How to Write a Ballad

Most traditional forms of Western poetry such as the Ballad have greatly suffered since Walt Whitman set off the free verse revolution about a hundred and fifty years ago. Yet the best poets of modern times - Robert Frost, Richard Wilbur and Dylan Thomas, among others - never abandoned the poetic form of the Ballad and other poetic traditions of English verse.

The Ballad is in fact one of the oldest styles of writing poetry, which mainly aimed at telling love stories in poetic form. The Ballad is indeed one of the most unique and yet one of the most interesting forms of poetry. The Ballad was originally written for occasions and as expressions of emotions - mainly love, passion and attraction - as well as heartaches. Beowulf, one of the oldest pieces of literature in English, is written in Old English and in Ballad form.

As far as the form is concerned, the Ballad usually has stanzas made up of either seven, eight or ten lines, and ends with a short four or five line stanza. Each stanza ends with the same line, which is called 'a refrain'. The rhythmic pattern that the ballad takes up is commonly known as the doggerel. In spite of the Ballad being usually long and made up of several lines, the art of writing this genre of poetry can be misinterpreted as effortless because the subject matter is more often quite light and the rhyme and rhythm rather soothing. And although it is true that anyone can string together a few lines of syllables to meet seemingly compose a Ballad, only a selected few would excel at what would read as pure poetry. And the Ballad is definitely not one of the simplified forms of poetry.

If you are seriously considering learning how to write a Ballad, you should first of all learn to take your time to think of an original theme for your Ballad, preferably a theme that has to do with love and other related emotions so as to keep up with the tradition. You should also remember that the Ballad is a long, extended form of poetry, so your thoughts and ideas with regard to the theme need to be well developed. The next step in learning how to write Ballad will be to learn to organize your thoughts for the poem as you work towards formulating the first stanza. After the theme is set, the next step when writing your Ballad will be to expand on that feeling as it should be extended throughout the poem.

The Ballad being a highly rhythmic poetic style that adheres strictly to its rhyming scheme, while you are learning how to write Ballad, you should also think of training yourself to find the most appropriate words so as to be able to create rhyme and rhythm. A great tip to remember is to think of synonyms. A word may have too many or too few syllables, but its synonym may be a perfect fit.