We hope you’re well and truly getting into the festive spirit. The holidays are a perfect opportunity to take a break from work and use your creativity for some seasonal fun.
So, in today’s post, we’re sharing 6 inspirational tips to help you write your own Christmas poem:
Now, let’s unwrap each of these points:
Picking a subject can be the hardest part of writing poetry—there are so many options! You might want to write about a traditional story or what the season means to you.
Your poem could also be about a favorite tradition like preparing a snack for Santa and his reindeer. It could be about family or gifts or arguments over Christmas dinner. Choose something that inspires you, and then grab a pen and paper (or a laptop) and start writing.
To begin with, write down everything that comes to mind when you think about your poem’s theme. At this stage, you’ll have mostly single words and short phrases, but scribble them down anyway.
If your poem is about your grandma’s homemade pies, you might jot down warm, crumbly pastry, sparkling sugar crystals, crunch, and sweet. As you do this, try to involve each of the five senses. Include any feelings (e.g., anticipation, joy), memories, and images you associate with your subject, too.
Now it’s time to organize your jumble of ideas into a poem.
Poems come in all shapes and sizes. Some (e.g., villanelles and sonnets) have strict rules about the number of lines and syllables, rhyming patterns, and repetition. At the other end of the scale is free verse, which has no restrictions at all. Here are a few ideas we think would be particularly suitable for a Christmas poem:
● A haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that always has three lines and 17 syllables. The first line has five syllables, the second seven, and the third five (i.e., 5 / 7 / 5).
● A tanka is another traditional Japanese poem, this time with five lines and the syllable pattern 5 / 7 / 5 / 7 / 7 (31 syllables in all).
● The first letters of each line in an acrostic spell out the poem’s subject.
● An ode is a poem addressed to its subject.
● Finally, a concrete poem is one in which the words themselves form the shape of the subject. We like this one by Brian Bilston.
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If you’re new to writing poetry, you’ll probably find it helpful to use one of these formats and choose the one you feel suits your chosen topic best. But if you’re more confident, try making up your own style.
When you write poetry, your words create pictures in the reader’s mind. Try to pack as much meaning as possible into each line. One way to do this is to select words with more than one interpretation.
For example, if you were writing about the color of a Christmas tree, rather than using the word green, you might choose emerald, which suggests color as well as something bright and precious.
Whether to make your poem rhyme is up to you. Including rhyme can add to the reader’s enjoyment because they can anticipate the pattern and rhythm. Rhyming poems (especially funny ones) are more likely to appeal to children, so if you’re writing for younger readers, definitely consider rhyming.
One of the most familiar patterns in poetry is rhyming couplets. The end of each successive pair of lines rhymes. Here’s an example from Shel Silverstein’s “Sick”:
I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash, and purple bumps.
If you’re going to write in rhyming couplets like this, try writing the second line of each pair before the first. If you do it the other way around, you’re more likely to come up with a second line that doesn’t quite fit just to make it rhyme.
When you’ve finished writing your Christmas poem, you’ll hopefully want others to read it. You could print a short poem onto greeting cards for your friends and family, or you might like to get even more creative and write it out in your fanciest calligraphy.
If your poem deserves a larger audience, you could enter it into a contest or submit it to a journal.
Be sure to proofread your Christmas poem before displaying it on your wall or sending it out into the world. Even though poetry doesn’t have to rigidly follow grammar and punctuation rules, you still want to avoid spelling mistakes and typos.
Our proofreaders would love to check your festive poems and any other writing projects you’re working on. Why not send us a 500-word free sample today?
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