Concrete Poem: Definition, Examples and 6 Easy Steps

A concrete poem is a poem whose words are arranged on the page to make a picture of what the poem is about. A poem about rain might drip down the page, and a poem about a tree might grow branches. Concrete poems are also called shape poems, and because they mix art and writing, they are a favorite in classrooms.

You don't need to be a great poet or a great artist to make one. This guide explains what a concrete poem is, how it differs from a shape poem, where the idea comes from, and how to write your own in six easy steps. You'll also find original examples for kids and famous shape poems explained line by line.

Concrete poem definition

A concrete poem is a kind of poem where the words create a picture on the page. The shape of the poem matches what it's about.

For example, a poem about rain might look like raindrops falling. The words and their arrangement work together to tell the story.

Many types of poems have rules about lines, rhyme or syllables. Concrete poems have just one big rule: the layout carries meaning. They can be any shape, from stars and trees to faces and animals.

You don't always read these poems from top to bottom. Sometimes you follow the shape, around a spiral or down a tail, to understand the meaning. Most concrete poems don't rhyme, which makes them close cousins of free verse poetry.

Concrete poems vs shape poems

In most classrooms, "concrete poem" and "shape poem" mean the same thing: a poem that looks like what it's about. Poetry experts sometimes draw a line between them:

• Shape poem (or pattern poem): the lines are set in the outline of their subject, but you still read them as normal sentences. George Herbert's "Easter Wings", further down this page, is a classic shape poem.
• Concrete poem (in the strict sense): the name of a 1950s art movement, in which the look of the letters and the space around them is the meaning. Some concrete poems use just one word, repeated or broken up. The poets of the São Paulo magazine Noigandres in Brazil and the poet Eugen Gomringer, whose 1954 manifesto was called "From Line to Constellation", were leading names.

For kids and beginners, either name is fine. If your words make a picture, you've written one.

A short history of concrete poetry

• Ancient Greece: the poet Simmias of Rhodes wrote poems shaped like an egg, a pair of wings and an axe.
• 1633: George Herbert's book The Temple included "Easter Wings" and "The Altar". "Easter Wings" was printed sideways across two facing pages so the stanzas looked like wings.
• 1865: Lewis Carroll printed "The Mouse's Tale" in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a long, winding tail.
• 1918: the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire published Calligrammes, with poems in the shape of a necktie, a fountain and raindrops running down a window.
• 1950s: the term "concrete poetry" took hold among poets in Brazil and Europe.
• 1969: the American poet John Hollander published Types of Shape, a whole book of shape poems.

How to write a concrete poem in 6 steps

Here are the 6 steps to write a concrete poem. Each step includes the rule that matters most at that stage.

1. Choose a theme that has a shape

Picking a theme is the first step. Think about what you want to write about: your favorite animal, a feeling, the weather or an object you love.

The theme decides the shape, so choose something you can picture. If your poem is about a tree, make it look like a tree. If it's about a star, shape it like a star. If you choose "heart" as your theme, your poem might look like a heart.

Rule to remember: the shape should match the theme. Always ask, "Does my poem's shape fit what it's about?"

2. Sketch a simple, clear shape

Take a piece of paper and lightly sketch the outline of your object. Keep it simple. If you choose a butterfly, draw a basic butterfly shape and skip the details.

Rule to remember: if readers can't tell what the shape is, they may miss your poem's meaning. Hearts, circles, triangles, raindrops and trees are great first shapes. If you choose something harder, like an animal, keep the outline simple.

3. Draft the words

Now write about your theme. If your theme is "tree", you might list words like leaves, branches, roots, bark and birds. Write down every word and phrase that comes to mind, and don't worry about the shape yet.

Your poem doesn't need to rhyme, but it should say something about your topic. Keep your sentences short and simple.

Rule to remember: be concise. Every word should earn its place. Ask yourself, "Do I really need this word?" Short words are easier to fit into a shape.

