What makes a poem?

A poem is writing that makes every word work hard. A news report tells you what happened. A poem helps you feel what it was like to be there. Poems can be funny, angry, sad or silly. They can rhyme, or not. They can be three lines or three pages.

Lines and stanzas

The biggest clue that you are reading a poem is how it sits on the page. A poet chooses where each line ends. That choice makes you pause, and it puts a spotlight on the last word of the line. Groups of lines are called stanzas. A stanza is like a paragraph in a story: it holds one idea, moment or picture.

Images you can see

Poets paint pictures with words. Instead of saying 'it was a cold morning', a poet might write:

Here is a short poem written for this page. Low tide at Ōhope: The sea has gone out to think. / Crabs write their names in the sand / and the gulls read them / out loud.

Notice how the sea and the gulls are given human actions. That is called personification, and it makes an ordinary beach feel alive and a little bit funny.

Sound you can hear

Poems are meant to be heard. Poets use repetition, rhythm and the sounds of words to make a poem feel like rain, a heartbeat or a haka. When Denis Glover wrote 'The Magpies', he turned the birds' call into a line of nonsense words that comes back again and again. Each time it returns, the story has moved on, so the same sound feels different.

Try this

Read any poem aloud twice. The first time, just enjoy it. The second time, ask: where did my voice pause? What did I see? Which line would I remember tomorrow? Those three questions will take you straight to what the poet was doing.