Writing Poetry for Your Valentine

Modern poetry is at its best, I think, when it is artistic anarchy, when it follows no rules. Some poetry, however, rhymes, and has a measured rhythm count of beats called meter. Each line of verse is counted during and after writing. For example, Shakespeare, the old master, wrote in what’s called Iambic Pentameter. Iambic means that in the line, words are paired, and every short, weak, or soft syllable is followed by a long, strong, and hard syllable:

one, TWO,  three, FOUR,  five, SIX,  seven, EIGHT,  nine, TEN

Five such pairs is called a penta (Greek for “five”). I write the weak syllables in lower case and the strong syllables in UPPER CASE to remind me which is which. I also move my finger or tap my foot to the beat of the line.

Therefore we could start a verse with a pure and heartfelt emotion, Love:

i LOVE you

This statement consists of one and a half beat pairs, iambs. “i LOVE” makes one and “you” starts another. Now, we need to match “you” with a rhythmic partner. Though rhythm pairs can split words, any one syllable word will work well. Like “more”.

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iLOVE youMORE

and we can just let it flow from there

iLOVE youMORE thanWORDS canSAY ,myDEAR. . . .

Then continue, using images from your imagination, or personal feelings you need to share, or your Valentine’s favorite color, etc., keeping the rhythm by counting the beat, word strength, and rhyming the terminal syllable(the last sound). Rhythm and rhyme can vary as much as you want, but the poem flows better when at least every other line is a match for sound(rhyme) and time(rhythm) Therefore, we could have:

I love you more than words can say, my dear

beCAUSE you MAKE me FEEL like I’M a KING

i LOOK inTO your EYES, my DEAR, and PEER

inTO the SWEETer FUture THAT you BRING.

I hope this can be of some small help for any modern poets who’d like to try classical verse.

Good Luck and have a Happy Valentines!