Determine the subject of your gift poem. If you are writing for a special event--a graduation, an illness, a promotion at work or a job change--write about this specifically. If you are writing the gift poem for something a general holiday--a non-landmark birthday, Christmas--or just because, write a poem about some aspect of his life's story.
Outline the key events in the recipient's life that led them to where they are now. If it is a graduation, some events might be a competition won, the hard work she put in, or the part-time job he had to keep. If the poem has to do with a death, list key moments the recipient shared.
List reasons why the event or moment is significant in the person's life.
Make a list of hopes, predictions or dreams for the future.
Take your three lists and highlight the most important items. Use those in your poem.
Decide what kind of form you want to use for your poem. Some common poetic forms are the cinquain, the sonnet, the prose poem or the ode. This also the time, even if you decide not to use a strict poetic form, to figure out whether or not you want to have a rhyming scheme or multiple stanzas.
Write your poem. Don't get discouraged if it takes a while. Write according to the rhyming scheme, stanza number, and structure you decided in the previous step. If you are writing a free form poem, play with spacing and repetition of key words or phrases. Or, instead of repeating a specific word, use it in different forms or tenses, or play with homonyms so lines with different meanings will sound the same when read aloud. Even if you are using a hard and fast structure, these techniques will make the actual writing easier.
Don't look at your poem for a week after initially writing it. At the end of the week, go back and reread it. Many of the flaws should be easier to spot.