
Explore the history of poetry, what makes a poet, inspiration, study literary devices and sound patterns, analyze poems, compare blank verse, free verse, and prose poetry, and learn publishing options.
Explore what it means to be a poet—from well-known and modern voices—to learn that anyone can write poetry with a pen, paper, and inspiration.
Discover how poetry finds inspiration in feelings, people, animals, plants, nature, places, colors, and objects, illustrated by examples from Browning, Whitman, Keats, Wordsworth, and Frost.
Create an inspiration list of people, places, things, feelings, and life experiences, then build a one-word association tree with centered items and branching words, no right answers.
Explore figures of speech and imagery to unlock how poetry conveys meaning. Practice writing exercises to apply concepts of tropes and schemes and analyze poems beyond literal meaning.
Explore how metaphor and simile use direct and indirect comparisons, including analogy, to illuminate emotion in poetry, with examples from Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Practice crafting original metaphors and similes while avoiding cliches, complete prompts, and explore poetry tropes inspired by your muse to deepen your poetic writing.
Explore metonymy and synecdoche as figures of speech using substitution: Hollywood for the film industry and bread for a meal, and learn the part-for-whole versus associated-name distinction.
Explore how puns use wordplay to reveal multiple meanings, highlighting Shakespeare as a master of pun, with a Romeo and Juliet example that plays on a word for humorous effect.
Explore onomatopoeia, word that phonetically imitates sounds, with Poe's bells as example, convey tone and mood by naming sounds like dishwasher, a waterfall of fire, and children on a playground.
Explore hyperbole and oxymoron through vivid examples from Shakespeare, and define idioms, cliches, and figurative language to sharpen poetical expression with fresh writing.
Explore irony as the use of words that mean the opposite of what is expected, and practice poetry by employing at least three tropes in a writing exercise.
Learn how schemes modify word order and sounds in poetry, focusing on alliteration, consonant and vowel assonance, with lines from Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven as examples.
Examine parallelism, a device that pairs two or more parts of a line in a similar form to create a pattern that aids memory, as in Emily Dickinson's verse.
Evoke the five senses through imagery with precise word choice and figures of speech, shaping mood and scene. Compare Blake's tiger and lamb as a vivid example of imagery.
Explore imagery in the lamb poem by examining sound and alliteration to evoke a soft mood, and how sight, touch, and smell bring sensory clarity.
Examine how William Blake's tiger imagery uses fiery, fearful symmetry and alliteration, and contrast it with the lamb while exploring sound, sight, touch, taste, and smell through poetic imagery.
Explore a step-by-step poetry analysis: read aloud to feel meaning, identify the speaker and addressee, interpret figures of speech, and paraphrase the Millay poem this spring.
Identify the figures of speech in the poem, including apostrophe, imagery, metaphor, irony, and personification, to see how spring's vitality turns to death imagery.
Paraphrase the poem in your own words to reveal its meanings, including how spring serves as a metaphor for love. Explore multiple interpretations, with no right or wrong answer.
Analyze poems by reading aloud and identifying the narrator and addressee, then rewrite in your own words, using simple language first and later figures of speech.
Explore how rhythm uses stressed and unstressed syllables to form meter, with feet like iambs, anapestic feet, and dactylic feet. See Shakespeare's iambic pentameter exemplified in a famed line.
Explore the major types of lyric poetry, including ode, elegy, sonnet, and haiku, with examples from Keats, Whitman, Browning, Shakespeare, and Richard Wright.
Explore narrative, descriptive, and humorous poetry forms, including ballads, epics, descriptive imagery, and limericks, with examples and hands-on practice to write playful verse.
Explore your poetic prowess and write the amazing poetry you've always wished you could.
This course on poetry writing will teach you more than just how to write a poem. First, you will learn about the history of poetry, what makes a poet a poet, and where poets might find their inspiration. Next, the course dissects the concepts that help us understand poetry.
After breaking down the various literary devices used in a poem, the course walks you through the process of analyzing a poem to see how those literary devices work. Next, you’ll have the opportunity to look at sound patterns in poetry and the different types of poems you may encounter or may want to attempt to write yourself.
Writing Exercises
Throughout the course, you’ll have the opportunity to write your own poetry with guided writing exercises. As you learn the skills every great poet must understand, you'll be asked to write poems that leverage these new skills. Share your poems with the rest of the class and get feedback on your work.
Who Should Take This Course
Many of you who take this course may have written some poetry in the past, but having written poetry is not a requirement for this course. Anyone can take this course without ever having written a word and come out with an understanding of how to write great poetry.
About The Author - Jennifer Chesak
I’m a freelance adventure writer, editor and ghostwriter with a cornucopia of quirky clips to showcase my 12-years of experience. Since receiving my Master of Science in Journalism from Northwestern’s Medill School or Journalism, I’ve covered a wild gamut: bank robberies with ensuing high-speed chases, cross-country motorcycle adventures, free dives with sharks, fishing excursions at remote northern outposts and simply must-try crazy cuisine and cocktails. If you need copy to wow your readers or an entire book spruced, goosed and juiced, I’m your gal!
An avid journal keeper for much of my life, I believe writing in any form and at any age is a powerful self-development tool that can prompt healing and facilitate the ongoing process of discovering and rediscovering one’s self. I am passionate about helping others grasp the writer within and achieve the satisfaction of creative thinking and production. When I’m not tethered to pen and notebook, I can be found training for my next marathon.