Dragon Writing Prompts

A friend passed on some spam with words that caught my eye.

phasma symphonizing
vertebration riddled

I like the sounds of phasma and vertebration. Each sounds like it is several concepts bundled up snugly together.

Play with those. Let the sounds of phasma and vertebration and the combinations take you where where they will in free form writing for 10 minutes or so.

When you feel the ideas fading, check out the real definitions (and I thought they were made up words!) for a recharge for a few more minutes.

When you’re done, go back and circle your favorite phrases. See if you can arrange them into a poemish creation.

I love collections :-) One of Kenneth Koch’s ideas in Wishes, Lies, and Dreams was to sprinkle a poem with Spanish colors (which grew into other words too).

I thought it might be fun to collect color names from many different languages. Try picking one language and not looking at the English color names. (Though some are from familiar roots and you’ll be able to guess :-) Use the colors by sound. Or use the words to mean something else. What does each sound like?

In prose or poetry, create a colorful event: a festival, a holiday, a circus, nightclub, a culture drawn to bright colors. Set it in the future or past or a fantasy world. An interstellar ship trying to keep people’s spirits up during the years long trip with spirited music and colorful decorations. A culture where dyes are rare so they bring out their colorful clothes only once a year in celebration of spring.

Here’s what a couple of the kids did with the idea in Wishes, Lies and Dreams:

On my planeta named Carambona La Paloma
We have a fiesta called Luna Estrella.
A funny looking hombre comes to our homes.
He has four heads: a leon head, an oso head, a mono head, and a culebra head.
We do a baile named Mar of Nieve.
On this fiesta we eat platos.
That’s how we celebrate Christmas on my planet.

Marion Mackles

The luna is big and clara.
The perro I saw is almost as big as a caballo.
The caballo I saw ate the manzana I had.
The estrella was as clara as the sun.

Valerie Chasse

When I stumbled across this week’s quote, it reminded me of a prompt that provides a structure for a poem (or for a brief story or character sketch).

Write a poem (or sketch) that answers the 5 Ws (+H) reporters are told to include in their stories: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. They can be answered in any order. You can leave off one if it seems to tell too much. (Usually why.)

Here’s some examples from Getting the Knack by Stephen Dunning and William Stafford. (The questions in parentheses aren’t part of the poem.)

Coincidence

(who?)    Our elected representative, Ms. Ludlaw
(what?)   pumping voters’ hands
(how?)    as if they were slot-machine levers
(where?)  outside Faculty Lounge
(when?)   Tuesday, after school.
(why?)    Next month, election.

September

(what?)   Flocking toward Mexico
(when?)   before Winter’s first ka-choooo,
(how?)    thrashing the silver air
(where?)  in Ontario’s gray sky,
(why?)    wanting warm —
(who?)    a blizzard of ducks

If you like to rhyme, skeltonic verse can be fun. The structure is playful and suggests lively movement so is also known as tumbling verse. The lines are short (3-6 words on average) and the rhyme continues as long as you feel it’s working. Then it moves onto the next rhyme. One rhyme may last two lines, another a dozen.

(If you need help with rhymes try Rhymer or Rhymezone.)

Here’s an example from John Skelton who invented the form back in the 16th century:

from Colin Clout

What can it avail
To drive forth a snail,
Or to make a sail
Of an herring’s tail?
To rhyme or to rail
To write or to indict,
Either for delight
Or else for despite?
Or books to compile
Of divers manners style,
Vice to revile
And sin to exile?
To teach or to preach
As reason will reach?

Say this, and say that:
His head is so fat
He wotteth never what
Nor whereof he speaketh;
He crieth and he creaketh,
He prieth and he peeketh,
He chides and he chatters,
He prates and he patters,
He clitters and he clatters,
He meddles and he smatters,
He glozes and he flatters!

Or if he speak plain,
Then he lacketh brain,
He is but a fool;
Let him go to school.
A three-footed stool!
That he may down sit,
For he lacketh wit!
And if that he hit
The nail on the head,
It standeth in no stead;
The devil, they say, is dead,
The devil is dead!

It may well so be,
Or else they would see
Otherwise, and flee
from worldly vanity,
And foul covetousness
And other wretchedness,
Fickle falseness,
Variableness
With unstableness.
And if ye stand in doubt
Who brought this rhyme about,
My name is Colin Clout.

Use the following first and last words from lines of poetry for inspiration. When you’re done, the originals are in the comments. (They’re probably familiar.)

