Pierced ears – this image is of a freshly pierced ear. Does it look painful? Are your ears pierced? Who does that ear belong too and what sort of earrings do you think they will hoard?
Think on these questions and spend 20 minutes writing about it.
Look at this image – look at the remnants of a previous time, a time that is ending and decaying and being ripped out of our civilisation, as if it never mattered in the first place. What wonders did these buildings know? What horrors? What of the people who built them? and conversely those who are dismantling them? Are there secrets here to be uncovered? What will be instead?
Take 30 to 45 minutes to write down everything that occurs to you about this scene, even if you just start of describing the images itself – keep writing.
Put the writing away for 6 months and then revisit it, you may find the bones of a poem or two lurking in there!
Sometimes the best way to come by a poem is to forget about it, to not actively work on – to go and do something else.
So instead of sitting down to do some writing why not get going with some household chores, or gardening or community clear up projects. The community projects can especially be fun and provide inspiration via the people you meet plus some of the very strange items you often end up having to clear up!
I personally find house work boring and so tend to put on a blast of music or listen to a book but for this exercise try just doing the chores without any music (a bored mind can be a fertile ideas ground!).
The world is full of patterns, humans are good at spotting patterns and textures. Go for a walk and see how many you can find, do not make any notes until after the walk when you are sitting down thinking on all you have seen. This walk can be in the city looking at people, buildings, pigeons and lorries or it can be in the country side looking at trees and cows and clouds. It may even have both.
Spend 15 minutes writing about the patterns you saw and how they made you feel.
What is this cat hoarding and why? Does she believe she is secretly a dragon? Is she some shape shifter or daemon from some long ago time or just a little puss kin waiting for her food?
What would it feel like to be this cat? Is she safe and content or worried that her treasure will be stolen?
Think on these questions and set your self 10 minutes to answer them. Then look at the answers and do a further 20 minutes of writing. Try not to get too hung up on the exact poetic structure as one may naturally emerge which you can edit the rest into later.
This is also a good story prompt and can be used for a narrative poem.
Find a window in a cafe or coffee shop, library or even your home, as long as it faces out to the street – preferably a busy street. Watch the world go by, the shoppers and cars and busses, each on of those people has a story to tell. Look at how they interact or pointedly do not. What are the colours like? Is everyone wearing similar clothing?
Find a second window – this one looking out onto some quieter gardenscape or mountains etc… somewhere that contrasts with the first setting. What is different here? Is it as different as you would have expected? What are the colours? And are you alone?
It is also interesting to do this exercise on different days, at different times – collecting different lighting and weather conditions.
Compare and contrast the scenes either with each other or with themselves on different days.
What is this little frog up too? Animals can be a good source of material for poetry especially if you get out and see them in person. This little fellow was found by a seven year old on an allotment but is it an ordinary frog or something magical?
Try and imagine what the frog would say if it could talk to you.
Look at the picture for a few minutes and then thinking about what it’s like to be a little frog try writing down what the frog does in a typical day.
The Arthurian legends are something most people know or know of or at least think they do but the actual historical records are hazy and confused – so what do you know of Merlin the Magician, Mage, Wild Man, Seer, Prophet, Wizard and Wiseman?
Spend twenty minutes writing from Merlins point of view – how does the story of the Pendragons pan out from his point of view?
Do not worry if you only know the film or TV versions of the character just roll with the personification of this old legend that floats to the top of your mind.
Now go and fall down a internet rabbit whole (or go to the library and get a book or three on the subject), watch documentaries, films, read wikipedia or talk to various fandoms about who they think Merlin is.
Once your brain is full of the wizard repeat the exercise and write for 20 minutes on this new version of Merlin that you have found.
Compare and contrast the two pieces and get the two characters to have a verbal battle or even a magical one – who will win? The Merlin of the historical texts or a modern telling or the one you grew up with in your head?
If you want to spice things up you could look at creating an epic poem along the lines of those made during the lower medical period including the rhyme and meter structures.
The Moon as a slither, almost not there at all… look at this picture – what does it say to you? How does it make you feel? Where are the birds going and does it hail a change or new beginning?
Spend 5 minutes writing, try not to think to much about what you are writing, instead just write even if it is you just describing the scene.
Leave what you have written for about a month and then go back to look at it. You may find there is already something poetic trying to break out of the muddle of words. Or maybe just one line – now is the time to craft it into your poem.
Bookmarks come in all sorts of shapes and sizes – often they are scraps of paper and not proper bookmarks at all – try and think about the world of reading from the bookmarks perspective. What where they once? And what are they now? Which book are they squashed in? Are they an endangered species with ebooks? What of the e-readers that end up being used as bookmarks by the technologically uninformed?
Build up a picture of their life and then try writing a piece using their voice and memories, hopes and fears and dreams.