Using the Five Senses to Write Poetry

Emotions are abstract. This writing with emotion tool helps children make emotions understandable by asking questions to help them define how they feel. What color is your emotion, red like anger, purple calm, or blue tranquil? What does it sound like, discordant or a lullaby? What does it taste like: mustard, cotton candy, or salt? Where do you feel it in your body, sad like a weight or happy like skipping feet? The prompts help children describe feelings they might not have language for yet. I like to talk about Disney’s Riley and Inside Out, and how emotions can feel like they are many things.

Looking at emotions in writing makes them less overwhelming. When you are a kid, sometimes problems are small and sometimes they are big. Children are thrust into situations where they do not have the agency to speak for themselves. Teaching them that emotions can be defined is a powerful coping tool.

How the Emotion Poem Helper Works

Type any emotion or feeling word, joy, loneliness, embarrassment, excitement, and the tool will walk you through a series of sensory questions to help you describe it. What color is it? What does it sound like? Where do you feel it in your body?

Each answer becomes a line or an image in your poem. You don’t need to use everything the tool gives you, pick the details that feel most true and build from there. The goal isn’t a perfect poem on the first try; it’s getting the feeling out of your head and onto the page in a way that someone else can recognize.

The five senses are a great way to make feelings concrete. Instead of writing “I was sad,” you write what sadness looks, sounds, smells, and feels like in your body. That’s the difference between telling a reader about an emotion and making them feel it. Once you’ve written your emotion poem, try reading it aloud; you’ll hear which lines land and which ones need more.

More children’s poetry tools are found in our children’s poetry hub.