She … from
Yesterday … gone
While … bright
Or … night
No … knows
She … goes

Don’t … free
She’ll … be
She … chained
To … gained
And … lost
At … cost

There’s … say
Catch … away
Dying … time
Lose … dreams
And … mind
Ain’t … unkind

---

Finished … mind
people … time
All … satisfy
Think … pacify
Can … brain
I … find
I … blind
Make … cry
Happiness … unreal
And … state
I … late

---

So … far
Couldn’t … heart
Forever … are
And … matters

Never … way
Life … way
All … say
And … matters

Trust … you
Every … new
Open … view
And … matters

Never … do
Never … know
But … know

A metaphor turns one thing into another. Start with the statement:

A road is a road for cars.

and see how many roads (and paths and byways) you can come up with that carry something from one place to another.

• An artery is a road for exhausted blood leading back to the heart.
• The internet is a superhighway for spam.
• School is a potholed dull path to college that they’ve been promising to pave for decades.
• A river is snowmelt’s road from mountain to ocean.
• Pretend is a road to anywhere.
• A lecture is a pathway to sleep.

Don’t be scared! The pantoum form looks way more complex than it is! The beauty is a poem that’s twice as long as the number of lines you write. The cool thing is that because the repeated lines will fall in different orders, you’ll see new connections between the ideas and the meaning of words may shift in their new context.

The pattern is the even lines of one stanza become the odd lines of the next stanza. You write new even lines for the new stanza. The Malays, who invented this form, could keep this up for hours :-) You’re allowed to stop with 4 or 5 stanzas :-) Here’s the pattern to repeat:

One
Two
Three
Four

Two copied here
(new)
Four copied here
(new)

Repeat.

The last stanza pattern is slightly different. In fact you’ve already written the stanza. It’s just repeats. Again, the odd lines are the even lines from the previous stanza. Then use the poem’s first line as the last line of the stanza and use the poem’s third line as the stanza’s second line.

(There’s also an imperfect pantoum where the last stanza’s odd lines can be new (like the previous stanzas) or the last lines may fall in any order.)

Here’s a summary of the tips from “Getting the Knack ” by Stephen Dunning and William Stafford:

1. Doodle six or eight words or phrases. If you’re stuck, skim a book or magazine for something that interests you. Steal lines from your own poems.
2. Once you have something that interests you, ask what they remind you of, and write that. The goal is four lines.
• Think of each line as a separate unit. Not necessarily a full sentence, but a bit that can be shifted about without needing the line that followed it.
• For now begin each line with a capital letter.
• For now, leave out punctuation.
• Be alert for messages the poem is revealing as you work, rhymes, rhythms, new meanings.
3. When writing the new even lines, be aware of not only the previous line, but the next line.
4. Try out various rearrangements of the final lines to see which works for you.
5. When you look back over it, the words on repeated lines will be the same but feel free to alter punctuation or capitalization. (Eg, a word on one line may be a name in another line, or an added comma may alter the meaning.) In the pure form, that’s all you can change. In “Getting the Knack” the authors suggest allowing yourself to change tenses and spellings but caution you not to solve all your problems with exceptions.
6. Tinker. Play around with it. Read it out loud and look for rhymes and rhythms.

A pantoum doesn’t need to rhyme, but Neil Peart of Rush did and turned it into a song :-) (Note, it’s an imperfect pantoum. Line two of the last stanza is new.)

The Larger Bowl (A Pantoum)
by Neil Peart
from Snakes & Arrows by Rush

If we’re so much the same like I always hear
Why such different fortunes and fates?
Some of us live in a cloud of fear
Some live behind iron gates

Why such different fortunes and fates?
Some are blessed and some are cursed
Some live behind iron gates
While others only see the worst

Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth

The golden one or scarred from birth
Some things can never be changed
Such a lot of pain on this earth
It’s somehow so badly arranged

Some things can never be changed
Some reasons will never come clear
It’s somehow so badly arranged
If we’re so much the same like I always hear

Chorus, so not part of the pantoum form:

(Some are blessed and some are cursed
The golden one or scarred from birth
While others only see the worst
Such a lot of pain on the earth)

There are links to some more examples at:

Poetry — Pantoum at About.com
Pantoum at Wikipedia

Grab a permanent marker and newspaper or magazine from recycling. Flip to a random page, preferably with columns. First scan through the text for an image that strikes your fancy. (Your poem doesn’t need to begin there. It’s an idea to build on.) Next, begin blacking out the words until you hit a phrase or word or piece of word you’d like to use in your poem. Read across the columns rather than straight down to mix things up.

This is a variation on the cutups done by the Dadaists . Artists cut up pictures and poets cut up articles, then pasted them randomly together.

Austin Kleon has created many (with a book of them to be published next year) and run a few contests a couple of years ago. You can see his at his blog and more at the Flickr group of Newspaper Blackout Poems for a load of examples.

Here are Austin Kleon’s TIPS:

• Combine both columns into one poem—don’t just do each column at a time! It doesn’t make for a good read. Skip between the two…this allows for more interesting possibilities. You can see the winners here and here and here and here .
• Remember that Westerners read left-to-right, up-to-down. Poems read best if they follow that pattern.
• You can get around the left/right/up/down problem by connecting words with whitespace. (See an example.)
• What you are doing when making a blackout poem, in the words of Allen Ginsberg, is “shopping for images.” Nouns and verbs make the best images.
• Regardless of where it’s located in the text, I always start a poem by looking for a word or image that resonates with me and move from there.
• It’s a lot like a word search.
• You don’t have to use the whole text. What to leave in / leave out / how long is the magic.
• Poetry doesn’t have to be serious!
• Try not to think to hard about it and let it flow! It might take you a bunch of tries. Don’t be intimidated! Anyone can do it!

If you’re lacking in newspapers or magazines, here’s the text he used for the contests. If you use a paint or photo editing program, you can blackout with the paintbrush tool.

August
September
October
November

Write a poem where each word begins with the next letter in the alphabet. (You can also write a paragraph or really long sentence if you wish.)

Andopholus Brown could devour entire fields
Grown heavy in July.
Kranky Luscious munched near open plains
Questing restlessly.
Soon Tontubulous Urvin would xray yellow zebras.

Okay, pretty awful! ;-) More prose than poetry, but the words flowed out more easily than I thought they would. (Feel free to use words beginning with “ex” for X.) It’s a nice short exercise since you only need 26 words, and with some work, an actual readable poem might emerge!

Some other ideas:

• Write from Z to A.
• Create a 26 word poem with each letter of the alphabet but allow any order.
• Make a list of alphabetized words or phrases about a subject (animals, your dog, restaurants, Star Trek technobabble …). You could put 3 per line and challenge yourself to see if you can make them rhyming couplets (each pair of lines rhymes).

There are several here:

Unskilled Poet, and these at the Rock, Waves, Beach blog, all written by Kate An Alphabet Poem, Another Alphabet Poem, A December Alphabet Poem, Knitting Alphabet Poem..

A ritual is a series of actions meant to bring about or prevent an event. A ritual gives a sense of control over the unseen forces shaping our lives. In the past the actions and order were created by shamans. Today, anyone can devise a ritual. (As many sports players and teams do! Like Top 10 Sports Traditions ;-)

Come up with a ritual for some event you (or your characters) would like control over. (It can be a simple prose list or a poetic list.)

Ron Padgett in Handbook of Poetic Forms (where this idea comes from) suggests:

1. Decide what you would like to have occur.
2. Examine all aspects of the subject.
3. Think of actions to illustrate some of these aspects.
4. Write each action down as a command.
5. Number the commands.
6. Let yourself go.

Here’s a Storm Ritual from Alaskan Eskimos who sought to subside a storm.

1. Build a snowman with a big head.
2. Give the snowman’s head a large mouth.
3. Catch salmon, skin the carcasses, freeze them.
4. Hack away at the frozen fish and push the pieces into the snowman’s mouth.
5. Afterward, have a big feast in which all the pieces of fish are eaten.

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More:

This reminds me of the experiments performed by B.F. Skinner. He placed pigeons in boxes and randomly released food. The pigeons eventually began performing whatever random action they had been performing before the food was released, suggesting a type or ritual or superstition.

“One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a ‘tossing’ response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return.”

For this poetry warm up, put a color in each line. Try starting with just one color.

This will free you to see the color in not only objects but sounds and smells and numbers and feelings.

As the warm up to the warm up, Koch dropped some keys on the desk and slapped the desk with a ruler and asked the kids what color those were. He asked them what was the color of France, England and Spain; of Monday and Wednesday and the number fourteen hundred.

From Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

Similes compare two unlike things to call your attention to similar aspects you wouldn’t have seen. They help you see things in new ways.

Though both similes and metaphors are figures of speech, difference is similes keep the two ideas separate: The thief escaped as fast as a cheetah, and metaphors turn one thing into another: When the starter’s pistol cracked, she was a cheetah freed from its cage.

Similes in Poems at Writing Fix generated the following. In either poetry or prose, expand on one of the ideas. Explore the similarities between the trait and the noun. Don’t worry about whether your comparisons are working! Just get them out and down. Let them flow. Make multiple comparisons for the same aspect so you have more to work with in the edit.

