Poetry Exercise Suggestions

[oliveu2cm]

I miss my writing class from college, where my writing would be kept fresh by different assignments. They weren't often easy or fun or even resulted in good poems, but they were challenging and worked the poetry muscle.

I was wondering if anyone had any poetry exercises they could share. Maybe an assignment they had/have in class, or something you do to keep your spark flowing.

I can start with a couple of things i remember from my class. One: iambic Pentameter. We had to write three lines of IP for every class. A verse written in iambic pentameter has in each line five pairs of syllables: one weak syllable and one strong. Like this:
di DUM di DUM di DUM di DUM di DUM. (notice, 10 syllables in all)
Shakespeare made this writing famous:
as Romeo says: "but SOFT what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS."

we also wrote limericks. How to write a Limerick.

There are more but my notebooks are at home. Any suggestions you guys have would be appreciated!

 

[foray]

Got these from a website forum. Poetry Challenges:

1
Try writing a poem with the following words. Bonus points for illuminating the stayer/quitter debate without referring to it.

stay
quit
mobile
expectations
storm
future

2
Six words: game / addict / maze / eat / power / dots. Poems about Pac-man or other computer games not allowed!

3
This time, the rules shall be:
(1) Poem shall have 4 stanzas, each consisting of 3 or 4 lines;
(2) 1st stanza must contain the word "music"
(3) 2nd stanza must contain the word "food"
(4) 3rd stanza must contain the word "victory"
(5) 4th stanza must contain the word "women"
(6) somewhere in the poem, the following phrase should appear - "one last chance".
(7) poem should make reference to one famous person eg Michael Jackson, William Shakespeare or Mao Zedong.

4
Try these words:

weight
light
photographic
disappearing
gallery

sh


To see how others fared, go here

 

[oliveu2cm]

Thanks Foray! I'll give it a whirl when I have some free moments.

I wish I could remember the sort of poem we had to write in one assignment. It was sort of like #3 Foray posted, where each line had to have something in it (like a word in a foreign language, etc.). *wracks brain to remember* ..

 

[Stories for Boys]

we also wrote limericks. How to write a Limerick.

ok, so why is the limerick page blocked? olive, are you writing porn limericks? firewalls suck

 

[oliveu2cm]

Re: Re: Poetry Exercise Suggestions

ok, so why is the limerick page blocked? olive, are you writing porn limericks? firewalls suck

no....!!!!

Here's another site

we keep the poetic porn to electrical storm videos....

 

[oliveu2cm]

here's the best of my lame iambic pents I wrote. I sucked at them

Forces of Torture

Now Algebra is similar to ancient
mythology of Greeks, as Kappa, Mu
and Epsilon, while running blindly round
like oversexed and crazy gods, will throw
on humans ugly thunderbolts of theorems.



-> Ooooh and another fun exercise we did was to Write A Recipe. Like, how to make music. how to chill. How to do something.

Here's mine, for an example. It's not great but you get the point.


How To Rise Above It All

Buy a big bowl of cherries
crack in some raw endurance
plus a pinch of patience
look past the pain and
sprinkle inspiration.

Add a sugared smile
lace with laughter
ignore ignorance
pile on the praise yourself,
and fluff so it won't fall flat.

Fill foundation with faith
Strain out stress
Don't bother the batter
with belittlement or disbelief.
Flex muscles to stir with passion.

Serves enough for four
but can feed more if
combined with cheer.

 

[Blue_Angel]

oh, now i find the excercises

good thread idea!