Stuck for words? Get the words first: generate a short poem on your theme, then arrange it into your shape by hand. The free AI poem generator writes the words; the shape is up to you.

Write your own poem, free

4. Arrange the words along the shape

Start by writing your words along the outline of your sketch. Then fill in the middle with more words. You can make some words big and others small, curve them, or write them up and down.

Rule to remember: place every word on purpose, and use line breaks and empty space as part of the picture. Some words might trace the edge; others fill the middle. Blank areas can help form the shape too. Our guide on how to write a poem has more on choosing where lines break.

5. Refine the shape and keep it readable

Look at your poem from a distance. Does it clearly show the shape you wanted? If not, add words in some areas or take some away in others. Try different sizes of writing, or draw a light outline around parts that aren't clear.

Rule to remember: people still need to read it. Don't squash the words together, write neatly or use a clear font, and give readers a hint about where to start, especially if the poem follows a curve or spiral.

6. Review and edit

The last step is to check your work. Read your poem out loud.

• Does it make sense?
• Are there any spelling mistakes?
• Does every word fit the theme?
• Is the shape still clear?

Replace words that don't quite fit and make final adjustments to the layout. When you're happy with both the words and the shape, your concrete poem is complete.

Concrete poem examples for kids

These three original concrete poems were written for this page. Each one uses a simple shape that's easy to copy. (Shapes look best on a wide screen; on paper, use the same idea with your own sketch.)

1. Rain

drip
   drop
      down
         the
            window,
               a
                  silver
                     race
                        to
                           the
                              sill.

Each word drops one step lower and further right, like a raindrop sliding down a window. The poem is one sentence, so you read it in the order the drop falls. The diagonal line also makes you read slowly, the way a drop moves.

2. Pine tree

                     star
                     pine
                  needles
               whisper in
            the cold wind,
     snow on every branch,
   birds tucked safe inside
while the long night sings.
                    trunk
                    trunk

The lines start short at the top and grow longer, making the triangle of a pine tree, with "star" on top and "trunk" holding it up. The words describe the tree from the top down, so the reader's eye travels the same way the snow falls.

3. Ice cream cone

sweet cold vanilla scoop,
    chocolate rivers drip
    down my sticky hand,
          crunchy waffle
           cone, crunch,
                crunch,
                  gone!

This one turns the tree upside down. The wide lines at the top are the scoop, and the lines shrink into the point of the cone. The last word, "gone!", sits right at the tip, so the shape and the joke end at the same moment.

Concrete poems pair well with other playful forms. Try writing a word down the side of your shape to combine it with an acrostic poem, or hide it in the middle like the mesostich in our guide to types of acrostic poems.

Famous concrete and shape poems

These are some well-known examples of concrete poems. The first three are old enough to be free to share, so you can read them here. For the newer ones, we describe them and tell you where to find them.

1. Easter Wings

Poet: George Herbert
Published: 1633, in The Temple

 Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
          Though foolishly he lost the same,
                    Decaying more and more,
                            Till he became
                               Most poore:
                                With thee
                             O let me rise
                    As larks, harmoniously,
            And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

      My tender age in sorrow did beginne
     And still with sicknesses and shame.
              Thou didst so punish sinne,
                          That I became
                           Most thinne.
                              With thee
                        Let me combine,
                  And feel thy victorie:
          For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

Each stanza shrinks as the poem describes humankind's fall and the speaker's own suffering ("Most poore", "Most thinne"), then widens again as the speaker asks to rise with God. In the 1633 book, the stanzas were printed sideways on facing pages so they looked like two pairs of wings. "Imp" was a falconer's word for grafting feathers into a bird's wing to help it fly, and the text keeps the 1633 spellings, such as "poore" for poor and "sinne" for sin.

2. The Altar

Poet: George Herbert
Published: 1633, in The Temple

  A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,
  Made of a heart and cemented with tears:
    Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
  No workman's tool hath touch'd the same.
                    A HEART alone
                    Is such a stone,
                    As nothing but
                    Thy pow'r doth cut.
                    Wherefore each part
                    Of my hard heart
                    Meets in this frame,
                    To praise thy name:
       That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
    Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
     And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.

