Psalm
Quick answer: A psalm is a sacred song or poem, originally from the biblical Book of Psalms, built on parallelism. Learn how psalms work and how poets use the form today.
A psalm is a sacred song or lyric poem, most specifically one of the 150 Hebrew poems collected in the biblical Book of Psalms, and by extension any poem written in their manner of address, praise, or complaint toward the divine. The word travels from the Greek 'psalmos', a song sung to a plucked instrument, which is a useful reminder that these were performance texts, chanted and sung for centuries before they were read silently.
For poets, the psalms are a technical inheritance as much as a religious one. Translated into the English of the King James Bible in 1611, their rhythms soaked into the language, and their central device, parallelism, remains one of the most portable structures in world poetry. Whitman's long free-verse line is unthinkable without it.
How It Works
Hebrew poetry organises by parallelism rather than rhyme or syllable count: the second half of a line restates, intensifies, or reverses the first. Scholars call the main types synonymous (say it again differently), antithetic (say the opposite), and synthetic (extend the thought). This structure survives translation, which is why psalms stay poetry in any language.
An original example of the movement: 'The night unrolled its ledger against me; every debt I owed the dark was read aloud. But morning tore the page; the light forgave what it had never lent.' First a statement intensified, then its reversal: parallelism doing the structural work rhyme does elsewhere.
Where You Will See It
Psalm 23, the shepherd psalm, is probably the most widely known poem in English, and Psalm 137, mourning exile in Babylon, has fed everything from Renaissance settings to reggae. Beyond scripture, the psalm became a living literary form: Sir Philip Sidney and his sister Mary Herbert made verse translations that shaped Elizabethan lyric, Paul Celan wrote a devastating 'Psalm' addressed to no one, and contemporary poets regularly title poems 'Psalm' to borrow the posture of address, whether their addressee is God, absence, or a lake.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Start with parallelism as a drafting engine: write a statement, then answer it with restatement, intensification, or reversal, and keep alternating. The two-part line generates rhythm without meter and gravity without archaism. Address someone or something throughout, praise, plead, or accuse; psalms of complaint are as canonical as psalms of thanksgiving.
Do not fake antique diction. The psalms feel timeless because their images are elemental, water, enemies, harvest, night, not because of 'thee' and 'thou'. Put modern furniture inside the ancient structure and the form comes alive.
What poets can take from this
- Build lines in two halves: statement, then echo, intensification, or reversal.
- Address your subject directly all the way through.
- Remember complaint and accusation are legitimate psalm modes.
- Use elemental images rather than antique vocabulary.
- Read one King James psalm aloud before drafting, for rhythm only.
Try it yourself
Write a contemporary psalm of complaint addressed to something vast and unanswering: the sea, the economy, the night shift. Use parallelism in every line, and let the final line reverse the poem's opening statement.
Questions
What is the difference between a psalm and a hymn?
Psalms are the biblical Hebrew poems and works modelled on them, structured by parallelism. A hymn is any song of praise or devotion in any tradition, and in English usually rhymed and metrical. Many hymns are paraphrases of psalms.
What is parallelism in the psalms?
It is the pairing of half-lines so the second echoes, intensifies, or opposes the first. This, rather than rhyme, is the organising music of Hebrew poetry, and it survives translation intact.
Can I write a psalm if I am not religious?
Yes. The form's essentials, direct address, parallelism, and emotional candour ranging from praise to fury, work for secular subjects. Paul Celan's 'Psalm' famously addresses a 'no one' and remains unmistakably a psalm.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
Enter a Writory poetry contest
Enter the September contest and have your own poem read and scored. That first entry makes you a Writorian.