Acrostics are one of my favorite poetic forms! I think they′re a blast to play with. They are poems that, when you read the first letter of each line vertically down the poem, the letters form a new word or phrase, related to the poem.

Acrostics have been around a long time, and the earliest known versions were recorded in Ancient Greece. Focusing on the children’s side of things, here’s an example from Through the Looking-Glass (which is in the public domain), by Lewis Carroll. The last chapter is called “A Boat, Beneath A Sunny Sky.” The poem is an acrostic of Alice Pleasance Liddell, the name of the real Alice.

A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July -

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear -

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream -
Lingering in the golden gleam -
Life, what is it but a dream?

So, how do you write an acrostic? First, I have to know what I′m writing about. Unlike with free verse poems, I can’t simply start spilling words onto the page and hope they′ll make something good!

So I choose my topic. And, even more important, I think about what I want to say about my topic. I brainstorm lots of concrete words and sensory words related to my topic and what it is I want to say.

Then I choose my word and write it down the page, one letter per line. I look at my brainstormed list to see which letters might match up with which words, and I begin playing.

One thing about acrostics is that, for me, anyway, you just can’t force them. You can’t let the letters in the word force you to take your poem in a direction that makes no sense. Might the letters change the way I word what I want to say? Of course. But I’ll end up with passionless nonsense if I′m totally dictated to by the letters.

One thing I will try is to change the word, but not the topic.

I had heard on a nature show on TV that in Japan, I think, they call avalanches “the white dragon.” I loved that! I first tried writing a poem with WHITE DRAGON being the first letters of the lines. I got nowhere with that. Then I realized that I liked it better as a kind of riddle poem, with the title giving a clue, the poem itself describing the experience, and the letters down the left giving the answer: AVALANCHE.

It’s one of the first acrostics I wrote:

Revenge of the White Dragon
(An Acrostic)

A dragon wakes, his winter sleep disturbed. He
Vows to punish you, the intruder.
Air swells with a low rumble.
Land beneath you trembles.
Above, a wave of concrete snow thunders down. The dragon roars your
Name. But he can’t find you.
Chewing up trees and spewing them out, he searches for you.
His steamy, snowy breath clouds the sky, and the
Earth cradles you to its rocky chest as the dragon’s belly slides by. Safe!

—Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

Acrostics make great riddle poems. Click here to read a poem called “The Stone Skipping Record,” from J. Patrick Lewis′ (one of my favorite poets) The World’s Greatest: Poems. The title tells you the subject, and the acrostic forms the answer. The last three lines nudge kids to look for the answer in the poem:

Guess
How many times
The pebble dimpled the water.

Acrostics take many forms. You might have just one word per line, as I did here, in this poem from Fuzzy-Fast Blur: Poems About Animals.

A Closer Look

Glowing
Orange
Lacy
Delicate
Fanning
Iridescent
Shimmering
Hoverer

—Laura Purdie Salas

Or you might use longer lines. Here’s a poem from Always Got My Feet: Poems About Transportation.

From Behind a Window

Look at me!
In here!
Moving slowly, watching yo
Out there

–Laura Purdie Salas

I try to never use the word that the acrostic forms anywhere else in the poem or title, even if it’s not exactly a riddle poem. I think that weakens the impact of the reader realizing the first letters create a word.

You could also try a phrase acrostic. This is a specialized acrostic where the first word of each line forms a well-known phrase. I haven’t been able to do this for a kids′ poem, but I blogged about it here and shared this phrase acrostic I wrote for adults from a quotation by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Written in the Stars

In the morgue,
The body lies still, cold flesh on colder steel
Stars that burned in her eyes have flared and gone out
Is this what the fragment of poetry that has been
Written on her life has come to?
The brief moment of
Death captured in a haiku
Of broken syllables?
Every poem ends, the only mystery
Man can’t solve

—Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

Acrostics do not traditionally use any particular meter, nor do they rhyme. But every once in a while, I like to play around with a rhyming acrostic. This poem is from Shrinking Days, Frosty Nights: Poems about Fall.

Watchman

Stay out of our
Crops or I will get
Angry crows, grackles, and sparrows, too!
Robbing our harvest is
Ever so rude, thinking our
Corn and wheat is for you. Fly away,
Race to some other farm, to filch your
Oats and seeds for free. You′re better off finding an empty field
Without a scary guard like me!

–Laura Purdie Salas

 

And this one is from And Then There Were Eight: Poems About Space.

And Then There Were Eight

Poor ball of ice, we know you exist; but you′re
Little and solid and we must insist on
Undoing the past, so though you’ll be missed, we′ve
Taken you
Off of the “real planet” list

—Laura Purdie Salas

Rhyming ones are really fun and challenging to write! You just have to let go of the expectation that your rhymes will fall at the end of the lines. At least I do! I want the rhymes to fall where they should when the poem is read aloud (or silently, but by an accomplished reader), but I don’t worry about trying to make the lines end with the various rhyming words. One thing I like about this is that the rhyme and meter often come as a surprise to the reader!

Now, I’ve said acrostics are fun, and they are. But they don’t always work. Here are a couple of failed attempts.

For my fall poetry book from Capstone, I had a stunning image of white birch trees against an unbelievably beautiful fall blue sky. The tree limbs looked like they were stretching right into the sky. I wanted to write an acrostic, a spare, strong acrostic, to complement that image.

Here are my attempts. As you′ll see, when I work on a draft, I just skip a letter if I′m having trouble with it.

Branches
I
Reach
Crooked
Hands
Ever
Skyward

Bare
I
Reach
Cold
Hands to the
Ever-after
Sky

Running into problems, I brainstormed a few more words:

trees birch sticks smooth papery old earthy

It didn’t really help.

Bare
Illuminated arms
Reach
Cold
Hands to the
Effortless, ever-after
Sky

Branches,
Impatient,
Reach papery
Cold
Hands to the
Effortless, ever-after
Sky

Bare,
Impatient branches
Reach
Cold
Hands to the
Effortless, ever-after
Sky

Up

Bare,
Infinite branches
Reach
Cold, white
Hands to hold the
Endless
Sky

I actually like this last version, but it’s not very kid-friendly, and it didn’t get used in the book.

And here’s one I was trying desperately to make work for a weather poems collection I wrote. This is straight out of my Word document:

Spring
Puddles
Leap,
Alive or Applauding
Sparkling or Seas of
H?ing

Stomp!
Pound!
Let
All
Shoes

Spring
Puddles
Leap,
Arcing
Seas of

entertainment

force

Spring
Puddles
Leap,
A
Sea-sonal
Hobby

sea
season
seal
seam
seat

S
P
L
Admiral of the
Sea of

Hmmm…not sure. Thought an acrostic would be easy, but H is killing me. A is not great, either

S
P
L
A
Spring’s
Heart … too sappy

Small
Puddle
Leftovers
Are
Spring’s
Heroes

Set aside for now.

Well. The last line says it all!

So, acrostics may look very simple, and they should look that way. And sometimes I find they spill out almost without effort, while other times I labor over them and end up with nothing.

That’s poetry for you.

Are you ready to give an acrostic a try?

• Choose your topic
• Choose the mood or main point of your poem
• Brainstorm a long list of words that describe this topic (without thinking about what letters they start with)
• Write the topic word vertically down the page
• Try writing a draft, with one word or phrase per letter, each flowing logically and naturally from the line before
• Repeat steps 4–5 until you have a decent draft or you′re stamping your feet in frustration—whichever comes first

I hope you′ll try an acrostic!