Alternatively, make them all about one person and expand each a little. Explore how they all work together.

And, as always, don’t feel tied to contemporary times or human characters.

• His obedience was like a window.
• Her need for revenge was like the desert.
• His loyalty was like a tavern.
• Her face was like a train.
• His sadness was like a lighthouse.
• Her scream was like a song.
• His anger was like a card game.
• Her fear was like a museum.

This is an idea from Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

A bit pressed for time, here’s my explanation from 2007 when I introduced them:

“In his book he has a whole series of what he calls poetry warm ups. It’s a way of getting some thoughts down on paper that might with some rearranging, cutting and editing, become a poem or the seed of a poem.

Some are templates, so each line begins the same. Some are the seed to write a series of related ideas. Most have some repetition in them to help get things flowing. Don’t be discouraged if your first dozen lines or more are trite. That’s just the clogs coming out of your creative pathways :-) But that stuff needs to get out onto paper so the path can be freed for better ideas to flow more freely.”

In addition to the regular writing prompts, I’ll post one of these warm ups too.

Today’s warm up is comparisons.

Include “like” or “as” in each line. The lines can be all about the same thing, or about one subject, or all different.

Some examples of templates:

______ is like ______.

______ is as ______ as ______.

Here are some examples from kids in Kenneth Koch’s class:

A butterfly is like a flying rainbow.
Clouds are like flying ice cream.
Hair is like spaghetti.
The sun is as red as a fire.
The moon is like an egg.
Slow is like vanilla ice cream.
A moon is like a banana.
Thunder is like bowling.
Black ink is dark as m idnight.
Snow is as white as the sun shines.
A rose is as red as a beating of drums.

Not an original idea ;-) but there should be more opportunities for limericks!

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I’ve seen
Hardly ever are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical. — Anonymous

Limericks are 5 lines, with an aabba rhyme.

The rhythm is easy to catch once you’ve read plenty of good limericks. (There is a clear and succinct description below, though.) The Limerick Data Base has a big collection where submitted limericks are scrutinized for meter.

So on this great day for Saint Patrick,
Whip out your computer and write quick.
Tap out some fierce verse.
Though beat be adverse
It all can be cleaned with a mouse click.

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More

In 1924, a series of responses to the famous (clean ;-) Nantucket limerick appeared in various newspapers. Those are preserved at Yesterday’s Island and new ones have been added to continue the saga. Here’s the original four:

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who kept all of his cash in a bucket,
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man,
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
—Princeton Tiger

But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,
The man and the girl with the bucket;
And he said to the man,
He was welcome to Nan,
But as for the bucket, Pawtucket.
—Chicago Tribune

Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset,
Where he still held the cash as an asset,
But Nan and the man
Stole the money and ran,
And as for the bucket, Manhasset.
—Exchange

Of this story we hear from Nantucket,
About the mysterious loss of a bucket,
We are sorry for Nan,
As well as the man—
The cash and the bucket, Pawtucket.
—Pawtucket Times

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The following is a very good description of the limerick meter:

Dylon Mirti wrote 10/10/95

I don’t know if you’re the authority
That will impart the absolute truth to me
But I’m not really sure
Just what is the structure
Of the limericks I’m slaughtering brutally.

Is it just 8 8 5 5 8
Or is it 8 8 6 6 8
Can syllables be crammed
And more than eight be jammed
To keep the meter read at the same gait?

My girlfriend and I can’t tell
What makes these little rhymes swell
Please write me back
And teach me the knack
Of writing a limerick well!

What I really need to know is whether or not syllable cramming is allowed, or whether the exact number of syllables MUST equal the assigned number for the line. And, is there an exact number of syllables assigned for each line?

Thanks for your time.

======

Dylon, of course, gets a gold star for this well-written request.

For expediency, Toast Point did not phrase his reply in limerick form, but it covered the bases nonetheless:

The number of syllables is not as important as the beat pattern:

da DA-da-da DA-da-da DA-(da) (da)
da DA-da-da DA-da-da DA (da) (da)
da DA-da-da DA (da)
da DA-da-da DA (da)
da DA-da-da DA-da-da DA (da) (da)

Meaning that you can leave off the syllables in parentheses, but 1,2 and 5 should match each other, and 3 and 4 should match.

For instance:

There ONCE was a GIRL from nanTUCKet - leaves off the final (da)
A MAIDen whose NAME was feLIcity - uses all of them

It’s more important that the STRESSES of the word be on the strong beats than to have exactly the right number of syllables.

