How to Write a Poem
First you want to come up with some ideas of what you want to write about. Brainstorm thoughts, words and small sentences and write them down on a peice of paper. Then take the thoughts and try to put them into a sequence that runs smoothly, so it's not jumping from topic to topic. Try to pair up similar thoughts and phrases. If you want it to rhyme, don't worry about that now, you can do that later. Just get the ideas down and then you can come back later and choose different words to make the paired thoughts rhyme with each other.
Now I'm going to show you how to write a rhyming poem, there's many other types of poetry like free verse. You can have the ending of each line rhyme with the line directly above it or you can have a couple lines between it as long as you keep the layout the same throught. Like if you have the first line rhyme with the third line then make sure you keep a line in between each rhmying line the rest of the way through. It'll have a better rhythm this way. If you need help with rhyming poetry.com has a tool to help. If you want to have different patterns of rhyming, then you can do what I do and make a different paragraph, almost like a chorus, that has this different pattern of rhyming. And then you can go back to the normal pattern in the next paragraph. For instance if your normal pattern is rhyme every line but then you have some lines that rhyme every other line, put the different pattern in it's own paragraph. Then you can make your third paragraph go back to your normal pattern of rhyme every line.
You don't have to just rhyme the last word or last syllable in the line. You can rhyme the last two or even three, it even sometimes make the words come out smoother. Have you ever listened closely to, songwriters like, Eminem's lyrics? He does this quite often and it ends up reading pretty well, even if you don't like the music. For instance, you can go from something like:
I'll cast my stone
If yours is thrown
To something like:
That man's a sin - ner
But he's no be - gin - ner
One step further:
As sinful as one might be
We all can act con - trite - ly
To make it even smoother it helps that each of the lines that rhyme with each other have the same amount of syllables or are within one or two syllables of the line it's paired with. What I do is write the poem with the rhyming lines and then go back and count the syllables in each line and see if I have to drop or add syllables. Your poem doesn't have to rhyme; that's just how I like to write. I think it flows better and sounds almost song-like. Rhyming is just a personal preference of mine.
Try to be as descriptive as you can be with your poetry, use metaphors, descriptive words, similes, a play on words; eventually you'll find your style. You want the reader to get an idea of what you're talking about; a picture in their mind, even if it's not exactly the picture you had in your mind when you wrote it. "Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen." ~Leonardo da Vinci Poems can be interpretted differently; they might not mean to same thing to you as they do to others. So you can either be straight forward or you can be really vague with your poems.
Now try it out. Show people your thoughts on life, love and whatever else. I think that putting them in a poem makes them more pleasant to hear about rather than living them yourself or having the story vented on you. Most of the time people can relate the things you went through. It's a good way to be heard and understood.
If you like reading poetry or just want a place to post your own poetry, and you have myspace, then go HERE to my poetry group on myspace.com Or if you feel like reading some of my personal poetry, then here's My Site.
My Personal Site
My Poetry Group
Other Sites to Look at