Make a list of
twenty phrases that use alliteration, such as the sun settled
on the south hill with sudden color. Pick
two or three of these phrases and try to build images around them. Use at least
one of these images in a poem.
Make a list of fifteen
physical experiences that you’ve had, such as falling out of a tree, riding a
roller coaster, or jumping on a trampoline. Choose one from your list and use
images to create a lyric poem about the experience.
(by Jay Klokker, from
The Practice of Poetry, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, eds.)
Write a poem addressed to a particular
body part. Make sure you maintain a consistent tone and
focus.
Try to remember everything you can about a
particular event that occurred when you were a child. In can be any type of
experience, now matter how insignificant. Make a list of all the details you can
remember.
Once you’ve finished your list, build a narrative poem around
it. Keep in mind that you don’t have to be faithful to the past. You can change
details, descriptions, or actions if the change will make the poem work
better.
Write a short poem that begins and ends with the same
line. The reader should feel differently about the line the second time around
because of what has happened in the poem.
Write a poem in
which you confess to a crime you didn’t commit. You can create the circumstances
– perhaps you’re talking to a priest, or you’re being interrogated by police.
Turn your confession into a narrative poem in which you describe the events
leading up to your crime.
Write a poem in
which you literally build or take apart something for the reader. Describe each
step of the process for the reader, incorporating technical terms and
descriptions of materials. Create a lyric or narrative poem that “shows” the
reader how it’s done.
(by Deborah Digges, from The Practice of Poetry,
Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, eds.)
Write a “confession”
poem detailing an emotional crime and how you committed it.
ORWrite a
poem in the voice of a murderer. Make the reader sympathetic to the
murderer.
Freewrite about the first experience with death
you can remember, whether it involved a person or an animal. Then freewrite
about your most recent experience with death. Combine the details, memories, and
images from the two into a lyric or narrative poem.
Many people have recurring dreams – of flying, of
being chased, of being in a particular location or situation. Write a poem about
such a dream that uses repetition to capture its obsessive nature. Try to repeat
fragments rather than simply initial words or complete sentences; let the
repetition interrupt the flow of the dream-story.
Write a poem in which you speak after your own
death. In it, describe what death looks and feels like. Describe how it feels to
be conscious at the time of death, what your emotions are. Give advice to the
living about how they should face death.
Using the third
person, write an elegy poem for yourself, imaging that you’ve just died at the
age of ninety. Include a description of yourself, and things that you would like
to be remembered for/by. You may want to include places you’ve been, inventions
you’ve created, famous people you’ve met, your talent for singing or dancing or
cooking, your favorite book or movie or color, where you had your first kiss,
what you did for a living, how many times you were married, how many children
you had, all the states or countries you’ve lived in, etc.
Write a poem of about thirty lines that consists
of a single sentence. Experiment with clauses and phrases and parallel
structure. Try to keep the sentence moving forward, enjambing it across lines in
different ways, while making sure it is grammatically correct. This type of
exercise will help you develop flexibility as a writer, teaching you new ways to
phrase things and new ways to play with the syntax of a line.
(by Richard
Jackson, from The Practice of Poetry, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell,
eds.)
Brainstorm a list of everyday activities, such as
washing the dishes, chopping vegetables, mowing the lawn, going grocery
shopping, etc. Choose one and describe it in precise detail, focusing on every
action it requires, all the little sensory moments involved. Take all of these
details and images and use them to write a lyric poem in which you make some
everyday experience sound erotic.
ORChoose a landscape to describe. It
can be any kind of landscape, but try something nontraditional – a junkyard or
an empty parking lot. Use your descriptions and images to write a lyric poem in
which you make the landscape seem erotic.
The
traditional imagery for good and evil is light and dark, white and black.
Brainstorm a list of images called up by the two opposites. Then write a poem
that reverses traditional expectations. In other words, write a poem about what
is beautiful or inspiring about the dark, or a poem about what is awful or
terrifying about the daylight.
Write a lyric
poem in which you adopt the persona of a character from a fairy tale. For
example, you could describe the way Snow White feels while she sleeps inside her
coffin, or how the Prince feels as he holds Cinderella’s glass slipper in his
hand.
