A Guide to Writing Free Verse Poetry

A Guide to Writing Free Verse Poetry

*If you are stuck on where to start your free-verse poem, you can use the following steps to help you!

Step One:

First, pick an experience to document. Write a descriptive paragraph about the experience. Try to be as descriptive and vivid as possible, like a “show-not-tell” (but shorter).

Step Two:

Now reflect on this experience and think of the particular sensory details (details relating to any of your five senses) involved in it. Create a sensory chart, and record your sensory details under the appropriate categories (sights, sounds, taste, touch, and smell). There is no set number of details, but the more you have the easier the poem will be to write. For example:

Sights Sounds Smells Taste Touch

Columbia blue children laughing chicken roasting in the oven fresh air hard push of dad’s

Dad in his work shirt squeaky wheels freshly cut grass hand on my bike

Navy tie my dad’s voice dad’s cologne soft thud on drive

Grey pavement cars pulling into driveways

White sidewalk

Bright cars lining the street

Day fading

Stars up in the sky

Step Three:

Now you are to develop a poem using the words from the chart and sentences from the paragraph. You can add or subtract words if you need to, but base your poem around sensory details. If done correctly, your poem should accurately reflect your experience. For example:

After Work

The weight of memory at times like this

with its hard push of his hand on my bike

columbia blue he bought me and me riding solo

look at me daddy look at me

and he gives me one big wave and then

the soft thud in the drive and he’s gone

and i have nowhere to look but up

at the stars forever changing and the same