Warm-up — What Makes a Poem a Poem?
Most people meet poetry in school and either fall in love with it or run away from it. Today we start writing it — so first, let's strip away some of the mystery.
2. Have you ever read a poem you hated? Why?
3. Have you ever written a poem? If yes, what was it about? If no, what stopped you?
Brendan Behan at Oxford — a famous story
The Irish playwright Brendan Behan was once invited to Oxford to debate the difference between prose and poetry. His opponent spoke for nearly two hours. Behan stood up, promised to be brief, recited this old Dublin rhyme, and sat down again:
Who worked for Ferrier Pollocks.
As he walked on the strand
With a girl by the hand,
The water came up to his ankles.
"That," Behan said, "is prose. If the tide had been in, it would have been poetry."
Then he sat down.
The joke — and why it matters for writing poetry
Read the rhyme aloud. These are the last words of each line:
- Rollocks
- Pollocks
- strand
- hand
- ankles ← the odd one out
The first four lines set up the pattern. Your ear EXPECTS line 5 to rhyme with Rollocks and Pollocks.
The expected rhyme is bollocks — a mild British/Irish slang word for testicles. Your ear is set up for it by the Rollocks / Pollocks pairing. It's the only word that completes the rhyme.
But Behan says "ankles" instead. That breaks the rhyme deliberately. As a sentence, "the water came up to his ankles" is fine. As a limerick, it's broken — the music doesn't land.
Behan's joke: had the tide been HIGHER — up to his bollocks — the rhyme would have completed and the limerick would have worked. With the tide low, it's just a sentence. The whole gag is built on the missing rhyme word.
What this teaches us
Behan's two-line lesson — delivered in about 30 seconds against a two-hour opponent — contains three of the most important ideas in poetry:
- Sound matters as much as sense. Rhyme, rhythm and repetition aren't decoration — they're what makes poetry different from prose. Take the rhyme away from Behan's limerick and you've just got a sentence about a wet man.
- Expectation is a tool. A poem can use the rhyme you expected, OR deliberately break it to make a joke or a point. Behan does the second. Both moves are available to you.
- Compression. Behan answered a two-hour speech in 30 seconds. That's what poetry does — say a lot in very few words.
Every poem you ever write or read will be working some combination of compression, image and music. Most other "rules" of poetry are just techniques for getting those effects.
Vocabulary — Eight Words That Open the Door
Tap each card to reveal the definition and an example. These are the eight words you'll meet in today's reading — and the eight tools you'll use when you start writing.
You don't need to memorise these. You'll see them all in the reading on the next tab — and you'll find yourself using them naturally when you start writing.
Reading — "The Kitchen Window"
Read the poem aloud, slowly. After you've read it once, read it again silently. The dotted words mark places where the poet is using one of the techniques from the last tab. Can you name each one? The next tab tests you on new lines.
at the kitchen window,
her hands like brown paper bags,
folding and folding the same cloth.
She is a small country
that has forgotten its borders.
The radio hums beside her,
the same low hymn.
She doesn't see me.
She doesn't see me.
She sees something far,
something that was once a garden.
I think she is a clock
running backwards.
I think she is a letter
nobody answered.
The kitchen light is yellow.
The kitchen smell is bread.
The kitchen window holds her
like a hand holding a moth.
What's in this poem?
- Line — every row of words. Notice how line breaks create small pauses.
- Stanza — there are five, each separated by a blank line.
- Metaphor — "She is a small country", "I think she is a clock running backwards", "I think she is a letter nobody answered". She isn't literally any of these — but each one tells you something true about her.
- Simile — "her hands like brown paper bags", "like a hand holding a moth". Both use "like" to compare.
- Image — paper bags, the radio, the garden, the yellow kitchen light, the smell of bread, the moth. The whole poem is built on pictures.
- Rhythm — read it aloud and you'll feel it: short lines, slow pace, gentle pauses. No fixed beat, but clear music.
- Free verse — there's no rhyme scheme, no fixed meter. Just lines and stanzas.
- Repetition — "She doesn't see me. / She doesn't see me." The repeat makes you feel the speaker's hurt.
Discussion
- Who do you think the grandmother is? What's happening to her?
- Why does the poet repeat "She doesn't see me"? What would change if it was said only once?
- Which of the metaphors lands hardest for you — the country, the clock, or the letter? Why?
- The last simile compares the window to "a hand holding a moth". Why a moth? What does that suggest?
Drill — Spot the Device
Now test it. For each line below, choose which device is at work. Tap your answer to check — the correct option turns green.
One more — try a harder one
Trick question — there isn't one. The poem has TWO similes only ("paper bags" and "moth"). The other comparisons are all metaphors. If you spotted that, you've already started thinking like a poet — you noticed the difference between "like a..." and "is a...".
A Real Poem — Emily Dickinson
So far you have looked at poems written for this lesson. Now read a real poem by a real poet. Read it aloud before you do anything else.
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops — at all —
And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —
And sore must be the storm —
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm —
I've heard it in the chillest land —
And on the strangest Sea —
Yet — never — in Extremity,
It asked a crumb — of me.
