What do you want to write about? That's the first question you should ask yourself. Other questions include: who wants to read it? Will anyone love to read about this theme?
Okay, I want to write two poems. One about 'stealing' and the other about 'water'.
The difference between the two theme is that 'stealing' has just one side to writing it while 'water' has two sides. Let me explain that. When you pick your theme, you do it as you do a debate motion. Do you want to support or oppose? Stealing is a vice so everyone wants to oppose it and that's why I stated that it has only one side to it. However, you can support or oppose water since water has advantages and disadvantages. Let's compare flood, storm, tempest with quenching of thirst, irrigation, washing of our things. So to write a poem on water, you can decide to focus on its merits or its demerits.
Before I lead you into writing one of the two poems, let me list the things I'm going to take into consideration in the poems.
✔️ End Rhymes
✔️ Poetic devices
✔️ Lines and Stanzas
I hardly ever take note of meter and feet when writing. Let's just forget about those for now.
✓
Now, let's start writing!
Note: I have never written a poem on stealing before, I got the idea as I type this note. What I am saying is that it is going to be a completely new poem, written on the day I upload this video on my YouTube channel. Certainly, it is going to be my first draft which means I may end up adjusting it after this video.
The poem:
Stealing.
Hey! Am I just going to title it 'Stealing'? Definitely, no!
Preferably, I'll title it...(to title it, right now, I've started thinking of what I'll write. I don't title my poem until I have completed my poem. I need the ideas written down at times but most times, I don't. I just need to have them at least in my brain.)
My ideas:
Causes? Needs and wants. Greed. Attractive because no need for toiling, you are your own boss as an armed robber. Earn a lot in just one operation than the total annual income of ten people added together.
What happens? You deprive others of their joy, reap their toil, make some feel frustrated and end their lives. You lose every other moral. You can even directly kill during an operation. And even theft develops into robbery and more.
Consequences? You die and can even take others with you. Make others think it is right. Lose your integrity. Become a shame. Your loved ones are disappointed or bereaved if you die.
Solution? Flee from it. Rather let them hurt you than let them force you. Be satisfied. Engage in hard labour if that's the only way.
You see, the aforementioned looks like the lessons we get in our classrooms. The note looks nothing like a poem but it's good to write it that way first as a starter before you start writing. You can decide to make each question a stanza. To write good poems, you need to be able to attach it to other things, for example, nature.
Finally, let's begin!
Act of stealing - what steals? What can be stolen and not by human?
Can the air be? Or the stars? Okay, when storm arrives, stars disappear. Or do you see stars in the sky when it's raining. Okay, the storm takes the beauty of the sky away. Let's put these in lines. Should we worry about end rhymes or not? Let's not worry for now.
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Gains of stressful days I endured
You snatched in place of throbs
You tossed me relics for worthy souvenirs
You made me to cringe
To cringe as the ornaments of the sky does
When the rain arrives.
✓
The above is a sestet (six lines) and it's going to be my first stanza. It's quite easy to comprehend. That's how most of my poems are written. The stanza speaks of a thief taking away my hard-earned money, leaving me pain after taking away the joy that came after toiling. You made me cringe, to fear just as the stars fear when it's about to rain and they disappear.
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Fresh fruits of painful nights
That grew from the bittersweet roots of labour
To keep my breath in place
And my folks respiring
You for rapacity prehended
All to my detriment.
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The second stanza above is just like the first but it is constructed in a different way. The fresh fruits represent my earnings from labour that I hoped will sustain me and my family (my folks) but the thief has stolen it (prehended it) for greed (rapacity) all to my loss!
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The coin has been tossed a lot
It has given you all heads
Tail is on its way with trumpets
It will be my turn then
Your awful face for the sole of my shoes
And your breath badly battered.
✓
Now, I'm going to end my poem there. The last stanza speaks of repercussion. The coin has been tossed a lot and has given you many heads" meaning he had been stealing comfortably but tail, which is the opposite side of the coin is coming with trumpets (announcing the thief's doom to a lot of people that even did not know him when he was stealing). It will be my turn to trample him and thrash him almost to death.
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Note that, I didn't type the stanzas that smooth. I typed some lines and deleted them a couple of times. I paused at some points too but this is written in a couple of minutes. I could do that so quickly because I had my ideas already written down and had been doing that for quite a number of times already.
✓
I will go through the poem and mention the poetic devices I can find in it. If I can't find any, I'll have to create room for some and retype the adjusted poem under this...
(Checking...)
Okay, I found anadiplosis and simile in the first stanza. That's kinda enough.
Anadiplosis simply means using the words that end a line to start the next line. "...to cringe. To cringe..."
Simile - indirect comparison "...as the ornaments of the sky does..." The way I cringed is compared to how stars (ornaments of the sky) do.
(Checking again...)
In the second stanza, I found oxymoron and alliteration.
Alliteration, the recurrence of same sound in a line. F and r alliterates in "fresh fruits..."
Oxymoron, placing two contrasting ideas side by side "... bittersweet..." Bitter and sweet are opposite words placed directly beside eachother.
(Checking again...)
There are personification and consonance in the last stanza too.
Personification - giving human attributes to non-human. "tail is on its way with trumpets." How on earth can the tail of a coin hold trumpets?
"...and your breath badly battered." How on earth can breath be battered when it can't even be seen or touched?
Consonance is in the last line where the consonant sound 'b' is repeated. "...breath badly battered."
✓
There's no need to adjust the poem further since I have enough poetic devices included. Note that this poem does not employ rhymes, like end rhymes.
Watch the complete guide now on YouTube: