Prompts for the poem generator
Every brief on this page is a finished job for the poem generator. Pick the occasion, read what comes back, then send the brief through. Swap in a real name, an age and two details and the verse stops sounding generic.
Occasions and greetings
A verse instead of the card from the petrol station: a birthday poem with the person actually in it, something for a fiftieth or a sixtieth, a short wedding poem to read at the reception, a New Year message.
Birthday poem
For your mum, a friend, someone at work — when the card has to be written tonight.
Write a birthday poem for my mum. Her name is Irene, she's turning 55. Eight lines, rhyming in couplets, warm but with no greeting-card clichés: her garden, the fact that she always rings first, and how lucky we've been.
You always ring before the dayhas worked out what it wants to say.The kettle's on, the roses grew —and fifty-five looks good on you.
A big round birthday
Sixty, a room full of people and a microphone — this one has to sound like more than a card.
Write a poem for a 60th birthday. He's called Michael, he spent thirty years as a bridge engineer. Twelve lines, formal and dignified, about the road already behind him and the fact that plenty of it is still ahead. No "wisdom", no "life's journey".
Sixty is not a finished sum,it's half the bridges yet to come.For thirty years you drew them true,and half the town still crosses through.
Wedding poem
A wedding, a room of guests, and four lines expected from you — better yours than something found online.
Write a wedding poem for Tom and Sarah. Eight lines, alternating rhyme, warm and completely unpompous: two lives becoming one address, and a wish for patience, quiet and a kitchen full of laughing.
Today two names became one door,one kettle and one shared address.May patience outlast every chore,and may the kitchen hold the mess.
New Year message
The message you send on the 31st, once the identical "happy new year" has arrived from everyone.
Write a New Year poem for friends. Eight lines, rhyming couplets, light and funny: the year that's ending was a lot, we survived it anyway, and here's to a slower one with more snow and fewer surprises.
That year was long. We won't pretend —somehow we made it to the end.Here's to a slower, kinder one:more snow, fewer emails, more sun.
Saying it out loud
Three sentences that never come out plainly on their own. A love poem that says it, an apology in verse for when sorry has stopped working, and a thank you poem for someone who stayed four years.
Love poem
It won't come out in conversation, but it comes out in verse — and this you can actually send.
Write a love poem for a woman called Marina. Twelve lines, alternating rhyme, tender and specific rather than sentimental: the way she laughs, the November we met, and the fact that I still can't say any of it out loud.
I never say the thing I mean,I hand you weather and the news.But every time you laugh, I leanon one November I can't lose.
Apology in verse
When "sorry" has already been said, didn't land, and the house has been quiet for three days.
Write an apology poem. Eight lines, rhyming couplets, honest and not at all jokey: I said something sharp to my wife, I was wrong, I'm not going to explain it away, and I'd rather be shouted at than ignored.
I got it wrong. No ifs, no buts —one sharpened sentence, and it cuts.The quiet in this house is worse:say anything. Shout. Even curse.
Thank-you poem
For a teacher on the last day of term, a nurse, a coach — people a plain thank-you doesn't cover.
Write a thank-you poem to a form teacher, from the parents of a leaving class. Eight lines, formal address, warm and concrete: four years, the school trips, the patience with the ones who never handed anything in, and the people they turned into.
Four years, one register, one door,the trips, the flu, the tests, and more.You were the strictest kind of kind —and that's the class they'll keep in mind.
For children and for laughs
Where the laugh matters more than the metre: a short rhyme a small child can learn for the school play, a funny limerick about a friend, and a birthday rap for a teenager who winces at cards.
Rhyme for a small child
For the school play, a birthday, or just to learn by heart before bed — short words and a bouncing beat.
Write a funny rhyme for my five-year-old daughter. Eight lines, simple words, a strong bouncing rhythm: the whole flat is already asleep, the teddy is snoring, and only Milly is still running around with a ball.
