How to Write a Poem
How to Write a Poem by How to Write Guide
Poems are rather simple to write because the best poem comes from the heart. There are of course reasons why the poems of Shakespeare are famous and your poems to your girlfriend are pretty much ignored by the public (just hopefully not from your girlfriend). Certain poems have certain structures like a sonnet or a Japanese Haiku. Other poems are looser like a random writing without the use of full structured sentences.
Poems are great because a writer can express a message that books take hundreds of pages to do while a poem uses less than one hundred words to write. You can also use a variety of literary techniques such as metaphors and similes which are the largest used literary techniques in poems. Other techniques include hyperboles, alliterations, and more.
In terms of structure, a line of poetry is referred to as a verse and a “paragraph” of verses is called a stanza. Many poems have rhyming patterns. For example a sonnet uses the pattern ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. This means that in the first stanza the first and third verses rhyme and the second and fourth verses rhyme with each other. For example:
Here is a cat A
He is black B
He wants to be a rat A
But cannot because it is not his knack B
Of course there is also a question of syllables where each has ten syllables in a Shakespearian poem. Depending on the type of poem you want to write, this will depend on the rhyming pattern, the length and the amount of syllables.
The best types of poems for beginners especially are free formed poems where you can write anything and there are no rules. The only rule is to write your poem from the heart.