Learning to Write Poetry Using the Five Senses

"When sensory details are used, your readers can personally experience whatever you're trying to describe, reminding them of their own experiences, giving your writing a universal feel." 

(Amy Anderson)

As a poet,  you need to get in touch with your emotions.  You need to employ all five senses to transport the reader to where you want him to be.  Darien Gee recommends doing exercises to strengthen your writing muscles.  Go to the beach and write about the texture of the sand.  Pretend that your reader has never touched it before.  Stand in line at the supermarket and listen to the customers' voices; describe the squeaky grocery cart, the crispness of the paper bags, the flipping of the magazine pages, the beep of the register.  Visit a Hawaiian restaurant and try poi. Describe its taste, smell, texture.  Visit www.dariengee.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/NHN-20120614.pdf for the entire post.

Amy Anderson maintains that:  "The writer's ability to create a gripping and memorable story [or poem] has much to do with engaging our five senses.  When sensory details are used, your readers can personally experience whatever you're trying to describe, reminding them of their own experiences, giving your writing a universal feel." (http://study.com/academy/lesson/sensory-details-in-writing-definition-examples.html)  They say that music is the universal language. Regardless of what culture we come from, we can all "feel" music; it moves us.  Just as musicians move their audience, poets need to move their readers.  

There is a hearing impaired man at my gym.  He says that something good has come out of him being hard of hearing.  He has experienced a heightening of all the other senses.  He picks up clues that others don't:  a person's gestures and facial expressions.  In the last 30 years he has become an excellent judge of character.  He can read a person like a book.  He doesn't take his senses for granted like the rest of us do.

Get your senses ready to record what you observe.  You have a poem in there just bursting to come out.  Visit http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/article-5-senses-in-poetry for examples of poems which use all five senses.