Your job as a poet is to allow the reader to understand a scene or occasion or mood in a new way. Imagine the scene or how you felt and find ways of expressing that in as real a way as you can. Specific is always better than general.

•    Use your senses – sights, smells, sounds, tastes, textures – not all in the same poem necessarily!

•    Images – comparing one thing with another – help bring the scene or emotions to life:
Simile – as fresh as this morning’s bread
Metaphor – she was a whirlwind (not literally true)

•    Colours – can help make the scene very visual and specific, use unusual colours e.g. amber, fuschia

•    Proper nouns – place names (for example) bring a scene into sharp focus (e.g. Jumeirah, Kerala, Scafell Pike)

•    Original ways of saying something – avoid clichés, very familiar ways of describing something e.g. ‘as hot as the sun’ and try to find a new way through careful language choice or comparison