The Creativity and Joy of Letting Your Poems Go Wrong

Stuck in a writing rut? Instead of getting bogged down by perfectionism, you can let your mistakes guide you! We offer some playful ideas for poems to help you break the rules. Every writer knows the feeling of sitting with a notebook or screen, waiting for the next line to feel “right,” but nothing seems to happen. Sometimes, the best way to beat this writer’s block is to let go of being right and just play with words – no matter how silly it feels. At the AVBOB Poetry Project, we appreciate this kind of experimentation because real creativity often hides in the places where control and perfect technique end.

What Qualifies as a Poem?

There isn’t one answer that defines what poetry is. Poems don’t always rhyme or follow a set rhythm or structure, making identifying what sets them apart challenging. Most often, they use a concentrated format and arrange words lyrically. So, while we will be encouraging some “rule-breaking” in this article, there isn’t truly a way to break rules when it comes to poetry. You can be as silly or serious with your piece as you wish. In his poem “Jabberwocky”, Lewis Carroll uses fantastical, made-up words to convey a heroic tale,

“And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!”

The poem is nonsensical but still uses rhythm and feeling to convey the piece’s message. So, if you find your spelling slips or a word appears where it doesn’t belong, why not stay with it? That small “mistake” might turn into a poem, and you can take the next step and register to submit it to the AVBOB Poetry Project.

Poems That Begin with a Mistake

Sometimes all you need is a surprising push to get back into the writing rhythm. Below are creative prompts to help you start with no regard for perfection. You can try a few of them when your ideas feel stale or your inner critic gets too loud.

• Rewrite the Wrong Line: Look through your old drafts or notes and find a line you once cut or crossed out because it felt clumsy or “off”. Next, begin a new poem with it. Let it speak this time, even if it feels strange.
  
• The Deleted Poem: Find one of your unfinished or scrapped poems, jot down all your favourite lines, and rearrange them to create a whole new piece.
  
• Play Autocorrect Roulette: Type a starting word on your phone and let the predictive text feature choose the subsequent words to form a sentence. The results are often hilarious, but you can use this interesting phrase as the theme of a brand-new poem.
  
• The Overheard Error: Write down a line you misheard in a conversation or song. Without correcting it, let the mistaken version lead the topic for a new poem.
  
• Broken Telephone: Take a short poem you love and run it through Google Translate into three or four different languages, before translating it back to English again. The distortions can reveal odd and surprising poetic phrases you’d never have thought of yourself.
  
• Erasing to Discover: Print a poem you’ve already written and start crossing out random words until something new appears in the gaps. The unexpected word pairings might say more than the original lines did.
  

Why Mistakes Help You Grow as a Writer

When you stop worrying about doing it “right,” your creativity begins to breathe again. Mistakes pull you away from perfectionism and closer to discovery. They let you play, wander, and loosen the rules that once felt heavy. Many beloved poets have written from confusion, doubt, or let their thoughts spill out by accident, and those moments of risk often gave their work its soul.

FAQs About Writing Poems That Go Wrong

• Can I submit a “mistake poem” to the AVBOB Poetry Project? Yes! Every experiment is welcome as long as your poem feels authentic and true to the theme. Many writers find their most original work when they stop trying to sound perfect.
• What if my poem doesn’t make sense? Let it sit for a day or two, then reread it. Sometimes a strange or confusing line just needs time. You might notice patterns or emotions you didn’t see before, and you can tweak it to sound better.

Why not let your poems go wrong and see what they reveal? If you have any questions about the AVBOB Poetry Project, we’re happy to help!