“Tell yourself
you are brilliant,
even if you’re stuck!”
– dimitrireyespoet.com
You may be turning to this post because of some dreaded writer’s block, but have no fear! It’s common that all writers have those moments where work is hard to generate. In those moments, writers may try to get inspired by reading, watching a movie, or taking a walk, they may take a break from their work for awhile, or they’ll give themselves an exercise to get themselves going again. Rest assured, that after reading these Five Easy Poetry Exercises, you can add these to your tool bag of creating tricks as well.
1. Write from Existing Material
From the world of fanfiction comes the recreation of poetry. In recent years there has been heated debate in the world of fan fiction where some are with it, and others think it’s an art form that’s less-than. Either way, you are still taking something that exists and reimagining it. In a way, it’s comparable to the remodeling of a house. Architects are the artists of infrastructure. If one was to upgrade their kitchen, or knock down the wall between the living room and dining room to create a better flow, they’re improving the architect’s (artist’s) original work to suit their needs.
Mythology, a subject that is studied in Universities all over the world, is among humanity’s oldest version of fanfiction. Neil Gaiman, for example, said that mythology is the literary compost of storytelling.
There are just so many small stories— so many moments— that allow themselves to get built upon. This is where poetry thrives: in between what is being said. The job of the poet is to use their poetic “eye” for observation, and in doing so, they can take a moment in time, and expand it into a book.
H.D.’s Helen in Egypt is a good testament of “writing from existing material.” The whole book is one long poem talking about a cross-section of the Trojan War, where the audience is lead to believe that THE face who launched a thousand ships wasn’t even in Troy. You can find that book and others on my Amazon booklist.
2. Freewrite for 5 Minutes
Set a timer for 5 minutes and literally write whatever crosses your mind without stopping for those five minutes. You may choose to go into this free writing exercise 1 out of 2 ways. You can go into the exercise with an idea of where you want your thoughts to go; this can feed directly into your next poem. The other way to tackle this exercise is by allowing yourself to think and write freely. At times, this path can only offer the sole benefit of priming your mind so you can start thinking creatively, but if you’re lucky you may have a subconscious poetry theme embedded somewhere in your notes.
What this exercise does is initiate a stream of consciousness. If you choose to write with a theme in mind, you’ll discover that your events will be a bit scattered, yet there will be some sort of chronological structure to your words. These events can be written in between, reorganized, or edited after the exercise is over. Eileen Myles is a poet that does the stream of consciousness well. You can find some of her books on my Amazon booklist.
3. The “Extraction Method”
Similar to the second generative activity, this one involves starting in prose. (As you continue to write, you will learn how the lines between poetry and prose writing begin to blur.)
The “Extraction Method” can be used with anything you write of some length such as a letter, school paper, or chain of text messages, but for the purpose of revitalizing our creativity, assign yourself a paragraph.
- Think about something you have experienced and write about 5-8 sentences about that situation.
- When that’s done, look it over and highlight or underline certain themes or main ideas that appear more than once.
- When you have a handful of material to work with (3 or 4 phrases or themes) transfer them over to a word document and write into them. That means, create the poem within that situation.
Remember: poetry is bought primarily in the fiction section at bookstores. This means that you are not tied down to the truth. Feel the freedom of reinvention by rethinking those events and experiences as they begin to exist in poetic form.
4. Write with Constraints
I feel differently about this exercise since writing my YouTube video about this in 2016. I still feel like poetry is like a room with no walls, that it’s ever expansive and a poem can inhibit just about any realm it chooses to. But I do believe that giving yourself constrictions in your poem forces you into a position of getting really crafty within your confinement.
One way you can write with constraints is to create a poem using a style you don’t usually write in. This is a great way to explore poetry in it’s wholeness because you’ll either discover a new form you like to write in, or you’ll see that the particular style doesn’t work for you.
5. Write a “Reactionary Poem”
We are emotive beings running off of different gradients of sympathy, empathy, morality, water, Sriracha, and sunlight. As poets, just write about something! We are always in the stages of the writing process because we’re constantly incubating the things we see and hear. As writers, our job is to get our experiences down in order to fill in the gaps of information that future history books leave out.
I call the reactionary poem the walking ekphrastic. We pen poems about the living world around us the same way we write poems about pictures, paintings, and videos.
Reactionary poems can also spiral into an epistolary poem, a poem that is written in the form of a letter. These poems work well when you are addressing something directly in a piece, and they allow you to get closer to the subject.
To end, here is a great article talking about political poetry by U.S Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith.
If you are interested in getting on a poetry schedule, for just $7.99 a month you can get a poetry prompt a week and a video catered to all of my Patrons at the end of the month. For more information, click on the image.
