Composing poetry

There are certain considerations to be made, both technical and stylistic, when writing poetry. Technical consideration include poetic meter and structure. Stylistic considerations tend to be harder to define, but can include poetic devices such as kennings.

Poetry by and for non-geniuses

I found that the most accessible 16th C poetry was William Shakespeare, and he's a genius and therefore a bad model for the rest of us. No matter how much you try, you cant write stuff as good as he does ...

Therefore, we need to model our work after people who are less good.

Two poets I like are

Walter Raleigh (especially his Reply to Kit Marlowe'w A Passionate Shepherd to his Love), and George Gascoigne (NB Certayne Notes of Instruction is your basic 16th C Poetry for Dummies book. Download it at http://leehrsn.stormloader.com/gg/cnoi.html )

Plug their name plus poetry into Google, and examples of their work to read and work off will come up.

Finally, remember to count the syllables ...