Write a poem in which you “remember” something
that never happened. Use strong sensory images to convince the reader it really
happened.
Write a poem in which you adopt the persona of a
parent or grandparent. Write the poem in the form of a letter addressed to your
significant other. Describe your feelings for this person, the way they look and
smell, memories that you have of them, where or how you met, etc.
Think of something you were afraid of as a child.
Write a poem in which you describe what it was and how it made you feel. You can
write from the point of view of an older person looking back on it, or you can
write from the point of view of the child you once were.
Read the descriptions in a book of natural history
or a field guide, such as a guide to birds, mushrooms, or wildflowers. Write a
poem about a plant, bird, rock, animal, or fish from the book. Incorporate
information from the book in the poem to help the reader identify your
subject.
Take one line from a poem of your own that is
unfinished or a poem by another poet. It does not matter where the line occurs
in the poem, but you want to select the best line from the poem. Use this line
as the first line of a new poem. Try to maintain the same quality of sound,
language and thought that the first line presents.
(by Stephen Dunn, from
The Practice of Poetry, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, eds.)
Many poems arise out of everyday life – something
you may have walked or driven by a hundred times and suddenly noticed for the
first time. Part of learning to write poetry is learning to look around and
observe both the ordinary and the unusual.
Exercise: Spend half an hour
walking around outside (on campus or in a parking lot, for example). Pay
attention to the objects you see. Make a list of five “foreign objects” (such as
a Band-aid stuck to a stop sign or a scarf hanging from a tree).
Once
you’ve made your list, try to imagine the story behind the object – how it ended
up where you found it. Build a narrative poem around the
object.
ORDescribe the scene in great detail – the landscape
surrounding the object, then the object itself. Build a lyric poem around the
object.
Choose one object in your room and make a list of
all of the ways you could use it, or all of the things you could do with it. For
example, a glass can be used to drink from, to pour from, to collect rain water,
to turn upside town and catch a fly under, etc. Turn your list of functions into
a lyric poem, using the object as the title.
(by Jack Myers, from The
Practice of Poetry, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, eds.)
Spend twenty minutes observing people in a public
place. Make a list of the gestures that people make, no matter how subtle. For
example, the way a child twirls her hair around a finger, or the way a woman
tucks loose strands of hair behind one ear.
Choose one gesture and
describe its motions in great detail. Build a poem around this moment and what
you think it tells you about the person.
Write a poem to God.
Make it a tirade, a complaint, a request.
ORWrite a poem as God. Let
God explain, refute, deny, defend.
ORWrite a poem in which God is a
traffic cop, a new anchor, a porn star, a grocery clerk.
Choose half a dozen small objects from around the
house (like a fork, a toothbrush, or a stapler). Close your eyes and run your
hands over each object. Write a description of what the object feels like, and
how you think it looks. Use metaphor and simile to compare the feel or shape of
the object to something else. When you have written descriptions for each of the
objects, choose one to write a poem about. Describe the poem in such a way that
a blind person could tell what it looks like.
The poet James Merrill wrote “we understand
history through the family around the table.” Think about ways your own family’s
story overlaps with the story of others – a historical event, an ethnic group, a
social issue. Write a poem about someone in your family and how his or her story
is related to history.
(based on an exercise by David Wojahn, from The
Practice of Poetry, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, eds.)
Think about your childhood home, recalling the
inside (hallways, rooms, closets, etc.) and the outside (the front yard, back
yard, trees, swing sets, etc.). Focus on a place inside or out that was special
to you. Describe the time you spent there, the things you did, the discoveries
you made, the emotions you felt, why you went there, etc.
Find a contemporary poem that you admire. Write a
poem in which you imitate the style, tone, theme, sentence structure, etc. of
the original poem. You may want to borrow the poem’s first line and use it to
write a poem of your own. You may want to write on a similar topic – a childhood
memory, describing an everyday object, providing a narrative for a photograph,
etc.
Choose one inanimate object in your room. Describe
what it looks like, and describe the room around it. When you’ve finished your
descriptions, write a poem in which you adopt the persona of the inanimate
object: what does it think, what does it feel, what does it look out at day
after day after day, etc.
