There's an important dinner on the horizon of your social calendar. You want to make your table as special as possible. You're looking for something unique, something expressive; something more than just a pretty flower arrangement, your finest cutlery, dinnerware and napkin holders. What is there left to do?

Write a poem to entertain and delight your guests!  A unique message penned by you, hand written or printed on good quality paper or cardstock picked up from your local craft store, and placed so that it stands upright in the center of the table for all to read and chuckle over. The ultimate creative touch! Punch a hole in the top and add a satin ribbon. It's a fun and easy way to put your signature on this special occasion. It could go something like this:

Tonight is finally here, it's a very special night

Come, take a seat, we're so happy to greet

The Smiths, and the Williams, the pleasure's all ours

To have them over to dine, with some really great wine

Delicious fine food and plenty of laughter

We'll have a whale of a time,

Cognac and coffee served after ...

It took me twenty minutes to pen the poem above, even less because I had to gently push the cat away twice. There are some tricks I'm going to share with you which I learned while penning poems for my book. 

The first trick is to write the poem like you're telling a short story. Make it read like it's going somewhere.  The first line or two will be the introduction to the event, followed by the names of the guests attending the event. The middle of the poem will be about what takes place or the food you will serve and finally it will end with a conclusion, a line or two about how happy you are that your guests could join you.

Start by making a word bank. Grab a pen and a piece of paper and jot down a few relevant facts, like the names of the guests, either family names or first names. Followed by the food you will be serving. Perhaps the occasion for the dinner, be it first dinner together or a celebration of an event, like a Birthday, Christening or job promotion etc.

With the words from the word bank in mind, write out some statements about the event. At this stage, don't try and make your statements rhyme unless it happens naturally.  For example, your statements could be "we'll be listening to eighties music all night", "Karen has been working her magic in the kitchen for hours"; "the Sauvignon Blanc is cooling on ice." It is important to put your feelings into the poem as well.  Ask yourself how you feel about the event? How do you feel about the guests you have invited? If it's people you've known for years, maybe you can include a few comic references to previous occasions with them. For example "we've taken care to scotchgard the tablecloth, just in case Pete should suddenly swipe at a moth, remember the time he knocked over his beer. Such a shame that was, it had the perfect froth..."

Once you have written some statements down on paper, start looking for matching words for the end of the statements or at least half of the statements. Each line does not have to rhyme. It sounds better if the end of every second line rhymes. Or the first part of the line and the last part of the line rhymes, every second line or so (see lines 2 and 4 in the poem above).

When thinking about matching your words with other rhyming words, remember to make sure the rhyming words you choose hold relevance to the people and the event.  For example, occasion rhymes with persuasion. Would it be relevant to use the word persuasion in your poem?  In this next scenario, it does. On the occasion of Bill's 50th Birthday, you wanted to throw a party. He didn't want a party, so you settled on a dinner. Everybody was aware that he was being difficult, so you start the poem with something like "We're delighted that you could make this occasion, Bill was the only one who needed persuasion..."  Entertain your guests!

For rhyming inspiration, consult other rhyming poems. Dig out the Dr. Seuss books or Children's story books and get a feel for what it takes to make something rhyme. You'll soon find that it is easy and enjoyable and you'll get to keep the poem as a memory of a wonderful evening with friends and family. You could even make it a family affair and create the poem with your kids, a few nights before the big event. A child's input can be just the candid touch you need!

How to Pen a Poem for Your Scrapbook

Your scrapbook is your pride and joy, filled with memories of precious moments you'll cherish forever and there's no limit to the amount of scrapbook materials available to embellish those memories with. Scrapbook memories are personal and all tell a story. Why not pen a personal rhyming poem to tell the tale of how your memories unfolded? Next time you glue that photo or keepsake in place, pen a little poem to go with it.

Not only will the photos, memorabilia and keepsakes be a trip down memory lane each time they are looked at but you will amuse all who read your words at the same time. It's really easy to do. Let me show you how. One or two stanzas (paragraphs) will do, written under a photo, a concert ticket or a lock of hair, recalling your memory. All it will cost you is time and you'll get a bit of a mental workout while you're at it.

Let's start by using a hypothetical scenario to show you how easy it is to pen a rhyming poem. Eight year old Jonny tried to frighten Grandpa at lunch by putting a worm in his sandwich. Grandpa knew what was going on so he swapped plates, last-minute, and Jonny ended up eating the worm without realizing it. You snapped a photo of Jonny and Grandpa to remember the occasion forever.

Your poem is going to flow like you're telling a story, so start off by writing down what happened on a piece of paper, exactly as it happened. You don't need to be creative at this point. Write it the way it unfolded and put each sentence on a separate line.

Once you have your story set out, look at the words at the end of each line. Do any of them rhyme? Can you make any of them rhyme by choosing a different word or by phrasing the line differently? For example, your first line could start with something like "Jonny aged eight, trying to frighten old Grandpa." As an opening line, it labels the photo as well as putting it into context. For the next line, you could follow it up with what actually happened "By putting a worm in his lunch."  For the third line, you could make the last word on the line rhyme with Grandpa or rhyme with lunch. Alternatively, you could make the first part of the third line rhyme with the last part of it. "Grandpa was clever and knew far better." If so, you could then make the fourth line rhyme with the second line. "He swapped plates, last-minute on a hunch." It could go something like this:

Jonny aged eight, trying to frighten old Grandpa

By putting a worm in his lunch

Grandpa was clever and knew far better

He swapped plates, last-minute, on a hunch

Jonny made us all laugh when he said lunch was the best

Meal, he'd just about ever tasted

Eyeing Grandpa all the while, wondering why

He ate all, leaving nothing wasted......

There are no rules. This is your poem, so whatever sounds right to you, will be right. You can make it as long or as short as you want. In the second stanza above, I made two lines rhyme. The words "tasted"and "wasted" in the second and fourth lines rhyme. If you want to make every line rhyme, you can also do that. A poem is endearing when it rhymes and even though at first it may seem like you have to spend a lot of time getting it right, the rhymes will come. If you have plenty of lines, you can swap their order around if you have a better chance of a word rhyming with a word at the end of a line further down.

The trick with penning a short poem like this is to use as many words, relevant to the occasion, as you possibly can. In doing this, you will successfully capture the moment. The poem above succeeds in summing up the memory in a nutshell. It says so much and reflects far more than you could get from a one line title under a photo. You are reminded of Grandpa's wise ways and the lengths Jonny would go to play a practical joke on him.

Your poems can be comical or they can be serious. I have written a book of fun, whimsical, rhyming poems, largely influenced by the rhyming style of the Dr. Seuss books I used to read to my children. Get inspired by checking out other rhyming poems. There are loads of them on the internet. Take a look at your children's story books or even the poems available for purchase in the scrapbook section of your local craft store. Arm yourself with your finest pens and your best hand writing and you'll create a poem to be proud of for years, written right next to the memories you'll cherish forever!

Copyright 2011 Sara Lauritzen

All rights reserved