Write an epigraph for a story or book. An epigraph is that cryptic quote or bit of poetry at the beginning of a story that makes your brain hurt ;-) Often they’re quotes that inspired the story, or connect some way.

But don’t let truth get in the way of creativity! Be cryptic and obscure and make someone else’s brain hurt. Use at least 10 of the words. You might try writing a phrase inspired by the word and then rearranging the phrases. You might combine words to see how they work on one line.

When you’re satisfied, take it to the next step and see what story it inspires in you

lonely
unchanged
offspring
knock
spirits
overridden
know
hang
discards
crucial
cure
imposed
restrains
device
skipped

Random words from Random Word.

Random words coming up! Here’s some ideas on how to use them:

• A description of someone or something.
• An advertisement.
• A poem of 3 lines, each using one of the words. Perhaps haiku.
• A longer poem.
• The title of a book, chapter, movie, song.
• An opening paragraph.
• A closing paragraph.
• A cryptic note dropped by someone.
• A headline.
• A snatch of conversation.
• A 15 minute story with beginning, middle and end. Perhaps the first word drives the beginning, the second the middle, the last the end.
• A telegram.
• The subject line of an email.
• The description of a menu item.

If you’re doing a story or poem and want to try to come up with a character or scene first, take a moment before reading on.

.
.

balance
dictate
wander

.
.

The words are from Three Word Wednesday. 3 new words every Wednesday. At the blog if you click on the submissions, you can see the variety of ways people used the words.

Write a recipe for a dastardly dish. Include newt and eye and bone and spider and frog. It can be a recipe for soup or cake , a spell, a beautifying concoction, a potion. Anything you want.

As an extra challenge, make it a poem. No it doesn’t have to rhyme! But the lines of a recipe are already short so make the descriptions short too. Play around with the sound of the phrases. Does eye of newt roll off the tongue (figuratively) better newt’s eyes? (Shakespeare thought so!) (Maybe they roll better literally too.)

Cut up the following words, mix them up and choose 8 randomly. Play around with combinations. Pick a few more until you find something you like.

The write free verse (no need to rhyme or stick to a particular length of line) using your words somewhere in the poem. (Feel free to change tenses and so forth.)

PEOPLE
actor
alchemist
alien
android
angel
apprentice
artist
avatar
baby
Barbie
beggar
bounty hunter
boy
bride (of)
cat
demigod
demon
demon slayer
dragon
embezzler
enchantress
father (of)
fiend
ghost
ghoul
girl
goth
groom (of)
lady
lord
mouse
ogre
orphan
outcast
Ozzie
pig
poet
psychic
pyromaniac
rat
slave
soul
specimen
spirit
thief
troll
vampire
weasel
witch
writer

VERBS
assassinate
assault
bite
blast
bless
capture
celebrate
challenge
charm
corrupt
curse
disappear
discover
doom
dump
eat
exorcise
explode
expose
fall for
flee
hit
imprison
kill
knot
lose
murder
plot to kill
quest for
rebel against
resurrect
reveal
rip off
sacrifice
seize
shoot
silence
slay
smack
smash
stab
surrender
terminate
torment
torture
transform (into)
trick
vanquish
wed
weep

PLACES AND THINGS
bakery
bazaar
bed
bones
castle
chamber
clock
computer
diary
drum
dungeon
empire
fire
flute
forest
garden
goblet
grave
heaven
hell
island
jewel
key
knife
labyrinth
lightening
monastery
palace
paradise
parchment
phone
plastic
quill
quilt
ring
runes
sanctuary
sarcophagus
space colony
star ship
strands
sword
tavern
temple
thunder
tomb
tower
underworld
volcano
well

ADJECTIVES
340 pound
abandoned
accused
amnesiac
angry
annoying
blind
brilliant
crazy
crimson
crumbling
delirious
devoted
doomed
dying
emerald
enchanted
escaped
exiled
faded
feline
first
glowing
haunted
hollow
icy
impenetrable
indecipherable
infested
inhuman
lavender
lost
magic
monster
naked
noble
oozing
phobic
pink
primitive
resurrected
sacred
sapphire
shattered
singing
stinky
tattooed
teen
telepathic
wicked

For today’s poetry prompt imagine you’re a creature or thing. What’s it like to be a television or your cat or a cloud or a record album or a fish in a tank …

The children took the idea in many different directions: interviews, imagining what the answers would be, taking on the persona and revealing the answers … Don’t limit yourself to what you think the approach “must” be :-)

Examples:

I would like to be a pen because every day I would dance and whenever I’m out of ink they would put me away until I got ink. And I would go any place people go.

