Poetry Inspiration: How to Find Inspiration for Poetry

Poetry inspiration is everywhere. This is evident in the fact that poems have been written on literally every topic: Grecian urns and daffodils; bodily organs and ostracized planets; the mighty pen and the lowly cockroach. Inspiration for poetry abounds.

But if you’re here, you’re either struggling to write new poetry, or else looking for the right thing to write about. This article explores different avenues for poetry inspiration: how poets synthesize their worlds and expertise into successful poetry.

Along the way, I’ll offer bits of craft advice that help unlock new poetic possibilities for you. But first, let’s get into the raw ideas that inform smart, effective poems. Where do poets find poetry inspiration?

Where do poets find poetry inspiration?

The truth is this: every aspect of life—language, literature, nature, politics, our selves, our lived experiences, the physical world around us, etc.—makes for good poetry inspiration. But, if you’re overwhelmed by this, don’t worry. Let’s explore some of the different ways poets find inspiration for poetry, with examples of great poems to showcase the poet’s mind. Namely, we’ll explore poetry inspiration in:

• Language
• Imagery, beauty, and the natural world
• Current events
• Unresolved questions
• Poetry itself
• The classroom

Poetry Inspiration in Language

Poetry is, of course, an effort of language. Successful poetry strives to find new language for ideas and experience that are otherwise hard to name. As such, it only makes sense that language itself is a source of inspiration for the practicing poet.

By this, I mean any component or feature of language, including:

• Definitions
• Etymologies and histories
• Sounds
• Linguistics and theories of language

In poetry, a word is a window into understanding. Here’s a poem that, to my mind, is incessantly curious about language and its poetic possibilities:

“Picking Blackberries with a Friend Who Has Been Reading Jacques Lacan” by Robert Hass

Retrieved here.

I go into detail about the meaning of this poem here. In short, this is a poem interested in pushing the boundaries of language, and doing so via Lacanian theories of language and psychology. Hass isn’t just interested in beauty, he’s interested in how language captures (or cannot capture) beauty. How can a beard be stained by a word? The pot that Charlie fetches, also, is likely a symbol for expanding language’s possibilities, because the gap between language and what it represents is always asymptotic.

Poetry Inspiration in Imagery, Beauty, and the Natural World

Keats put it best in “Ode on a Grecian Urn” when he said “beauty is truth, truth beauty.” I’m also partial to Toni Morrison, who said “I think of beauty as an absolute necessity. I don’t think it’s a privilege or an indulgence, it’s not even a quest. I think it’s almost like knowledge, which is to say, it’s what we were born for.”

Poets are drawn to beauty and to imagery. It is often a source of inspiration, and successful poetry attempts not only to replicate beauty through language, but to understand the world through showcasing that beauty.

Here’s an example:

“Rain” by Raymond Carver

Retrieved here.

This little poem gives in to beauty, and results in a short but gorgeous meditation on life and the beauty of slowness. I love its surprising epiphany, its willingness to slow down and listen to the mind. The poem doesn’t do much to describe the rain itself, but captures its mood and essence, transcribing it into a moment of delight and wisdom.

Poetry Inspiration in Current Events

Modern affairs create much poetic fodder. While politics and the news aren’t the preferred focus of all poets, there’s a large contingent of contemporary poetry focused on analyzing and reacting to current events.

How poets approach the topic of politics is a site of contest. Should poetry be prescriptive in its politics? Can poetry be activism? Does poetry even have a place in politics—can it actually move the needle? These questions are beyond the scope of this article, but do themselves create interesting doorways into what political poetry can be.

To avoid entering the crossfires of today’s discourse, here’s an example poem reacting to the stock market crash of ‘08:

“Villanelle with a Refrain from the Wall Street Journal” by Andrew Hudgins.

Retrieved from The Atlantic.

This poem, a villanelle, captures the anger and irony in the U.S. zeitgeist after the stock market crash. It borrows from the language of business and finance to satirize its logic, its way of reducing humanity to numbers, statistics, inputs and outputs. Even now, I can feel some of that anger from well over a decade ago, seeping through its offputting-yet-delightful lyricism.

For more poetry interested in current affairs, you might be interested in the below journals:

• New Verse News
• Only Poems (which is launching its Poets Howl series)
• Rattle (Specifically the Poets Respond series)

Poetry Inspiration in Other Poems

Poets, of course, inspire each other. The more you read poetry, the more ideas you will collect for your own work.

One explicit form of this is the “after poem”, a poem directly inspired by another. After poetry acknowledges its source of inspiration underneath the title, and this inspiration can include both specific lines in the source poem or the idea of the source poem itself.

