Beginning Your Poems
Poetry Exercise
Responding to Published Poems
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” — T.S. Eliot
Pick a poem to read and analyze its elements, focusing on the language and style of the poet. Then write your own poem based on the poem’s model.
Bookshelf in Her Heart
(lines in italics are the one’s I found as inspiration).
She has a bookshelf for her heart,
And ink runs through her veins,
She’ll write you into her story,
With a typewriter in her brain,
Her bookshelves getting crowded,
With all the stories that she had penned,
Of the people who flicked through her pages,
But closed the book before its end,
And there’s one pushed to the very back,
That sits collecting dust,
With its title in her finest writing,
“The One’s Who Lost My Trust”,
There are books she’s scared to open,
And books she doesn’t close,
Stories of every person she’s met,
Stretched out in endless rows,
Some people have only a sentence,
While others once held the main part,
Thousands of inky footprints,
That they’ve left across her heart,
You may wonder why she does this,
Why write of people she once knew?
But she’ll hope one day she’ll mean enough,
For someone to write her too.
-e.h
Bookshelf (my poem)
Her mind’s a bookshelf
getting overcrowded, filled
with inky footprints of
the people who walked through
her life and into her heart.
Though some walk out
taking pieces with them,
ripped out pages of a
history left unsaid.
And others pushed to
the back, in her attempt
to forget, even though sometimes,
the ink pulsing through her
veins resurface memories
she doesn’t want people to
leaf through, though they ask
waiting for a story will
never be told. All she wants
is for someone to point out
the ones she has on display
and one day writes about
her too.
Poems inspired by Art
Choose a piece of artwork that you have an emotional connection to. It can be from anytime period and place, and any form of art. Pick a form of poetry to write from (sonnet, haiku, free verse, etc…), and decide on the angle you want to write. Then write!
Famous Dave’s Bel Air (name of artwork.)
Untitled
First verison:
The moon, a backward c, rises into the middle of the night. Surrounded by an ocean sky swimming with fireflies and black clouds. Trees line the distance, letting in a glimpse of the fiery land as two-midnight horses meet.
Second verison:
Fireflies swim in an ocean sky
filled with black clouds passing by.
Trees line up in the distance,
letting in a glimpse of a fiery land
as two-midnight horses meet
under a crescent moon.
News based Poem
Open a newspaper or news website, and create a poem inspired by a news article that interests you.
Untitled
In the dunes
near a tiny village,
a pair of massive pyramids
rise from the north and south,
where the largest kingdom
flourishes with the art and culture
of two kings who valued
the craft of pottery and murals
that tells the story of a society
that conquered once great
and proud.
A Letter to Someone
Write a poem in the form of a letter to someone. The one rule is that it has to be to someone. You may start with a greeting and sign-off, or leave those out. You can write from the perspective of yourself or even someone else, like a celebrity. The poem could be two letters with the second part being the reply to the first letter, or the letter is from two different perspectives.
Untitled
I had so much to say,
but when the pen hit paper,
all my thoughts drifted away
like clouds passing by
on a sunny day, and I couldn’t
be the bearer of the news
I come to bring a fluffy cloud
turned dark, not going away
anytime soon
no, that would not be me.
I had so much to do
with you, so many days
empty like the blank spots
on a calendar, but some days
I couldn’t see you in them
even when I wanted you in them.
I had so much love to give,
and yet I didn’t
see you retrieving it
because I knew your heart
was somewhere else,
with someone
who deserves so much more
so I’m letting you go
like letting a kite caught
in the wind, go free.
(Poems drafted on September 11, 2018).
