Anything Can Become A Poem

So, as you probably know, I’m a creative writing student. What this means is that I learn about how to write specific styles and genres, and specifically explore things I haven’t explored much before.

Today’s class was about writing poetry, following a specific meter and rhythm. That kinda means that all the lines in the poem have to sound the same. When I heard about that, I was pretty apprehensive. I’d written poetry before, but it just flowed out of me. It didn’t have a particular style or beat to it. They were just words that made me feel something. I don’t consider myself a poet, but I like writing this kind of poetry.

So, back to the topic, to ease us into this activity, my professor first wrote up the rhythm he wanted us to follow. Then, he asked us to say random words that might fit into it. He didn’t give us a theme or topic. There were no other restrictions, other than the rhythm. As a class, we called out random words, seeing if they made sense when they were put together. It did take us a few tries. Sometimes, we had something really great to say, but the words we wanted to use didn’t fit into the poem’s meter.

In time, we managed to compose a stanza together. We started out with random words, but we ended up writing about green vines, trying to reach up towards the sky despite the fact that they were aching beneath grey hopes. We decided that this was a poem about a person’s life and how they had to push on despite their struggles, in order to break free from constraints.

The point of this exercise was to teach us that poetry can come from anywhere. We don’t need a theme to start writing. We can write about absolutely anything, and in time, your random collection of words will end up becoming a poem that says something about the way you understand the world, or pretty much anything else. You don’t need to be a poet to write a meaningful poem. Go give it a try and maybe post your poem in the comments!