When my son died, I wrote. It saved me. However everything I composed in my journal and computer files was not to be seen by the world. While it was important to me because it was either my raw guts spilled forth or memories of my four-year-old whose laughter echoed down the hospital corridors, it was not what poetry magazines wished to publish.

Recently I reread some of my poems from five years ago. My stomach filled with queasiness. Now I understood why editors rejected my work. My pain was clear, but I could see the blood on the pages

These days I receive poems from aching parents who hope I'll publish their creations in my e-zine or bereavement newsletter. These parents are grieving intensely. They yearn for, and love their child. I know writing helps them release a little of the agony so that they can go to bed at night and climb out in the morning. But often I cringe. Cliches steal from what they want to convey. It seems cruel to tell a broken-hearted mother or father that their rhyming lines can't be published. Their poetry will never flow on the glossy page of magazines if they don't follow some simple rules.

The rules for writing from heartache

These are rules for those who have been through or are living through a difficult season and find creating poetry the venue for sanity.

1. Toss away cliches. Yes, we live with cliches and the grief world is full of them. Think of some of these and write them down. Beside each well-worn phrase, come up with a fresh way of saying the same thing. "My heavy heart" to convey the burden of pain, is common. How about changing it to "The sting that grinds each limb"? or "My groaning limbs"?

2. Stretch your vocabulary. Make friends with your dictionary and thesaurus. Learn new words and how to use them. Write them on index cards and stick them on your refrigerator.

3. Come up with imagery to show, not tell. One of the best lines I saw was in a poem a friend wrote describing lifting balloons into the heavens at the tombstone of his daughter. The month was January and he penned, "Breathing the frost of pain." That image of struggle was clear to me and reading it, made my lungs ache.What is pain over the death of a dear friend? What does it feel like? Is it nights with tissues, watching infommercials? Is it fear of losing your mind? How can you show the love you held for this significant person and the hole his loss has made in your heart?

One unique string of words

Don't over-do the agony-filled lines. One string of words