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Writing Love Poetry

Writing a love poem can be one of the best gifts given to the one you love or admire. Writing a love poem does not mean the potential poet has to be a professional writer. Indeed, anyone can construct a beautiful love poem. While writing love poetry does not cost monetary compensation, a good love poem does cost.

Steps
Write a page of standard prose, as fast as you can, about how you felt the first time you saw your loved one, how you felt the first time you knew you were in love, and how you feel right now about being together. These three moments in time will create the structure of your poem.
Replace any weak verbs with stronger verbs and any pronouns with proper nouns. Words depicting taste, touch, sight, smell and sound work really well for love poems.

Reread your passage and pick a central metaphor to tie the three moments together. Choosing a metaphor is the most challenging part, but don't hesitate to be wild with it. An opening flower is a tried and true metaphor for love, but a slow-motion explosion in reverse or a baby's first step might work even better.

Rewrite your passage using the metaphor to describe the three moments.
Read your page out loud, changing anything that sounds off to you. Make notations where you feel there's even the slightest pause in the flow of writing.

Write the poem on paper, putting a line break where you made the notations.

Type the poem neatly or write it in your best handwriting. Consider framing your poem. Your loved one may want to keep the poem as a memento!

Read the poem out loud to the person you love, or wrap it in special wrap, and present it as a gift for her or him to open when alone.

Tips
You're not trying to write the 'Greatest Poem Ever'. Your poem is for the one you cherish the most. What matters is that it's personal and sensuous.

Sit in a quiet room, and think about your 'love', how you feel when you are together, and apart. Think about what you miss most when you do not see each other, and how you feel when you again see each other. As you ponder this, write your thoughts and feelings. Poetry should come from the heart, and your heart and your thoughts will create a love poem based on you and only yours feelings.

There's no need to be intimidated by complex rhyme schemes. Remember, most contemporary poetry doesn't rhyme. Former Poets Laureate Robert Pinsky and Louise Gluck and current Poet Laureate Ted Kooser all write poetry that does not rhyme.

The best writing advice is simple: omit needless words. One strong verb steamrolls any three weak ones.

Poetry and almost all artful prose is about how the words reveal your feelings. Take time when you read your writing out loud to yourself, and see if you feel what your words are saying. If they stir up emotion within you, be assured they will do the same for the person you are writing it for.

Make it personal. Don't fill it with cliches but find something unique or special in your relationship and write about that. Your poem should be a reflection of the love you both share.

With love poetry, there is no one rule making for a masterpiece because this piece of artistic expression is between two people. There is no right; there is no wrong.