Write a
poem in which you adopt the persona of someone famous (they can be dead or
alive). Imagine this person sitting alone, looking out over the Grand Canyon at
sunrise, reflecting on his or her life. Write a poem in which you convey this
person’s character through his or her internal thoughts.
Write a description pf one particular element of a
set. For example, you can describe one book on a shelf, one face in a crowd, one
bird on a telephone line, etc. Try to describe both the characteristics of the
group/set, and to distinguish what makes the one member you’re focusing on
different from the others. Turn your description into a lyric poem.
(by
Michael Pettit, from The Practice of Poetry, Robin Behn and Chase
Twichell, eds.)
Go somewhere
scenic – to a park or a lake, for example. Describe the landscape that surrounds
you using sight, sound, smell, and tactile images. Build a lyric poem out of
these images.
ORGo somewhere urban – downtown Chicago or St. Louis,
for example. Describe the landscape of the city using sight, sound, smell, and
tactile images. Build a lyric poem out of these images.
Write a poem in the form of a letter to someone
who is dead. In it, make a confession about something you did to them when they
were still alive.
ORWrite a poem in the form of a letter imagining
that you are dead. In it, tell them something you meant to tell them while you
were still alive.
(based on an exercise by Robin Behn, from The Practice
of Poetry, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, eds.)
Write a lyric poem in which you describe yourself
being born. Describe what it feels like inside the birth canal, what it feels
like as you push your way out, what you see, smell, hear or taste,
etc.
ORWrite a lyric poem in which you describe the moment of your
death. Describe how you feel as you take your last breath. Describe the last
thing you see, hear, touch, taste, smell or feel. Describe who is with you,
where you’re at, etc.
Take something
negative about yourself – an abstract concept, like fear, depression, hatred,
loneliness, or cruelty – and find a concrete image for what it feels like. Maybe
it feels like a weight pressing down on your, like walking down a dark street at
night, or waking up in an abandoned house. Once you decide on a topic and an
image, draw out the image in a lyric poem with the topic as your
title.
Read the newspaper. Pick one story from the paper,
and write a poem in which you take on the persona of someone involved in the
story. Write a narrative poem in which you tell the story from that person’s
point of view.
(based on an exercise by Mary Swander, from The Practice of
Poetry, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, eds.)
Below are the opening lines from some short
stories and novels. Pick one that interests you and see what kind of poem it
generates:
- Come into my cell. Make yourself at home.
- Night fell. The darkness was thin, like some sleazy dress that has been worn
and worn.
- There is an evil moment on awakening when all things seem to pause.
- It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to
see things blackened and changed.
- “Notice the sensuous curve of the breast.”
- God help me.
- She lay in the dark and cried.
- The big house was still, almost
empty.
(from Writing Poems ,
Robert Wallace and Michelle Boisseau, eds.)
Write a persona
poem in which you take on the personality of an older, single adult of the
opposite gender. Write a poem in the form of a personals ad in which you
describe yourself and your interests, and then describe the type of man or woman
you would be interested in dating.
Look around
your bedroom, kitchen, living room, or bathroom. Make a list of objects that
seem to have moods or personalities. Choose five of them and create a
description of each one’s personality or mood. Pick one of your descriptions and
build a poem around it.
Write a persona poem
from the point-of-view of your pet. Describe your environment, your day-to-day
activities, the food you eat, where you sleep, where you use the restroom, the
toys you play with, what you think about, the way your owner behaves,
etc.
Look through an old family album. Find a picture
that you’re not in and write a lyric poem that describes the person and/or
scene.
ORLook through a book of historical photographs. Write a lyric
or narrative poem based on the person and/or scene.
Think of someone in your family, imagining them
doing something they typically do – like, your mother gardening or your brother
sketching pictures under a tree. Freeze them there in your mind in an
“imaginary” photograph. Describe the photograph as if it were real, using the
details to reveal something about this person’s character.
Write a poem in which you describe an object – not
in its entirety – but piece by piece. Do not say what the object is. Let the
individual parts explain the whole.
Make a list of
twenty phrases in which you use words as different parts of speech, such as
he turned to me with a shadowing stare or her kisses purpled his
flesh. Once you’ve made your list, choose one phrase to build a lyric or
narrative poem around.
Look at yourself
in a mirror for as long as you can stand it. Describe yourself in as much detail
as possible. Build a poem around your own reflection: the way your body changes
over time, the small details of your face that no one notices, the reality of
“facing” yourself, etc.
Make a list of
things you find repulsive – the smell of garbage, fast food employees, people
who never shut up, etc. Choose one and write a poem in which you describe that
person, place or thing in such a way that it becomes beautiful.
Find a short lyric poem you really like and type
it on your computer, leaving three blank lines between each line of the poem.
Print it out. In the spaces between each line, fill in a new line of your own
that seems like it would sound right following the line original line before it.
Once you have filled in all the spaces with lines of your own, cross out all the
typed lines from the original poem. Revise the poem using only the lines that
you have written.
(by J. D. McClatchy, from The Practice of
Poetry, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, eds.)
Sit in one place for fifteen minutes and write
down everything you observe about the place: sights, sounds, smells, feelings,
colors, temperature, lighting, etc.
Once you have a complete description,
create a poem that develops a scene through a series of images.
Take a poem that you’ve been working on but have
been unable to get “to work.” Type it up, double-spaced, and print it out. Cut
it into pieces – cutting so that phrases and chunks of sound or sense stay
together. Throw away any extra parts, then take all of the “pieces” and try
rearranging them in different orders. Add whatever you need, and keep moving
things around until it “works.”
(by Chase Twichell, from The Practice of
Poetry, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, eds.)
Talk with your parents or someone else who would
know about your childhood. Try to find out something you didn’t know about
yourself and then write about it as if you remembered it.
THE GROUNDFALL PEAR Jane Hirshfield It is the one he chooses, yellow, plump,
a little bruised on one side from falling. That place he takes first.
Using
Hirshfield’s poem as a model, write a short (4-5 line) lyric poem that is a
metaphor for sex, desire, or love.
Write a poem about an
experience that caused you to feel a sense of shame.
Sit in one room and make a list of descriptions of
various objects and their shapes. Try to be as exact as possible, and to make
the description of the different shapes distinct.
Meditate on the shape
and form of objects. Try to build a poem around one or the objects, a particular
shape, or the idea of form.
Write a poem in
which you withhold the subject and verb for as long as possible; begin with a
preposition or adverb, then pile up the phrases and clauses.
Write a poem that is composed of only one-syllable
words, or a poem that alternates between one and two-syllable
words.
Write a poem in which you take on the voice of one
of the following:
- A used napkin
- A scalpel
- A turtle turned upside down by a group of children
- A washing machine
- A framed photograph
- A ceiling fan
- An unopened letter
- A remote control
Write a poem in the voice of a widow whose husband
has drowned. Invent any story you like about how this happened – he was a
fisherman who was washed overboard in a storm or he was in a boat that
capsized.
Imagine that the widow, who now hates water, is forced to
confront it due to circumstances beyond her control. Perhaps she goes to visit a
friend who lives by a lake, or she must jump in a pool to save a child who has
fallen in.
Write a poem in which you adopt the persona of the widow. In
her voice, describe what you see and feel as you look out at the water.
(by
Maura Stanton, from The Practice of Poetry, Robin Behn and Chase
Twichell, eds.)
Write a poem
describing a scene outside your window. Do this even if your window faces a
brick wall or a boring landscape; use your imagination to make it
interesting.
Writing poetry teaches you to experience language
in new ways, and the most important thing that you can do as a writer is to
develop a relationship with words – to look at them individually, to learn how
to see and hear and taste and feel the different textures of each word, and then
to learn ways to weave words together into poems.
Exercise: Make a list
of twenty-five of the most beautiful/sensual/or poetic words you can think of.
(For example, some of my favorite words are: obsidian, wisp, hollow, trickle,
iridescent, and flicker.) If you can’t think of any off the top of your head,
flip through the dictionary.
Once you have your list of words, pick one
to try to build a poem around. The word can be the title of your poem, part of
an image, central to a narrative, or just a word in a line. |
