Four Questions To Ask Every Poem: Using The Poetic Temperaments

As poets we all have a certain way we like to write. While some might love the order and arc of narrative poetry, others might like the untamed experimentation of language. Every poet comes to the page with different styles, strategies and preferences. 

On my best days (and in my best drafts) my writing is wild and loose, like driving windows down along the cliffy California coastline, hair messy in the hot August wind. This doesn’t mean I don’t have poems tidy as Marie Kondo’s closet or stark as Hemingway’s prose. This just means if you asked me my poetic default, I would not begin with the conventions of logic, even though Ive come to value that too. And while imagination and wildness are what thrill me, I’m always afraid that too much of them might take away from the structure and story of a poem. 

A truly great poem is a well balanced ecosystem. It is important that there is not too much or too little of one element. Too wild and you might lose the reader’s focus, too sparse and you might risk losing context, characters and more. 

Enter the Four Poetic Temperaments:

Many years back, I watched Airea D Matthews give a craft talk, organized by the Speakeasy Project. This talk changed the way I think of poetry. 

Matthews spoke about the “Four Poetic Temperaments and the Forms of Poetry” and essay by Gregory Orr in the book Poets Teaching Poets: Self and the World.

In this essay, Orr argues that every poet has a specific temperament or default way of writing that focuses on one of the following: 

• Story 

• Structure 

• Music 

• Imagination 

Story and structure are more confined aspects, with rules and framework. Whereas music and imagination are unconfined and limitless. A great poem has all four of these elements, giving poets a clear criteria in which to examine their work. In the talk Matthew’s reference Auden’s famous “Funeral Blues” as having all of these temperances perfectly present in one poem. 

As an educator and editor, I work with a lot of clients who say, “I have this poem, like it but something about it feels off.” I know this feeling. The feeling like something is missing but you don’t know what. 

Like chef, The Four Temperaments allows poets the ability to taste a poem and ask what’s missing? More salt? More flour? Or realize what there might be too much of? Too much garlic? Or rosemary?

This technique gives poets the ability to ask, identifying these four elements and reflect on how to balance them so one aspect does overpower the other? 

 It always benefits a poet to know their strengths and areas of improvement for both their work and each individual poem.  “Four Poetic Temperaments” give us the ability to self examine, to reach for areas of growth and reflect on our innate writing style. 

When editing a poem, or giving feedback to someone else I recommend using these four questions, based on the  “Four Poetic Temperaments” by Gregory Orr to guide your process. 

• What is the structure?

  • Is the structure helping the poem? Hurting it?

  • How does it echo content and emotion?

  • How does it look on the page? Why? 

  • What is the visual argument? 

  • How do line breaks and white space inform readers?

• What is the story being told?

  • Who is telling the story?

  • Why are they telling the story now?

  • Where does the story start? 

  • Where is the action in the story? 

  • Is there a resolution or open-ended?

  • Who is this story for?

  • What is the experience? 

  • What is the emotion?

• Where is the music? 

  • Where does the language sing?

  • Where is the rhythm? 

  • What is the rhyme?

  • Where does the poet add: alliteration, imagery, varied syntax?

• Where is the wildness and imagination?

  • Where does the poet include imagination?

  • Where does the poet take risks? Language? Story? Structure?

  • Where are there elements of newness? Freshness?

  • Where are there opportunities for surrealism? 

So the next time you read a poem that knocks your socks off, ask yourself how each of the “Four Poetic Temperaments” is present? Or you’re wrestling with a poem ask yourself, “What temperament do I have too much?  What temperament isn’t present enough?”  This approach with accompanying questions will give you a clear, quick approach to reflect on any poem. 

KELLY GRACE THOMAS is an ocean-obsessed Aries from Jersey. She is a self-taught poet, editor, educator and author. Kelly teaches one-day and month-long poetry online workshops to poets all over the world. Kelly is the winner of the 2020 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize and  2017 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle, Her first full-length collection, Boat Burned, released with YesYes Books in January 2020. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: Best New Poets 2019, Los Angeles Review, Redivider, Muzzle, Sixth Finch and more. Kelly is the Director of Education for Get Lit and the co-author of Words Ignite. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband Omid. www.kellygracethomas.com