Word Poems and Pubs

If you can’t do pubs or just don’t want to you can substitute a cafe or some other outing for this exercise.

Go to a pub and get settled in, now look around and write down a list of 50 words that occur to you from the surroundings – some of these words will be longer than others – find the three longest.

Now you can do several different things with these words, the first is to hurt place each word down the side of a page so that there is one at the top, one at the bottom and one in the middle. Now write from one word to the next incorporating them into the poem.

Secondly you can make a spider diagram or cloud diagram of each word with the word in the middle and words associated with them around the outside. For one word do words that seem related to the middle word, for the second write memories or ideas you associate with the word and the third one write down concepts or story titles that are to do with the word. Now you can do a longer version of the first exercise with these word clusters or you can pick the longest word and make an acrostic poem. If you want to be really fancy you can do a double acrostic where the ends of the lines make a word on both sides of the poem. We used to call these Word Poems at school and they can be fun to make.

If you face something a little more difficult you can take the words and create a kind of cross word poem with the words going down the page as well as across or fit the words into a scrap landscape you can create from old paper.

Loosing Your Heads!

If you have Post Traumatic Stress or similar it is recommended that you write from the image and we suggest you ignore the exercise below.

Have you ever had that feeling of not being able to focus or being so panicked that you can’t actually think of how to resolve the issue? Think about how that felt and write about it as if it were a tangible object for 20 minutes.

Lip Balm Monster

One of the reasons putting goggly eyes on things is so funny is because it turns the inanimate object into something we see as animate – it turns and object into a creature and a derpy creature at that! If they were actually alive you just know they would be the silliest of sausages!

Why not get some little stick on eyes of your own and put them on some everyday items, look at the characters you’ve created and construct a character sheet for them. If you’ve not made a character sheet before you can simply list characteristics both personality traits and physical aspects for each creature.

Now how would your creatures interact with each other, how would each of them react in certain circumstances such as having to take a bath?

Make another list of these scenarios and then do 2 mins of writing for each combination. You may find you have some silly little poems just from this or something that can be turned into a a set of linked stanzers, you might even have a narrative poem trying to form but don’t push that – if it wants to be a story then go with it but it might just want to be a set of small not quiet connected pieces.

Or you may find you want to just focus on one of the pieces and write more about that particular creature and its adventures.

Alternatively you can just write from the image above, if you are really stuck just start describing the scene in minute detail.

Morris and More

In recent years The Morris Dance and related activities have seen a huge surge in popularity across Europe with new forms appearing along side the more Traditional sides or groups. The Morris have some amazing costumes, sometimes use, sticks, swords or hankies and are sometimes accompanied by horned tattered creatures.

Do half an hours research on Morris Dancing and Mummers Plays, make a bullet point of interesting facts or information about them. With you list and this photo at hand write about celebration and marking the seasons for 30 mins.

If that all seems like too much work for you then simple write from the photo for 15 mins.

The Morris side depicted in the photo are Styx of Stroud.

High in the Sky

This image shows the silhouette of a small plane flying on a bright blue sky. Write for 15 mins about what that must feel like or what can be seen from the plane.

New Beginnings for Poetry

This Phoenix notebook represents new beginnings – fallen behind on writing or never got start – don’t fret it is time to truly start!

Now for some that new start may well just be beginning to write or making sure that are actually leaving themselves time to write but for those who are already writing it is time to shake things up a bit!

If you are more of a freeform poet why not try writing using structures such as a sonnet or villanelle, if you write long form or epic poems try a haiku. If you do not rhyme then rhyme! You get the idea.

For those writers who already work across these sorts of structures and forms of poems why don’t you get a collection of classic poems – your local library will have lots of poetry collection or if you are like me you might have your old school texts about. Select a poem at random and write down its first line, now write from that line in your own words – not copying the poem from the book but new words, your own words inspired by that first line. They do not have to follow on directly from the words and often it is better if they don’t as you need the freedom to change concept and imagery. Once it is written let it sit a while and then re-read – does it work without that first line? If not add a different first line.

You may need to completely rework the poem, these are just ideas for creating the seed of a poem!

Frosty Bramble

Have a look at the needle ice growing all over this leaf, what do they remind you of? For me it is an ice cityscape but for others it maybe the remembrance of winter walks as a child.

The colours is this image are also interesting as if the seasons have decided to have a battle.

Write from the image for 15 mins

Week One and What Have You Done?

It is one week into our poetry writing drive and what have you done? Have you managed to get through all the exercises? Been inspired by our guest bloggers or have you been struggling? Not written a thing?

If you are in the first category then fantastic and keep going but if you are in the second then don’t despair! There is still plenty of time and perhaps you should look at where and when you actually get to write… maybe you need to make yourself a little nook or walk to the park and sit on a bench. Maybe you have a fine writing practice but it just isn’t working for you at the moment – something just isn’t working any more – if this is the case then try just changing what you are doing ie work from home? Go to a cafe… normally work in a cafe? then go for a long walk and sit outside to write! This shift in activity may just be what you need to get you writing again.

Just to get you going why not look at these faces in the mirror – what are they thinking? Why are there so many? Make notes on each face and then take them one at a time to write about. Alternatively just look at the image and start writing.

Missing Letters

Write the alphabet down the side of a page so each line starts with a new letter. Now write a line for each letter except no word in that line must contain that letter! So if it is an A you must not have any A’s in the words – do this for each letter. Once that is done see if you can make it flow as one continues piece of work with a little editing. If not start again with this goal in mind. Write each line as a follow on to the first.

If you have an alphabet page that didn’t flow you can expand it out doing a whole page of no letter for each line starting with what you have already written.

There are letter combinations that can be fun to omit during writing too such as -tion, str, oo.

Moon Over Mountain

The night sky can be amazing especially at sun rise or set – this image was taken at Sunset and shows a finger nail sliver of moon and the drop of planet star that is Venus. I would recommend going for your own walks at dusk to see if you can capture such a sight as often poems form whilst you are walking and awe inspiring sights like this one can spark that creativity – but if that is not possible or it is too cold etc… then write from this photograph for 30 mins.