I tried to write a poem today

[fingermousey]

Poetry has always eluded me. I think I wrote a good poem once, however, I'm not sure. What makes a poem a poem? We were never taught poetry at school. We read it, yes, but we weren't taught how to write it.

Do you need to be taught how to write a poem? I don't know. Is it enough to write something and say it's a poem? Does that mean it is?

I don't have this problem with story writing, or novels. I know when I've written a story (however good or bad it is) and I would know if I'd written a novel. But a poem?

Anyway, seeing as I never finished my 'poem', I thought I'd leave a poem here that was written by William Blake, it's a favourite poem of mine:

The Fly
By William Blake 1794

Little Fly
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink & sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength & breath,
And the want
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

If you know how to write poetry, leave me a note and tell me :)