Determine a form for your poetry if one is not already dictated by your teacher. Popular forms include the Shakespearean sonnet (14 lines in ABAB/CDCD/EFEF/GG), haiku (three sections of 17 onji in 5-7-5 syllable form) and limerick (five lines in AABBA form).
Find a subject to write about. Begin with a general subject -- such as love -- and move to a more specific subject -- such as your love for a particular hobby or object. If you cannot think of a subject, try writing about a particular picture or an item from the daily newspaper.
Write with the intent of satisfying an image in the reader's mind. Rather than telling intimate details, let your lack of words speak to the imagination of the reader. Instead of directly defining an object, give the reader only a half of it to go off of, such as the visual cues similar to a movie scene.
Express your emotions with sensory words that invite the reader to hear, smell and taste the essence of your topic. Instead of saying your are in love, write about the rapid palpitations of your heartbeat, the sweat on your palms and the ecstasy in your soul.
Run some lines on longer than their allotted lines using enjambment (a technique for running a line into the next one). This adds a natural tone to your poetry that keeps your poem from sounding stale and jilted.
Explore the rhythm and sound of your words and the type of effect they have on the tone of your poem. Employ alliteration (repetition of a particular syllable), assonance (stressing internal vowel sounds), and onomatopoeia (incorporating sound effects) to your poem's advantage.