Acrostic Poems and Poetry: Poetic Forms
Learn more about acrostic poems and poetry, including guidelines for writing this poetic form and an example poem from poet Robert Lee Brewer.
Continuing on with the poetic forms available to poets, I have to discuss acrostic poetry. Acrostic poetry is very easy and fun. The most basic form spells words out on the left-hand side of the page using the first letter of each line.
I like to write
Acrostic poems
Mostly because
Reading them
Out loud is
Bound to be fun.
If you notice, the first letter of every line makes the simple sentence, "I am Rob." It's very simple, and you can make it as difficult as you want—where the fun part begins.
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Play with poetic forms!
Poetic forms are fun poetic games, and this digital guide collects more than 100 poetic forms, including more established poetic forms (like sestinas and sonnets) and newer invented forms (like golden shovels and fibs).
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The brave at heart can even try double acrostics—that is, spelling things out using the first and last letter of each line.
MonkeyS
Yell and slaP
Lions tO
Offend micE
Visiting the eleganT
Elephant to heaR
It hide and crY.
In this silly example, I've spelled out "My love is poetry."
The acrostic is easy to do in its simplest form, but ambitious poets could write a whole paragraph or stories using acrostics if they had enough spare time. Or even write a double acrostic sonnet or sestina.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
