How to Write Diamante Poems

Brevity is a unique quality to have in writing these days. When it comes to poetry nowadays, it's not unusual to find collections of poetry filled with poems that are at least two to three pages long. While there's nothing wrong with those free form poems, there's much to be said about brevity in poetry.

Like the Haiku poem, the Diamante poem challenges the poet to make a powerful statement using a small amount of words. Although, I've been writing poetry ever since I was a child, up until 2007, I hadn't heard of the Diamante poem. A member of my writer's group told me about it and I fell in love with this unique form of poetry.

The Diamante poem is shaped like a diamond, which is a part of its name. The origins of the name Diamante is Italian. There are no complete sentences in this poem. There are seven lines in the poem comprised of a single word or a set of a few words in each line. Here's the outline of the Diamante poem and to follow up I will demonstrate how it reads by providing one of my own Diamante poem's I've written recently.

The point of the poem is to show a transformation from one thing to another (baby to adult) or to describe opposites (rainy day and sunny day).

The Diamante Poem Formula
Line 1 - noun
Line 2 - adjective, adjective
Line 3 - verb, verb, verb
Line 4 - Line 1 noun, Line 1 noun, Line 7 noun Line 7 noun
Line 5 - verb, verb, verb
Line 6 - adjective, adjective
Line 7 - noun


"Sets Us Free"
lie
ugly, horrid
perpetuating, escalating, dissolving
tainted, mask, freedom, light
growing, cleansing, loving
beauty, joy
truth

This poem (if centered on the page) is shaped like a diamond. Also, as you can see with the poem I wrote using that formula, the first word is lie, the adjectives in line 2 describe that word and the verbs in line 3 are also talking about the word in line 1. The first two words in line 4 are for the word in line 1; the second two words are for the word in line 7. The words in line 5 and line 6 are describing line 7 as well. Note how the poem is showing opposites (from lie to truth). It speaks very deeply about these two opposites of lie and truth, but it is brief and to the point.