# Poem worksheet

Working title: [title]
The moment: [one thing you saw, heard or remember, with a time and a place]
The feeling underneath: [what the moment makes you feel, in plain words, for you only]
Form: [free verse, or a fixed form such as haiku, sonnet or villanelle]

## Images
- Something you can see: [image]
- Something you can hear, smell, taste or touch: [image]
- A comparison that is yours, not a cliché: [image]
- The detail only you would notice: [image]

## First draft
[Write the poem here. Do not stop to fix it. Break a line where you would pause if you read it aloud.]

## Ending
- Last image: [the picture the reader is left with]
- Turn: [what changes, or what the speaker understands, before the end]

## Revision checklist
- Read it aloud. Mark every line where you stumble.
- Cut words that only explain the feeling the images already show.
- Replace weak verbs and vague nouns with exact ones.
- Check each line break: does the last word of the line deserve the pause?
- Read the first and last lines together. Does the poem travel?

## Worked example — Bus Stop, January
The moment: an old man at a bus stop at dawn, holding a cup of coffee he does not drink.
The feeling underneath: waiting for someone who is not coming.
Form: free verse, three short stanzas.

He holds the coffee
the way you hold a hand,
not drinking it.

The 6:10 comes
and opens its doors
and closes them.

Steam rises from the lid
like a word
he has decided not to say.

This is a short example, not a finished poem. Notice that the feeling is never named: the coffee, the bus and the steam carry it.