fiction. Fiction writing was forever changed. I was not just a novelist anymore; I was also a poet, and I thought like one even as I navigated the roads of prose. Here are five ways in which poetry influenced how I approached fiction.

The brevity of poetry requires intentional language. Verse tends to rely on concision, and as such, each word must be weighed and measured in its intention. This tool helped me when crafting emotionally charged scenes in my novel, to promote greater inhabitance within those singular moments. It encouraged me to slow down and calculate the significance of each sentence to create a greater impact for my reader.

One particular scene that comes to mind is when my main character, Etty, finds her father crying alone after she has unintentionally triggered painful memories for him. This is a particularly important scene in the development of my character, and it deals with heavy history, but it is also framed in between humorous moments. The practice of intentional language allowed me to elevate this scene and slow it down so that the power of this shared moment between Etty and her father is not lost between the humor that it is positioned between.

Something I love about poetry is the playfulness of grammar. Grammar becomes malleable within the form of verse. It is there to serve the lines, and not the other way around. Pushing the boundaries of grammar, finding innovative ways to utilize it to create nuanced meaning to a line, to a stanza, to an entire poem, is a tantalizing and effective tool in poetry that I was eager to bring to fiction.

My novel breaks the rules of grammar on page one. The opening paragraph includes two one-word sentences. Much like poetry, these one-word sentences are repeated through the paragraph to create the same effect as a repeated word or phrase in a poem. It induces rhythm and attention to a motif. It also fosters a more nuanced read. Variation in sentence structure elicits attentiveness, entices imagination. My rule of thumb, though, for breaking grammar rules, is to know which rules you are breaking and to do so deliberately.

Poetry uses lyrical and symphonic unification of words to elicit heightened rapture and gratification. As a result of its tight form, the aesthetic composition of each word individually and as a whole is carefully crafted to maximize connection, insight, and lingering reflection. This attention to language is a distinguishing feature between verse and prose but can easily be woven into fiction. The key is to do so with integrity and self-awareness so as to avoid purple prose.

The revision process is an ideal time to evaluate language, polish words, and to weave imagery, metaphor, and simile—all tools that are key components in poetry. During the revision of my novel, I was able to calculate which scenes benefited from these poetic devices. Doing so during revision allowed me a wider lens so that I didn’t lose track of the plot and pace. The idea is to use the language to elevate the work, not to weigh it down.

Poetry is intended to awaken an emotional response. Carrying this intention throughout the novel encouraged me to dig deeper into my scenes and characters to maximize the emotional response of my readers. This was particularly important in my novel as it deals with a culture and religion that is unfamiliar to many, and I wanted to find the commonality of the human experience within these unfamiliar situations. Retaining this poetic purpose maintained my focus on the integrity of eliciting effective reactions.

Despite varied lengths, a poem is still compact; therefore, the process of revision requires exceptional attention to detail. My revision skills sharpened with my poetry instruction, as one must evaluate the significance of even a comma, the placement of a single word. And because every word and each grammatical choice is full of intention, the revision process is fine-tuned to a meticulous obsession. This trains the eye to smaller details within larger contexts (such as a lengthy novel).

There is a dizzying amount of detail to tend to during the revision of work that spans hundreds of pages. As a mom of four, writing is choppy, oft interrupted, and sometimes months go by without any writing at all, but when it comes to revision, I always aim for consistency and presence as the revision process requires scrupulous attention, rapid recall, precision, and accuracy. Having written an entire collection of poetry before completing the most radical re-write of my novel, I retained valuable revision skills that were integral to reaching the final draft.

Long before my pandemic-induced poetic endeavors, I was always in the practice of reading poetry before sitting down to write fiction. I found it served as a creative mental warm-up and felt my work benefited from reading verse before writing prose; it wet the creative palate. If a fiction writer is threatened by the strategies of poets, I would at least recommend this one tip: Adopt reading poetry into your writing regimen. Keep a beloved collection of poetry nearby, read a poem or two, sit with it for a moment, let it linger, and then let it lead you forward.

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