L.A. Garnett – Author

I have never enjoyed writing poetry to the same extent as a novel—I promise, I’ve really tried. Every attempt I’ve made has come out choppy and immature, like a middle school student in English class cranking out crappy haikus.

Why, then, do I keep thinking about it?

In my current WIP, a romance novel, I’ve created a character who reads and writes poetry. He’s romantic, dedicated to his family, level-headed, and privately very sensuous. I needed this to come through in his writing—it felt inauthentic to simply say that he was writing poetry and that my FMC was blown away by his skill. No, I needed to provide examples. That meant that I needed to write poetry and it needed to be good.

I’ll admit, the little poem that lives in my current draft isn’t that. It’s a placeholder and if a few elements from it remain by the end, fine, but I would not publish it now as is. I need to research and that means consuming a lot of poetry. I want to know what’s good, what’s considered the gold standard, and what’s experimental.

If you have any poetry recommendations, I’d love to hear them! I’m looking to read whatever I can find—including instructional books—so I’m open to any and all recs. Hopefully, this all comes through when my WIP is published and you guys think this guy is the bee’s knees.

The Spiraling, my debut fantasy novel, is now available! Check out my books page to learn more. You can purchase it wherever you buy books online.