A rather famous example of this is the Golden Shovel, a poetry form that Terrance Hayes invented after taking inspiration from Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “We Real Cool.” Both poems are below. Pay attention to the end words in Terrance Hayes’ poem—they are the same as the words in Brooks’.

For more on finding inspiration in poetry itself, read our article on reading poetry like a poet.

Poetry Inspiration in Ekphrasis

Ekphrastic poetry refers to any poem that takes its inspiration from other forms of art. The vast majority of ekphrastic poetry find inspiration in visual art, like paintings or movies, but ekphrastic poems have also been written about music, dance, and even dreams.

Perhaps the most well known ekphrastic poem is Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, but here’s a less antiquated example that showcases how art inspires other art:

“Sculptor” by Sylvia Plath

Retrieved here.

For more on the possibilities of ekphrastic work, check out our article on how to write an ekphrastic poem.

Poetry Inspiration in the Classroom

Lastly, poets make a point of continuing their education—even if they already have MFA or PhDs. Many schools, both online and in person, offers classes with different ways of approaching new poetry, and the best classes both introduce you to great work and offer generative prompts and exercises to get you writing more poems.

We’re partial to the online poetry writing courses we host at Writers.com. But you can also get our review on some of the biggest creative writing organizations here:

https://writers.com/creative-writing-programs

You might also be interested in our self-guided course Get Inspired!, which offers prompts and readings from the canon of great American poets. Learn more here:

https://writers.com/course/get-inspired-poems-and-poets-to-light-up-your-writing

Finding Inspiration for Poems: Keep a Journal

Many poets keep journals as ways of stumbling into inspiration. A journal is a low-pressure way to write without trying to “be poetic”—the journaling writer simply documents their life, thoughts, feelings, and experiences, which can later be used for poetic fodder.

I highly encourage you to keep a journal. You don’t have to be religious about it: it’s fine if you miss days, weeks, or even months, though a regular schedule will make it all the more useful for your practice.

What you can do is go back through your journal and find insights you wouldn’t normally have had if you weren’t processing your life on the page. You might also stumble into insights in the moment, which themselves become doorways into new poetry inspiration.

Here are some resources we’ve published on the topic of keeping a journal:

• How to Start Journaling
• Keeping a Spiritual Journal
• Wellness Journaling
• How to Free Write

Finding Inspiration for Poems: Use Poetry Prompts

Another way to inspire your own poetry is to use prompts. There’s no shortage of prompts and ideas to spur ideas for new poems. Prompts aren’t for everyone, but there are also different ways of prompting new poetry, and it’s worth trying your hand at some when you’re not sure what to write about.

Here are a few different sites, resources, and archives of prompts for poetry inspiration:

• Our article of NaPoWriMo Prompts
• Poemancer
• Poets & Writers
• Nosebleed Club’s monthly short prompts
• Poetry Foundation’s Learning Prompts

I also sometimes look for literary journals with themed submission calls, as those themes might give me prompts to inspire new work. You can find literary journals with upcoming themed submission calls at Chill Subs.

Finding Inspiration for Poems: Learn Widely

Poetry is informed by more than just its craft. Poets find inspiration in their everyday lives, their preoccupations and obsessions, and by what new knowledge they acquire as they go.

All knowledge presents its own form of inspiration for poetry, often acting as the poem’s initiating subject. Here are a few examples:

• “Pavlov Was the Son of a Priest” by Paige Lewis—which begins with that fact as the poem’s title.
• “Poem Number Two on Bell’s Theorem, or The New Physicality of Long Distance Love” by June Jordan—which takes, as its inspiration, quantum mechanics.
• “Everything” by Mary Oliver—whose subject matter requires knowledge of the life of Vincent Van Gogh.
• “Telemachus’ Detachment” by Louise Glück—inspired by Greek mythology.
• “The Imaginal Stage” by D. A. Powell—which requires knowledge of insect maturation.

This is just a small assortment of poetry that uses knowledge—of art, literature, the sciences, etc.—as doorways into new work. Of course, the poet’s own life offers plenty of fodder for poetry, too, but poetry inspiration is easier to find the more knowledge you acquire. 

What are topics you know deeply? What are you currently obsessing over or studying? Incorporate your learning into your poetic practice, and you might surprise yourself with what you discover. 

More Resources for Writing Poetry

Here are some more tips, prompts, and resources on the craft of successful poetry:

• How to Write a Poem
• How to Write a Free Verse Poem
• Writing Short Poetry
• What is Poetry?

Finding Inspiration for Poems: Take a Writers.com Course

The courses at Writers.com are designed to help you find poetry inspiration and generate new work. Take a look at our upcoming online poetry courses!