The sofa's asleep, the kettle is too,the bear in the corner is snoring on cue.The only one bouncing, with no time for bed,is Milly, who's looking for socks. On her head.
Limerick about a friend
Five lines to tease someone kindly — the kind you can read out with them sitting there.
Write a limerick about my friend Dave, who has been about to start going to the gym for three years now and keeps putting it off. Five lines, AABBA, affectionate rather than cruel — he'll be in the room when it's read.
My good friend, who is famously Dave,bought a gym card he swore he would savefor a Monday in spring;it's a beautiful thing,and it's three years untouched. Bless the knave.
Birthday rap
For a teenager who will visibly wince at "dear nephew" and a rhyme about the passing years.
Write a birthday rap for my nephew turning 16: made to be read out loud over a beat, modern everyday words, dense rhymes. His board by the front door, headphones that never come off, and the fact that he's taller than me now.
Sixteen on the counter, turn the volume up loud —you grew out of that jacket and half of that crowd.Board at the door, headphones running on red,sixteen and a head taller. Go on — go ahead.
Toasts and the office
Verse read out loud in front of people. A toast in rhyme for the work party, a poem for a colleague leaving after eight years, and a greeting the whole office can hear on International Women's Day.
Toast in verse
You're the one standing up with a glass, and reading a stranger's words off your phone shows.
Write a toast in verse for a big birthday dinner. Eight lines, meant to be read out loud, with the last line raising the glass. About the fact that the people at this table stayed through the bad years, not only the parties.
There's nobody here by accident —each one of you stayed when the good years went.So here's to the table that held us fast,and here's to the next one. Raise your glass.
Leaving card for a colleague
She's off to another company, the team has clubbed together for a present, and the words are your job.
Write a leaving poem for a colleague moving to another company after seven years on our team. Twelve lines, formal address, warm with a little dry humour about our endless stand-ups and the quarterly reports she rescued. No tearful farewells.
Seven years of stand-ups, tea and Q4,seven years of rescuing the file.We're letting you go to the tenth floorof somewhere else — and missing you meanwhile.
Women's Day greeting at work
For the 8th of March in the office — a greeting you can actually read out at the stand-up.
Write an International Women's Day greeting for the women on our team. Eight lines, formal address, rhyming couplets, warm and respectful with no compliments about looks: the work genuinely runs on them, and the wish is spring plus a weekend with no calls.
The deadlines, the budget, the diary, the queue —this whole floor has quietly stood upon you.So here's to a spring that comes in through the door,and a weekend where nobody calls. Nothing more.
Set forms
Homework where the shape is the assignment and the subject is only the excuse: a haiku on a set theme, an acrostic built out of a name, and a sonnet of fourteen lines that still scans when read aloud.
Haiku on a set subject
Homework: three lines, 5-7-5, no rhyme and no moral at the end.
Write a haiku about the first snow in a city. Three lines, 5-7-5 syllables, no rhyme, one concrete thing you can actually see — no explanation, no conclusion, no "soul".
First snow on the docks —a black rope and a seagullboth turning to white.
Acrostic on a name
The first letters of the lines spell the name down the side — a present people read twice.
Write an acrostic on the name EMMA: the first letters of the lines, read downwards, spell the name, one letter per line. Warm, about a sister who is always the first to turn up when things go wrong.
Every time the day goes sideways, youMove the whole evening to fit us in.Mugs on the table, the kettle on too —And nothing is fixed yet, but I can begin.
Sonnet on a set subject
Fourteen lines with the turn of thought before the end; the sample shows the opening quatrain only.
Write a sonnet about time. Fourteen lines, a classical rhyme scheme, with a clear turn of thought before the closing couplet. Concrete images instead of philosophy — and never the word "eternity".
The hallway clock has watched me all this weekas if it knew exactly how this goes.I nod at it: we'll wait until I speakof minutes as a debt that no one owes.