Jessica Traynor Shares some Thoughts on Compiling a Pamphlet or Collection of Poetry

When I'm speaking to poets about different approaches to putting work together, my main advice is to try to enjoy the process of experimentation, of not quite knowing what you're doing. Putting poems together to create a bigger statement of sorts that will sustain a reader's interest in a pamphlet or collection is as creative a process as writing poems in the first place, and, like writing the poems themselves, it's a process that can't be forced, that's beset with uncertainties and small moments of epiphany. So there is no one size fits all approach! However, there are methodologies and approaches I think can be useful. Firstly, try to assess what actually happens over the course of the pamphlet - is the speaker processing past events and reaching a kind of resolution? Or are the poems addressing moments where resolution can't be found? Poetry doesn't need to adhere to a narrative 'hero's journey', but in terms of mood and dynamics, it can be helpful to think of how your poems might fit this template. One example I might give would be, if we have a poem that deals with a past trauma or sad memory, and we revisit this event or dynamic a number of times throughout the pamphlet, we can feel a little like we're stuck in a loop, and each moment we hit these emotions offers diminishing emotional returns. Grouping poems which deal with similar dynamics together can allow us to see an event from a number of different angles or it can demonstrate another issue - perhaps these poems are saying the same thing, and we might need to kill one or two of our darlings? It can be a little scary to realise that some of our poems are saying the same thing, but facing up to this can help us avoid some of the repetitions that can tend to creep into debuts. Part of the process should be identifying the poems in your manuscript which make the strongest statement on a certain dynamic, and allowing some of the other versions of these to stay in the 'extras' file. Once you have identified your essential poems, it's back to thinking about that 'hero's journey' again, or perhaps an album format might appeal more - thinking about where you might place your hit singles, and allowing for some quieter, more intimate interludes to link them. 

Jessica Traynor is a poet and poetry editor at Banshee. Her debut Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014) was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award. The Quick (Dedalus Press, 2018) was an Irish Times Book of the Year. Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022) was a PBS Recommendation, an Irish Times book of the year, a Guardian Best Read, and was awarded the 2023 Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award. New Arcana (Bloodaxe, 2025) was an RTÉ and Irish Independent Book of the Year.