5 Ways to Experiment with Composition in Poetry

Keen to play around with fragmentation and erasure in your writing? Melanie Hyo-In Han who is teaching her Online course Broken Open: Experimenting with Erasure, Fragmentation, Visual, & Translingual Poetry with us this Autumn, talks us through her top 5 ways writers can experiment with composition in poetry.

1. Erase

Take an existing text (a letter or a news article, perhaps) and erase words/phrases until something different shows up. Try to emphasize OR subvert the text’s original meaning to see what can be excavated.  

Image credit: @jonathangongphotography

2. Scatter

Consider dropping the first word of your poem in the middle of the page. Let the lines of your piece trail off into white space and use the shapes you create on the page to say something that words alone cannot.

Image credit: @theshuttervision

3. Fragment

Write in pieces. Be a magpie and collect bits of overheard conversation to intersperse through your own work. Allow the readers to make the connections themselves. 

Image credit: @lorenzo-manera

4. Code-Switch

If you speak more than one language, don’t be afraid to use two (or more!) in a single poem. Let the 단어 sit side by side or 뒤엉켜 together and give them permission to resist translation.

Image credit: @tonybear2

5. Repeat

Repeat one line or image, one line or image, one line or image, one line or image in your poem — but let it do something different each time.  

Image credit: @tranthangnhat

If you’d like to learn more and experiment with form and language in your poetry, Melanie is running her Online course Broken Open: Experimenting with Erasure, Fragmentation, Visual, & Translingual Poetry with us this Autumn, starting on Tuesday 6 October. To find out more & to secure your place, please click here.

Born in Korea and raised in East Africa, Melanie Hyo-In Han recently moved from the U.S. to the U.K. She is the author of Passing Notes in Secret (boats against the current, 2025),  Abecedarian: Banff, Canada (kith books, 2025), My Dear Yeast (Milk & Cake Press, 2023), and Sandpaper Tongue, Parchment Lips (Finishing Line Press, 2021), as well as the translator of several collections of Spanish poetry (Hebel Ediciones).  

Her work has been supported by fellowships from Gladstone’s Library, The Society of Authors, Sundress Academy for the Arts, Kees Eijrond Foundation, Casa Uno, and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She has received awards from The International Human Rights Festival, “Boston in 100 Words,” Valiant Scribe, The Lyric Magazine, and elsewhere. 

She holds a PhD in Creative Writing and an MFA in Poetry and Translation. Currently, she serves as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Flora Fiction and the Two Languages Editor at Gasher Press. Learn more about her at melaniehan.com.