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How to Write a Couplet

Couplets are two lines of poetry that form a complete thought and in which the last words in each line rhyme. The lines each have about the same number of syllables. Couplets are common in poetry, and the poet can put them together to create a longer poem. Shakespeare made regular use of couplets in his sonnets:

There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,
Than both your poets can in praise devise.

The rhyming words at the end of couplets do not have to be spelled the same -- rather, they simply have the same ending sounds.
  1. Writing a Couplet

    • Choose a central idea about which to write. Then, write the first line of your poem. Select a rhyming word for the last word in the poem. Put this word at the end of the second line. You could also choose two words that rhyme first and write your poem around those two words. For example, you might write:

      My daughter sat down to look
      At the colorful pictures in her book.

      A couplet tells a whole story, so if your story is more involved than just a couple of lines, write more couplets to put together to form a longer poem. The rhyming scheme would be A, A, B, B. This means that the first two lines rhyme, and then the third and fourth rhyme.

Poetry

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