How can I write a poem?

Answer 1

Write one true sentence from a single thing you've seen in your experience. Something that made you want to grab someone by the sleeve: listen to this. Be concise, but hit it good. When you've got your sentence, insert line breaks to amplify the individual words. Do not worry about rhyme or meter; think of gas and brake pedals applied to the word-flow. This will give it poetic form. Apply a title that matches the theme of the poem, but doesn't try to summarize it. Hand it to your reader without apology or explanation; the poem will explain itself.

This will work. I know you can do it.

Answer 2

Well, the best advice for writing a poem is don't force it, let it come to you. Let yourself be inspired by something you feel passionate about and begin from there.

Don't worry about structure too much. Free verse is a beautiful thing. Of course you should still emphasize proper grammar and spelling.

I myself am a poet and here is an example of one of my published works:

My Release

This is my release
My sanctuary
From this death that is life
This daily tearing grind

I reach out
Grasping for some simple comfort
Desperately longing
To secure something better

Let the cool air fill my lungs
And heart slowly ease
To a nearly silent crawl
May it give me peace

Now out of here
I will reluctantly walk
Back to the same
Until my time comes

Answer 3

Read poetry. Study the flow and structures and pay attention to use of techniques such as alliteration and metaphor and simile.

I suggest EE Cummings, Robert Frost, or for more current authors, check out the Sage of Consciousness ezine: http://ez7.sageofcon.org

Try writing.com to associate with other poets and get critiques, but remember that poetry is personal and everyone has different opinions on style. :-)

Jump in and try it!

Answer 4

Sometimes poems just come into your mind and you know the words before you realize that it is a poem. Other times, you have to work at making the poem, and you think of lots of different words to use, and you pick the best ones. It helps to keep a cadence going in your mind, like...

da DUH da DUH da DUH da DUH

"the DEED'S been DONE; i NOW must FLY that NO reWARD i EARN."

or...

da da DUH da da DUH da da DUH da da DUH

"in the FIELD was a MOUSE on his WAY to the HOUSE"

or even...

da DUH da da DUH da DUH da da DUH

"whenEVer a WENCH goes OUT of her WAY"

And try to think of words with accents that fall into this pattern - and which also have last words that rhyme with the last word of another line!

Over the last thousand years or so, poets have found "forms" that almost automatically give a poem written to its pattern a halfway decent sound. Look up these forms: rondel, triolet, french ballade, sonnet, villanelle, limerick, quatrain.

How do these verses...

About a battle I will sing
As arrows fly and shields still ring
And spells of magic work their might
Upon the foes whom we shall smite

It began today; our company heard
That dirty orcs would try to curd
The milk that flows from a sacred cow
Belonging to folk in Glaspenscow

The residents are vegetarian
Their industry is all agrarian
But anyhow they do drink milk
And fear spoilage by monster ilk

...differ with these?

A monster wandered far from home
A-munching on a dwarven bone
He was a beast right out of Hell
To first appear and then be gone

Gorindell, the beast from Hell
About his rampage I will tell
It started in the town of Nim
He burned a church and stole the bell

At first I wasn't sure 'twas him
Who took the bell from Church of Nim
And threw it in a nearby creek
Along with most of Preacher Tim

Hint: the difference has to do with the rhyming pattern. Both poems are composed of quatrains, but the rhyming pattern is different.

Anybody can write a lousy poem. Autum Ashante, for example. But it does take a bit of skill, talent, experience or whatever to write a really good poem. There was a guy here (David S) who was quite a good poet, in addition to being a physicist, mathematician and racist. Yahoo Answers staff banned him for being the last of those. But his poems were great!

Answer 5

Dear, if you don't know, don't bother. And the poems listed here are an abmination. They were published on a cheesy on line site by a vanity publisher who published EVERYTHING submitted.

Answer 6

this is a stupid question.