I need some help with my poetry style. Help is greatly appreciated?

[Hey oh ツ]

So, I've been told my poems are very unique, come from the heart and generally, good. But I've also been told that my poems lack poetic devices. I constantly TRY to incorporate them into my poems but I can't seem to do it. I mean I know what a metaphor is etc. I just don't know how to create one and use it in my poems. I consider myself and amateur writer since I'm only 15. Help me out here, please?
Thank you!

 

[Yodi I]

Creating a simile or metaphor is a natural ability. Everyone has it, but some people seem to grasp it easier than others.

All you have to do is take one thing (your subject) and expand upon it by comparing it to another thing.

"Your writing is a skeleton." This is a metaphor that describes your writing - it's like a skeleton because it's missing the "guts."

"Your writing is like a scaffold." Same thing, except this is a simile.

So what you want to do is, when you come to a point in your poem when you'd usually just say something plainly:
"I am sad."
You use your metaphor and simile talents to whip up something that's much more descriptive and poetical, and it helps your readers feel exactly what you feel. So, instead of just being generically sad:
"My heart is a broken jar on the cellar stairs, its shards like guts that ooze to the tune of icicle bells."

Your heart is the mechanism for your sadness, and then you just describe it using metaphors and similes. Good luck!

 

[S. P. M.]

I am sure you use similes, metaphors etc in your ordinary everyday
conversation. How many times have you said something like "as hot
as Hades" or "as cold as ice" (similes). I am sure you have said
or heard "a golden opportunity" or "a happy coincidence" (metaphors).
How about "merry music" or "sing a song of sixpence" (alliterations)
and "the fire devoured the trees" or "the fog hid the horizon"
(personification). In descriptive poetry it is usually easier to incorporate
these devices, however, for example, a poem about a car called Fred
which has human characteristics would be personification.

Do not "try" so hard. Relax and let the poem flow. "Talk" through your poem and the poetic devices will come to you. Hang in there! You can
do it!

 

[SiLeNce the AffLictioN]

You can create a metaphor, trust me. A metaphor, to explain simply, is something that takes the place of the real subject that you're trying to convey. For example, I wrote a story about a moon guiding me through the darkness, highlighting all the treacherous paths. Well, in actuality, I'm not really referring to a moon but indeed God. And God was illuminating what I could not see in the darkness. Furthermore, the darkness itself is a metaphor because it shows that I'm lost--I cannot see on my own.

You can do it with your work too! Simply write something you feel strongly about, but change the actual subject to something else. There are many other ways of consuming your work with poetic essences(similes for example), but simply focus on the metaphor for now because it works splendidly. If you need additional help, feel free to email me. You can do anything you put your mind to, so get to it, and be a zealot!