The poem is built in the shape of an altar: a wide top, a narrow pillar in the middle and a wide base. The speaker offers his own heart as the stone the altar is made of, so the shape and the meaning are the same thing.

3. The Mouse's Tale

Poet: Lewis Carroll
Published: 1865, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

In the story, the Mouse says, "Mine is a long and a sad tale!" Alice is looking at its tail, so she imagines the story in the shape of one:

           “Fury said to a
           mouse, That he
         met in the
       house,
  ‘Let us
    both go to
       law: I will
         prosecute
           you.—Come,
               I’ll take no
               denial; We
             must have a
         trial: For
    really this
  morning I’ve
nothing
to do.’
    Said the
    mouse to the
       cur, ‘Such
         a trial,
           dear sir,
                  With
             no jury
         or judge,
       would be
    wasting
    our
    breath.’
         ‘I’ll be
         judge, I’ll
           be jury,’
                    Said
           cunning
             old Fury:
             ‘I’ll
             try the
                  whole
                  cause,
                      and
               condemn
               you
             to
               death.’”

The joke is a pun on "tale" and "tail". The poem winds down the page like a mouse's tail, and the story of Fury the dog putting the mouse on trial looks ahead to the silly trial at the end of the book. (The layout here follows the Project Gutenberg edition.)

4. Calligrammes

Poet: Guillaume Apollinaire
Published: 1918

Apollinaire called his picture poems "calligrammes". In "Il pleut" ("It's raining"), the letters run down the page in long, slanting lines, like rain streaking a window. Other poems in the book take the shape of a necktie, a heart and a fountain. The shapes depend on exact typesetting, so they're best seen in a printed edition or a scan of the book, such as the Gallimard paperback of Calligrammes.

5. silencio

Poet: Eugen Gomringer
Published: early 1950s

One of the most famous concrete poems uses a single Spanish word, silencio ("silence"), printed 14 times in a neat block with one gap in the middle. The empty space is the silence: the poem shows the idea instead of describing it. The poem is still under copyright, so we don't reproduce it here. You can find it in Emmett Williams's An Anthology of Concrete Poetry (1967).

6. Swan and Shadow

Poet: John Hollander
Published: 1969, in Types of Shape

Hollander arranged the words into the outline of a swan gliding on a pond, with its upside-down reflection below. The poem describes a swan at dusk and how quickly the moment passes. It's still under copyright, so read it in Hollander's book Types of Shape, which was later reissued in an expanded edition.

Tips and tricks

• Begin with a simple shape and theme. As you get more comfortable, try more complex designs.
• On a computer, word processors with text boxes and shape tools make it easier to bend text into shapes.
• Different fonts can suggest different feelings. Don't be afraid to mix and match.
• Change the size of the writing to fit words into tight spaces or to make key words stand out.
• Add color to make the picture pop or to separate parts of the shape.
• Use bold or italic text to highlight important words.

Conclusion

A concrete poem lets your words become the picture. Choose a theme you can see, sketch a simple shape, write a few strong words, and arrange them until the shape is clear and the poem still reads well. With a little practice, you'll be making concrete poems that look great and say something too.

Try the free AI poem generator

FAQs

Do I need to be good at drawing to create a concrete poem?

No. Simple shapes like a heart, a raindrop or a triangle work well and are easy to read.

What is the difference between a concrete poem and a shape poem?

For most readers there's no difference. Strictly, a shape poem sets normal lines into an outline, while concrete poetry is a 1950s movement where the look of the letters is the meaning.

Can a concrete poem be about any subject?

Yes. The key is to choose a subject you can picture, and match the shape to it.

How long should a concrete poem be?

There's no set length. Use enough words to make the shape clear without crowding it.

What if my poem doesn't fit the shape?

Change the size, direction or placement of your words, cut a few words, or simplify the shape.