A blues poem takes on themes of struggle, despair, bad weather, any suffering.
It can also be funny: Fruit Flies Everywhere.
Three-line Blues Poetry
A statement in the first line,
A variation in the second line,
an ironic alternative in the third line.
My baby walked out that door.
My baby walked out
and now my broken door won’t open up no more.
And
I had to walk back to Texas.
I had to get on my feet
cuz my baby she took my Lexus.
Four-line:
When a woman gets the blues
She hangs her head and cries
But when a man gets the blues
He hops on a freight train and rides
With both types, you can continue the pattern. You can also repeat lines.
You can write something in narration, then pull out lines to condense for a poem.
You can start with these lines:
When I woke up this morning . . .
I heard on the news . . .
Excerpted from Writer’s Digest magazine, “Writing Your Woes” by Miriam Sagan, August 2004
