Creative Beading

Any advice in creating poetry?

I posted this earlier poem for critique even though I’m embarrassed of it.
“Cold skin prickling
as if full of pins.
Like some kind of metallic porcupine,
my safety.
I shatter the apathy for
just a moment
to smile lightly at the thought
of someone reaching out
for me.
Curious fingers extending
from some strange hand.
the menace advances,
Closer and closer,
then retreats swifty.
Shocked.
Foiled.
I’ll toss them around in
an angry sea of bitter laughter.
Watch the world reflected
honestly
in that bead of crimson fluid”

Excellent (and very brave) question. The poem is neither terrible nor embarrassing for the author. You can learn a few things from it.

Let’s look at your opening lines:

“Cold skin prickling
as if full of pins.
Like some kind of metallic porcupine,”

Here, you are overstating things a bit. The words “prickling,” “pins” and “porcupine” all conjure up the same images, and we understand the idea of “metallic” when you say “pins.”

Dr. S. gigged me when I said, “Rocky crag…”
“Crags are already rocky,” he said.

Also, with “metallic,” instead of an adjective, how about a metaphor?

“Cold skin prickling
as if full of pins.
Like some kind of metallic porcupine,”

can be

“Like an iron fence
of porcupine quills
prickling at my cold skin”

Or something like that…

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