Dickinson lived most of her life in one house in Massachusetts and published only a handful of poems while she was alive. She wrote nearly 1,800. Notice the dashes: they are part of how she makes you pause.
A routine for reading any poem
- Read it aloud, slowly. Then read it again.
- Ask who is speaking, and to whom. What is the situation?
- Say what happens in plain English. One or two sentences, no technique words yet.
- Notice the techniques and their effect. Do not just name them; say what each one does.
- Respond. What did you feel? Which line stays with you? Do you agree with the poem?
Look closer
Think about each question and answer out loud, then open the reveal to compare.
Hope is a bird: "the thing with feathers". There is no "like" or "as", so it is a metaphor. The poem never says the word "bird" in line 1; it makes you work it out.
Stanza 1: the bird perches and sings. Stanza 2: it keeps singing through the storm. Stanza 3: it has been with the speaker in cold lands and on strange seas. One idea, three stanzas. That is an extended metaphor.
In stanza 3 the speaker moves from describing hope in general ("the little Bird that kept so many warm") to personal experience ("I've heard it…"). The last two lines are the surprise: hope never asked for anything in return.
The dashes slow the reading and force small pauses, so each phrase lands separately. The capitals (Gale, Bird, Sea, Extremity) make these ordinary words feel important, almost like names.
Discuss. A bird is small, alive and fragile, but it sings and keeps going. The poem is about quiet persistence, not a grand burning hope.
Language for talking about poems
Use these when you speak or write about any poem.
Say what is happening
- The poem opens with…
- The speaker is…
- The poet addresses…
- The mood shifts when…
Name a technique
- The poet uses [technique] to…
- There is a striking image of…
- The repetition of "…" emphasises…
Explain the effect
- This creates a sense of…
- This suggests that…
- The reader is left feeling…
- It reminds me of…
Give your view
- What struck me most was…
- I found … effective because…
- I'm not convinced that…
- For me, the strongest line is…
Say it
- Which line would you choose as the title of a book? Why?
- Is hope really "free" ("never asked a crumb of me")? Do you agree with the poem?
- Tell me about a time something small kept you going.
Write it: a short analysis
Write four or five sentences about the poem. Use this shape: what the poet does → an example from the poem → the effect on the reader → your view.
In this poem, Dickinson uses an extended metaphor to turn hope into a small bird. In the first stanza the bird "perches in the soul" and sings without words, which makes hope feel gentle and constant rather than loud. By the last stanza the bird has survived storms and strange seas, yet "never… asked a crumb" of the speaker, which suggests that hope costs nothing. This surprised me, because we usually think of hope as something we have to work for. For me, the dashes are what make the poem feel so quiet and thoughtful.
Your Turn — Write Using the Frame
The example poem follows a clear shape. We're going to use the same shape — and you fill in your own content. Pick a person in your life that you watch, often, but don't always talk to. A relative. A neighbour. A stranger you see on your commute. Anyone.
at the...
a simile about a body part of theirs
something they do, said in -ing form
that has verb its noun.
something nearby — a radio, a fan, a phone,
what sound it makes.
They don't verb me.
They verb something direction or feeling,
something that was once a place or thing.
doing something,
I think they are a object
that has been....
The word is...
The word verb them
like a small thing doing something to a smaller thing.
When you're done, read it aloud. The frame is just a starting point — you can change anything that doesn't feel true. The frame is there to stop you staring at a blank page, not to lock you in.
Free Write — Without the Frame
Now you've used a frame to write a poem. The frame did some of the thinking for you. The next step is to write without one — but you'll find the techniques are still in your head.
• At least one metaphor
• At least one simile
• At least one moment of repetition
• Strong concrete images — things the reader can see, smell, or touch
Free verse. No need to rhyme. Aim for 4–6 stanzas.
- The last time I saw ___, ___.
- Nobody tells you that ___.
- In the kitchen at night, ___.
- I keep a ___ in a drawer, and ___.
Use one of these as your first line, or ignore them completely. A first line only has to get you moving. You can change it later.
After you've written
Once your timer goes off — read what you've got aloud. Three quick checks:
- Did you include the four ingredients? One metaphor, one simile, one repetition, strong images. Tick them off.
- Read it aloud — where did you stumble? Wherever you tripped, that line probably needs adjusting.
- What's your strongest line? The one you'd put on a postcard. Underline it.
What's next in the series
- Lesson 2 — Sound: The Music-Making Toolkit. Alliteration, assonance, anaphora, internal rhyme. The sound-craft of poetry.
- Lesson 3 — Image & Metaphor. Extended metaphor, conceit, sensory imagery — how to make a picture land.
- Lesson 4 — Forms. Sonnet, haiku, ballad, villanelle — when structure helps and when it hurts.
- Lesson 5 — Slam & Spoken Word. Writing poems to be performed, not read.
- Lesson 6 — Revision. The work that happens after the first draft.
Today you wrote two poems. Two poems more than you had this morning. That's the threshold — once you've done it twice, you'll never doubt that you can do it.