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Questions to Ask Snow Person

Do you like to be what you are?
Do you like when people step on you and make snow balls with you?
Do you like your color white?
Do you like to be mixed with now?
Do you like to stand all day out in the snow with nothing to do?
Do you like when people fall on you?
Snow
The answer is
NO!!!

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How does it feel to be a blackboard?
I think it would feel funny,
Always being written on.
Always having examples erased off.
What do you see?
You see many many kids.

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From Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

Write a series of eight-word lines. Each line will contain one of each part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, interjections and conjunctions.) How many lines you write is up to your muse or your 15 minutes timer :-)

(Not sure why he — and lots of other grammar lists — leave out articles (a, an, the).)

Here’s a quick stab at it:

And, well, slowly his hungry Borslang chewed through
But, oh, inside her dark Gorvopl patiently waited
And, alas, enormous hunger unexpectedly slaked within her.

Okay, the conjunctions are tricky when you can only have one noun or verb per line!

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And if you’re a bit rusty on your grammar:

Noun: person, place or thing. Can be general (the president, the city) or specific (David Palmer, Mos Eisley).

Verb: action word.

Adjective: describes a noun. (Red, hot, blushing …) (Hmm, could also have a poem made up of entirely one part of speech.)

Adverb: describes a verb. (Slowly, haltingly, boorishly …)

Pronoun: a word that takes the place of a noun (he, she, it, they, we, his, her, their, our, its … Actually there are way more than I thought since I usually just think of personal pronouns. There’s a list of Pronouns and a thorough list of personal pronouns at Wikipedia that include nonstandards like “youse guys” ;-)

Preposition: identifies the position of something (before, inside, under …) (A very thorough list of prepositions at Wikipedia)

Interjections: Words that can be followed by an exclamation point. (Uh-oh, yippee, shoo, jeez, ouch, wow, …)
Long interjection list at Wikipedia and a list of interjections by language, for no other reason than just because I stumbled across it and it’s cool! :-)

Conjunctions: Joining words (and, or, but, nor)

From: Charles Bernstein.

To warm up your poetry muscles today, have fun with false comparisons.

Use the form

As ____ as a ____.

and make comparisons that aren’t true.

As always, you can use that format for every line. You can use it at the beginning and then explore the comparison in subsequent lines. Or make a few of the same comparisons and move onto others.

For some reason, it’s a lot more fun and freeing than trying to come up with comparisons that are true. Maybe it ties into the psychology of wanting to do whatever we’re told not to do ;-)

Here’s some examples off the top of my head since this didn’t come from Koch’s book:

As quiet as a wolf in a hen house.
As quiet as a broken muffler.

As alone as Santa at Christmas.
As alone as a Brittany Spears.

As busy as a beach in winter.
As busy as a full bellied kitten.

For this warm up, in each line write an fanciful combination. Keep going for 10-15 minutes.

The following examples were all done by children who didn’t feel constrained only to combinations that make sense. :-)

swan of bees
sailboat of water
pajamas of oranges
book of stripes
kiss of babies
skeleton of discovery
blackboard of moons
swimming pool of doorknobs
hat of laughs

If you want, you can use templates like:

“I once saw …”

or

“I wish I had …”

From Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

I’m always on the look out of books that approach a subject in a simple way without dumbing it down. I found this slim volume titled Extraordinary Poetry Writing by Margaret Ryan that’s a gentle but not dumbed down introduction to poetry writing. It’s nicely divided into small chunks with side bars and tips.

“Poems need to be about something.”

An obvious and yet intimidating statement ;-) At least from my time in school, I picked up the idea that you began with a subject and tried to write profound or amusing things about it, as though the poem in its entirety were hidden inside of you and you just needed to find a way to transcribe it. As she goes onto help you see, you begin with something to focus on and then let yourself free associate and explore that idea. Comparisons, contrasts, images, feelings, phrases, lines, memories, words … Then you play with those, finding patterns and interesting ideas that arise from the original subject.

“… it’s not so much the subject of your poem that makes it special. It’s the way you write about that subject — the language you choose, your insights, your point of view.”

As she explains, little to none of that is there at the beginning. You begin with a subject but your exploration uncovers surprising things you didn’t know were inside you :-)

(This is true of prose, too, of course!)

Tip FIle: “Just sit down with a pen you like and a clean sheet of paper, lined or unlined, and start writing. Play with words and images that interest you. Experiment with the music of words and see what happens. Let your subject emerge as you focus on it and it begins to clarify.”

