I often write songs based on poems that I wrote. That being said, translating poems into songs often changes the words. When I start singing a poem to a melody, different rhymes and rhythms come to life. For the poem to flow musically, it helps to be flexible with how the lines come out in the lyrics.
That being said, a poem can easily become a full song in many ways. Here’s a few of my favorite techniques:
Inserting my favorite lines (or the title itself) in-between verses as the refrain and/or the bridge
If it’s a short poem (no more than 3 stanzas), I might repeat the whole poem (singing its entirety 2-3 times). That’s it! By making little changes in the melody, singing it fuller/softer or faster/slower, or singing it in a higher/lower octave, the song builds and deepens without feeling too repetitive.
If it’s a super-short poem, I might repeat the different lines in different orders. I think of it like a lyrical collage where different lines repeat and weave together to create new meanings in different combinations. In this method (and any time you write a song with lots of repetition), the emotional delivery of the lines plays a huge part in the storytelling, meaning and feeling. With range in your delivery, you don’t have to use lots of words to say a lot.
Give it go!
Write a poem and make a song of it. For help writing the poem, check out: Activating the Poetic Perspective: Peace with (our) Nature through Poetry
Check Out More Songwriting Practices:
Read More About the Foundations of Reflective Art with:
The Heart of Reflective Arts: for peace within and all around