Choose a topic. A topic is not a sentence; it is an idea. For example, "Love" is a topic, and so are "Courage," "Loneliness" and "Friendship." If you have been assigned a topic, you will have to find a way to relate to it. Remember that you don't have to explain the topic completely. You only have to explore a part of it in a short poem. Exploring a small example of the larger topic works best for short poems.
Create a topic sentence. You can express your opinion in a topic sentence. For example, if your topic is "Love," you might write, "Love is hard to find and easy to lose." Don't worry about making your sentence sound poetic; just write your opinion about the topic. Poems represent personal expression, so feel free to say what you really think and feel about the topic. Write this topic sentence as the first line of your poem.
Find cluster words. Under your topic sentence, jot down words that come to mind when you think about your topic. Write these in random order. You can even spread them around the page and write them in the margins. Feel free to circle or underline words that strike you as particularly important. Try not to edit yourself at this stage of writing your poem. Let the ideas flow freely.
Make sentences around cluster words. Choose the cluster words that seem the most appropriate to the topic and make sentences that use those words. Write these sentences on a separate sheet of paper of on a new page of your word processing program. Don't worry about the order of the sentences for now. As you write your sentences, use your own insights and feelings about the cluster words you have chosen.
Place the sentences in order. Write your topic sentence at the top of a new page. Add the sentences you wrote using your cluster words. Put these in any order that makes sense to you. Keep rearranging them until you have them in the order you want. You may have to write some connecting words or phrases to make the sentences flow together. Make a new line for each sentence so that your piece will look like a poem.