How To Write a Poem

You need two things to write a poem. You need inspiration and you need to know a few techniques. I’ll cover one of the techniques called meter, but ultimately inspiration is what counts.

Inspiration

Before you can even begin to write a poem, you need something to say. Once you have that then you need words.

Occasionally you will hear poets talk about their muse who tells them what to say and how to say it. To avoid the distraction of Greek mythology, I will stop referring to a muse, which none of the poets who use that word in a modern context believe in anyway, and talk generally about a poet’s source of inspiration. However, the good thing about those poets who acknowledge a source of inspiration is that they know they themselves are not that source no matter how responsible they are for the final product.

Poets who do not believe in a source of inspiration give themselves full credit for what and how they say things. For them, poetry is self-expression. I would like to assert, so there is no ambiguity about my own views, that self-expression is tedious and overrated.

In addition as a poet you are always serving your source of inspiration. You are always serving that spirit who is inspiring you, helping you and comforting you even if you mistakenly believe that you yourself are that spirit.

That spiritual source of inspiration may be a good spirit. It might also be not so good. If you write about topics that glorify, incite or condone anger, lust or some habitually dysfunctional thinking in your readers, then your source of inspiration is not so good. The poem may sound nice and people may write mushy music to sentimentalize it, but that source of inspiration will remain, in spite of all that sugar-coating, not so good.

Once you understand that you are not expressing yourself when you write a poem but you are serving a spiritual source of inspiration and that source may be good or not so good you will begin to see what is morally at stake when you offer a poem to a reader. I hope you won’t mind me drawing the conclusion that any not so good source is a demonic source. It is out to get you so it can use you to get others.

I see the good source of inspiration as the Holy Spirit, a Person of the Trinity with Whom the poet can enter into a relationship. I identify the demonic sources with spirits of antichrist. They are deceivers who manipulate those foolish enough to play with them.

Bottom line: Writing a poem is not a neutral artistic expression of oneself, but a moral act of service to some spiritual source of inspiration. Make sure that spirit is the Holy Spirit.

1 John 4:3
And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

Technique

Once you have a topic, you will need to express it. Although the words may come to you from the Holy Spirit, you need to make it melodious. In English that means paying attention to meter.

Meter is the pattern of accented and unaccented syllables in the words you use. The most memorable, and influential, poetry repeats metrical patterns. Some of these patterns are given names such as limericks or common meter, sonnets or blank verse. Others are specific to the poem itself.

As an example, listen to the song, What a Beautiful Name, and try to note which words are accented and which are not in the lyrics. In particular there are four stanzas in this song with an almost identical metrical pattern except for an unaccented syllable on some lines. I’ve listed two of those stanzas below. The ACCENTED syllables I put in italicized bold red capital letters. The unaccented syllables I wrote normally.

YOU have no RI-val.
YOU have no E-qual.
NOW and for-E-ver, GOD, you REIGN.

YOURS is the KING-dom.
YOURS is the GLO-ry.
YOURS is the NAME a-BOVE all NAMES.

Were you able to find the other two stanzas?

If so, you know what meter is. You know why those lyrics are powerful even without the music. Make your poems memorable by using metrical patterns.

If not, great! You now have an opportunity to start building your relationship with the Holy Spirit by asking Him to show you what you don’t understand. If you don’t think He’ll talk to you, ask Him anyway, sleep on it and wake up refreshed. Then thank Him regardless what you hear. Giving thanks means you acknowledge that you are in a personal relationship with Him.

Conclusion

There are many tricks that will help any poem be more powerful no matter what the source of inspiration. They are just techniques. One could even program a computer, which is neither intelligent nor inspired, to follow the meter and other aspects of the sound of a poem.

Ultimately what matters is the source of inspiration. To write a poem you need to first choose whom you will serve.

And that’s all there is to it.

Joshua 24:14-15
¹⁴ Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord.
¹⁵ And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.