Though some people find a blank sheet of paper intimidating! If you do, mess it up. Put marks on it. Crumple it. Write on the back of an envelope. Or in your writer’s notebook. Whatever will help you feel that you’re not about to begin a finished product. It’s notes. It’s supposed to feel like chicken scratch :-)

“Let your mind wander. Daydream as you write. Cover at least one side of a sheet of paper with ideas, feelings, insights, and items you associate with your topic. Don’t ask yourself ‘Why does an orange make me think of gym class?’ Just write down that it does.”

“Be aware that most poems have more than one subject. There will be the obvious subject, the one that triggered the writing of the poem — a groundhog, a hyacinth in bloom, an encounter with a friend in the hall. Underneath will be another, larger subject that you will most likely discover during the process of writing your poem.

“Because this layer of subject — sometimes called a theme — will reveal itself to you as you compose your poem, you don’t have to worry about working it in.”

Then she goes onto the structure of poetry.

“The first line of a poem is an invitation.”

And, as she has already pointed out, you may not write the first line first. You may not write the first line until the end. You may find it in the middle of the poem.

In the following chapters she discusses first drafts, final drafts (”Where the Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary”), and finally onto 5 poetic forms: haiku, list poems, dramatic monologue, ballads, sonnets.

Today take a journey around town and collect words that strike you: street signs, business names, sale signs, political slogans, lost and found posters, family names, graffiti, bumper stickers …

Create a list poem from them. A list poem is just that: a list, but a list that you’ve organized in some way that feels right to you. Play with the sounds and images as you order them. You may find some that create a rhythm and some that are opposites.

I’ve got it easy since our town is small, basically two blocks long ;-) If your town is overwhelming try just your street or your neighborhood.

Compare opposites for today’s poetry warm up.

Begin with a comparison that is opposite: a big thing and a little thing “An elephant is like a mouse” or two things that seem not alike “Rain is like a cemetery” and then explore how they’re alike. You can use one comparison or many comparisons in the poem.

Here’s something quick as an example:

An elephant is like a mouse.
Both are gray with long dangling attachments and papery ears and dark button eyes
Rain is like a cemetery.
They’re gray and dreary and make the grass grow.
A peach is like a snake.
They bulge when they are full of food.
A ghost is like a pencil.
You find them in the most unexpected places.

Hey, that was fun! :-)

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As I should have explained at the beginning of the month about warm ups, but didn’t have my notes from last year:

Warm ups: These are chances to be wild and creative and get the words and ideas flowing. Generate lines based on a template. The point isn’t to create a whole poem but to generate lines for the poem. The ones at the beginning will probably be trite, cliche and stiff. Let them out onto the paper. Allow them to clear a path that will allow the creative ideas to flow out. :-)

The “I” writing the poem doesn’t need to be you! It can be anyone or any*thing* you want.

If you get stuck before your 15 minutes is up, read back over what you’ve written to see if it inspires some more ideas.

When you’re done, you can toss out the ones you don’t like and collect the lines you like into a poem :-)

Sometimes having the structure dictated can free up your creativity. Seems odd, yet it’s like a coloring book. You don’t have to spend time making the figure look right, just mess around with color.

A diamonte poem begins with one subject and ends with its opposite. The number of words increase then decrease and, if you center it, it looks like a diamond. Well, sometimes, if the words are the right length ;-)

Subject
2 adjectives describing the subject
3 words ending in -ing telling about the subject
4 words, the first two describe the subject, the last two describe its opposite
3 words ending in -ing telling about the opposite
2 adjectives describing the opposite
Opposite

Here’s an example off the top of my head:

ink
black liquid
flowing staining expressing
splatter blot soak splash
flowing washing obliterating
clear liquid
water

If you like that structure, a diamonte poem is similar to a cinquain: A not so traditional cinquain and More nontraditional cinquains and the real one.

For today’s poetry warm up begin with:

If I were ______ I would ______.

Then either continue that pattern with different speculations or start each line with “I would” to expand on the original speculation.

Here’s an example from the book that was prompted by the more specific “If I were snow …” (so you don’t need to begin with the same object for yours, but can if you want!)

If I were snow I would fill up the streets.
If I were snow I would also freeze my brother.
If I were snow I would be mean and nice.
If I were snow and I saw somebody eating something very hot I would cool it for him.

From Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

Select one sentence each from a variety of different books or other sources. Add sentences of your own composition. Combine into a poem (or paragraph), reordering to produce the most interesting results.

