Everyone has the ability to write their own poetry. It just takes a little time to find something that they want to write about. My first tip is to write about what you know. Write from your own experiences and your own emotions and your work will be more real and true to life. If you have trouble writing or if it always comes out wrong then sometimes all you need is something to guide you along. Here are a few ideas you can use to help out...

1. Set aside 10-15 minutes where you can sit down and write without distractions. Start by writing your name over and over again. Eventually something else might come into your head. Let yourself write whatever comes up. When a train of thought stops, go back to writing your name. DO NOT stop writing for the entire 10-15 minutes. When you are done, go back and underline or highlight anything that is different from your name. See if any of it makes sense. The more you try this exercise the better you will get at it!

2. If you have no idea where to start then this "game" will be good for you. In this take a dictionary and flip through the pages. Randomly stop on a page putting your pen or pencil down somewhere on the page. Write down whatever word you end up on. Repeat this until you have a good list of words. Next, try to use all of this words in a poem. You may add a few other words such as "it", "is", etc. but be sure you are not relying on these.

3. For this exercise get someone else's help. Close your eyes with your paper in front of you and get the other person to make a noise of their choosing using anything they would like. After they make the noise, write about it using ALL of the senses. Briefly explain what it looked like when you heard it, the sound it made, what you think it would feel like, taste like, etc. When you have these descriptions down try to write a poem or story about them.

4. This next game is called "overflow". This is used to provide you with words or ideas for your writing. You can either pick a random word by yourself or get another person to provide you with one. Once you have your first word write whatever word comes to mind when you think of it. Continue this so that you have a chain of words that somehow relate to the immediate word above it. If you get stumped give yourself another word and continue from there. Use these words or experience as the base of a story or poem.