How To Write A Diamante Poem

I Googled 'types of poems' and I found all kinds of unusual names for all sorts of unusual poem structures--the most symmetrical and awe-inspiring of which I found the diamante poem.

Diamante (pronounced dee-uh-MAHN-tay) poems are in the shape of a diamond, and have seven lines; the first and seventh lines have one word each, the second and sixth lines have two, the third and fifth lines have three words each, and the fourth line has four words. 
Lines one, four, and seven have nouns.
Lines two and six have adjectives.
Lines three and five have verbs.

The writer Kenn Nesbitt, on his website, has provided a very useful way to remember all these rules:

Noun
Adjective, Adjective
Verb, Verb, Verb
Noun, Noun, Noun, Noun
Verb, Verb, Verb
Adjective, Adjective
Noun

There are two kinds of diamantes: synonym diamantes and antonym diamantes.
Synonym diamantes talk about two things of the same kind; for example:

Monsters
Evil, Spooky
Howling, Shrieking, Wailing
Ghosts, Vampires, Goblins, Witches
Flying, Scaring, Terrifying
Creepy, Crawly
Creatures

Antonym diamantes talk about two opposite or different things:

Cat
Gentle, Sleepy
Purring, Meowing, Scratching
Whiskers, Fur, Collar, Leash
Barking, Licking, Digging
Slobbery, Playful
Dog

In the fourth line, the first two nouns describe the noun in the first line and the last two nouns describe the noun in the last line.

Personally, I think diamante poems would be easier to write if we just made sure that the poem ended up looking like a diamond, instead of having to write nouns, or adjectives, or verbs in a particular line; but then, I suppose the pleasure is in sticking to the rules as much as possible, and churning out a masterpiece anyway.  

Semper gratiam habebo, lector! (I hope Google Translate's right.) Good bye, and good night!  See you on the next post! (Coming soon.)

The Hope Diamond, The Museum of Natural History

References:

Poetry4Kids: http://www.poetry4kids.com/blog/lessons/how-to-write-a-diamante-poem/

How To Write A Haiku Poem

Moleskine is a notebook company, if I'm not mistaken.

So it's been a while since I've published a 'how-to' post out here, so I'm going to do just that.

A few days ago, I was browsing through a poetry website, and these beautiful haikus caught my attention:

Blowing from the west
Fallen leaves gather
In the east.

- Buson

I kill an ant
and realize my three children
have been watching.

- Kato Shuson

Cool air--
the evening mountain
becomes itself.

 - Issa

(Issa was actually a very prolific haiku poet, and one of the most famous.  Many haiku poets draw inspiration from his haikus.)

Haikus are normally used to represent natural phenomena and happenings, but they can also be used to describe certain mundane or everyday situations.  For example:

Tired cat sleeps all night.
He needs lots of rest for a
Long day of napping.

 - Kenn Nesbitt

This was just to give you an example of how haiku poems are generally written.  Haikus are mostly easy to write, but capturing a whole scene in three lines, conforming to a set standard of syllable counts in each line, can sometimes be more difficult than most poets think (at first glance).

Anyway, here is how I write all my haiku poems (although I haven't written many):

Step One: Decide What You Want to Write.

This is often the easiest step in the process of writing a haiku.  You could write about flowers blooming in spring, leaves falling in autumn, the sun melting a snowman, snow on the sidewalk, a full moon, anything!  Haikus are very diverse in that respect.

Step Two: Condense It.

Decide what exactly you want to depict in your poem.  Describe what you want to write about in four or five lines.

What will the haiku sound like?  Will be happy, or sad?  Will the ending be unprecedented, or predictable?  You choose.

Step Three: Give It Structure.

So now that you've decided what to write in your haiku, you have to structure your idea according to the 'rules' for a haiku.

The first line usually contains five syllables, the second line has seven, and the third line has five again, sorta like this:

My homework is late.
My dog ate it this morning.
I sure like my dog.

 - Kenn Nesbitt

(You have to admit that's funny!)

There!  You have a haiku poem!  

The syllable count isn't always five-seven-five, I've seen haikus (mostly Issa's) that have only two syllables in the first line, six in the second, and three in the third. 

Here are some I wrote:

An apple cries out
In pain, in grief, slices, tortured--
No stains on the knife.

 - Vruta Gupte.

(Poor apple.)

Silence at sunrise
No birds cooing softly;
Concrete everywhere.

 - Vruta Gupte.

Feel free to write some of your own haikus in the comment section below!  (Click on the timestamp or on the post title.  Disqus comments are enabled.) 

Thank you for reading, and keep writing!


References: 
www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Haiku-Poem
www.poetry4kids.com/blog/lessons/how-to-write-a-haiku/