The sentences can come from any printed source: children’s books, novels, chemistry texts, dictionaries, webpages, newspapers …

(From Charles Bernstein’s Reading/Writing Lab course)

For today’s poetry warm up, make a statement about something ordinary. Then think of strange, impossible or maybe beautiful things that you might wish were there but aren’t. For example:

The stars twinkle in the night sky.
None are falling to earth.
None spell my name in the sky.

From Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

Write the worst possible poem.

If you need inspiration, take someone else’s poem or one you’ve written and start substituting words, like:

Burning, burning distant sun.
I needn’t consider what you’ve done.
Way off far in our galaxy
Like a nuclear inferno of kind maxi.

Well, not nearly as bad as it could have been ;-)

(From Charles Bernstein’s Reading/Writing Lab course)

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Of course they don’t need to rhyme but if you need help with rhymes try Rhymer or Rhymezone. If Rhymer gives you an overwhelming number of rhymes try choosing “Last syllable rhymes” or “Double rhymes” from the drop down menu. (Annoyingly, you need to type the word into the search box again.) Rhymezone returns fewer rhymes (which can be a good thing sometimes!)

Warm ups: These are chances to be wild and creative and get the words and ideas flowing. Generate lines based on a template. The point isn’t to create a whole poem but to generate lines for the poem. The ones at the beginning will probably be trite, cliche and stiff. Let them out onto the paper. Let them to clear a path that will allow the creative ideas to flow out. :-)

Write a noisy warm up poem. :-)

As a template for each line you can use one of the following (or come up with your own):

______ sounds like ______.

or

The noise of/made by ______ is like ______.

or

The sound of ______ is like _____.

You can use the same template line for each line. You can mix them up. Use the template as an aid rather than a straight jacket!

From Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching children to write poetry by Kenneth Koch.

An acrostic poem uses each letter of a word or phrase to begin each line of a poem. The poem will have something to do with the initial word or phrase.

Voracious
Appetite
Mesmerizing
Personality
Icy
Reserve
Elegantly
Savage

There’s some amusing ones by Bruce Lansky at How to Write an Acrostic Poem.

All the examples happen to be single words for each letter but of course they don’t have to be!. Each line can be a phrase. The format of the acrostic is very loose :-)

Use a character’s name, a movie title, a word, an emotion, the beginning of a favorite poem.

April is National Play with Words Month!

Actually it’s National Poetry Month but to keep the prompts relatively short and encourage people who cringe at the word poetry, it’s a whole lot more about playing with words.

Last year I introduced Kenneth Koch’s poetry warm up exercises. (You can see them all here by clicking on Poetry Warm Ups over on the right.) They’re a way of playing with words to get stuff flowing :-)

No actual poetry will be produced, though you may come up with an intriguing line that leads to a poem or a story.

For today, use the structure of the first tabloid headline and generate similar lines of the form:

Food — Noun — -ed verb

Cucumber Killer Captured
Bean Bomber Bamboozled
Anchovy Anarchist Annihilated

Top 10 Tabloid Headlines from APRIL 1998

1. CUCUMBER KILLER CAPTURED! — WWN
2. BEN FRANKLIN SHOCKER!He was a Founding Father, a signer of the Declaration of Independence — AND A SERIAL KILLER! — WWN
3. Teens ordered to clean toilets after peeing on theater seats! — WWN
4. 10 GIRAFFES HAVE HEADS TORN OFF — when zoo truck passes under low bridge — WWN
5. Kitten drowned by a giant goldfish! Cat dips paw in tank & fish pulls him in! — WWN
6. Exploding grapefruits kill hundreds in Argentina! — WWN
7. DEAD HUBBY BURIED WITH WINNING LOTTO TICKET IN HIS POCKET Anxious wife digs up 103 corpses looking for him! — WWN
8. FARMER DEVELOPS THE ELVIS CHICKEN! New birds sport slick hairdos & swivel their hips when they walk! — WWN
9. Gun-totin’ Texan shoots baby kitten. . . THEN CLAIMS SELF-DEFENSE! — WWN
10. VENGEFUL OLDSTER SUES DAUGHTER FOR DEAD WIFE’S ASHES . . . SO HE CAN FLUSH THEM DOWN THE TOILET! — WWN

You can use this as a prose inspiration too, but colors tend to make me think of poetry.

List as many things as you can think of that are blue. Then next to each write an emotion. Next to those, write a verb.

Now pick your favorite and see where it takes you.

Today’s and Tuesday’s inspired by Susan Writes where there are a few conventional writing prompts. (Click on the picture, then click again to see a much larger view of the gorgeous colors.)