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Ah, breathe in the air and feel the world around you. Can you feel it? Can you see what others don't? Go deeper now, letting go of any and all perceptions that might hinder your instinct and judgment. There is no rhyme or reason to the emotions of your soul, yet they are perfect, and they harmonize with the world around them. There's only one small problem. You need words, not ooh's and grunts to express yourself in poetry. You need to verbalize the essence of all you feel and see, so that you can somehow help those who read your poem connect with your vision.

Start by taking baby steps. Just write one word. It doesn't even have to be a real word if it catches your emotion. *Spobalneckle.* There, you've done it. You've made an expression and written it down. Now describe that expression. Define it and give it a point of reference and some culture. *Overwhelming, yet comfortably natural. Free, yet confined. Responsive, yet immobile.* Are you getting the idea? There is no right answer, and that's the very first thing you need to remember when writing a poem.

Now pick a topic for that one word, and narrow it down so that your focal point is clearly defined. Birds are a wonderful subject for a poem, but will you describe how they fly, nest, or eat? Certainly you can't focus on all three aspects, unless you want to write an extremely long poem. Of course, being that there are no real rules, you very well might choose to write about how birds fly, nest, and eat all in the same poem.

Perfect, you've reached down deep to get in touch with your emotions, and you've released negative perceptions and judgments that will hold you back from truly expressing yourself. You've begun to form real words out of feelings that you thought couldn't be fully expressed, and then you pinpointed the heart of your topic.

Think about your message now. What is it you want others to discover when they read your poem? Is there some moral you intend to teach? Do you want to give them a reason to join their voices with yours? Perhaps you only want to give them comfort and let them know they aren't alone in the world. Or maybe you want to show them things they'll never get the chance to see, if it weren't for the visuals in your poem.

That's how you write a poem, my friend. By being honest and open with yourself, and daring to share who you are with the world. Poems cannot be researched and penned like an article or story. They must relay the very essence of who you are and the core of what you are really about. Real poetry speaks to the soul, and therefore it must arise from the soul that formed it. Poets dream, live, and die through the artful expression of who they really are.

Learn more about this author, M. J. Joachim.
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