How to Write a Poem

Contributor

By Jesse Schmitt
eHow Contributing Writer

Article Rating:

(34 Ratings)

Poetry is an art from which has no rules; yet has many rules. If you are interested in breaking into the world of poetry writing, all you need is a pen and paper. Just because the terms of poetry writing are so fluid and because so many people accept so many different things as poetry, there are only the most loose rules here.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Pen
Paper
Ideas
Words

Step 1

To rhyme or not to rhyme? Many people will only be able to appreciate poetry if it rhymes. This is perhaps our first association with poetry when we are growing up because it is the work of Dr. Seuss and Mother Goose, whose works tend to rhyme that we first come into contact with. So you need to decide whether or not you’d like your poem to be rhyming or free verse. Rhyming poetry is often the easiest to compose; an example:

This is a poem I’m writing from my head
I’m sure I don’t even need to say
This work will earn a lot of dread
From real poets all around and that’s okay

As a very loose piece I took the words “head” and “dread” and “say” and “okay” and wrote a four line bar of verse.

String a few of these together with a common theme
and you can be a poet now, know what I mean?
Step 2

Free verse. Imagine my joy when I discovered that you don’t have to write a poem that rhymes to be considered a poet. I think I was 12 or 13 and I’d been coming up with all of this rhyming dreck for so long; now I was able to fully express myself and my feelings. I wasn’t hindered by the necessity of rhyming lines.
Step 3

Blank verse--perhaps one of the most popular types of poetry just because of how we all read people like Shakespeare, Frost, Stephens and Yeats. Blank verse has meter but no rhyme. One of my most favorite poets of all time is John Milton. This is from Book One of his “Paradise Lost:”

into what Pit thou seest
From what highth fal'n, so much the stronger provd
He with his Thunder: and till then who knew
The force of those dire Arms? yet not for those
Nor what the Potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict do I repent or change,
Though chang'd in outward lustre; that fixt mind
And high disdain, from sence of injur'd merit,
That with the mightiest rais'd me to contend,
And to the fierce contention brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits arm'd
That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power oppos'd
In dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav'n,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield
Step 4

Go your own way. But writing poems, most of all, is about writing about what you want to. How you feel. Where you are coming from. So if you are feeling something and you aren’t one who takes to things like screaming paranoia or belching political activism, why not set down your thoughts with a pen and a paper in a poem. You can be as glib or incisive as you want; the only rules are the ones you place on yourself.

Comments

look4writing said

Flag This Comment

on 9/18/2009 That is Cool to get advice on how to write Poams that dont' ryme. I figured that was why they were called poams. The rymeing of ideas is not a bad comcept. Thanks for sharing 5s and recomend L4w