Every once in a while, this will work. Take a poem that seems lost but has some good lines. Reverse it. That is, take the last line as the first line and rebuild it from the bottom up. Usually last lines are good, so start with that one. If it changes, so be it. I think Sekou Sundiata taught me this.
Syllabic verse: count syllables. It can help shape the poem. I had a poem yesterday that was doing nothing, so I thought maybe syllabics would help. I counted the first line: 12 syllables. I counted the second: also twelve. The first four lines were all twelve. This was educational. It’s a better poem now. Like rhyme, syllabics force you to reconsider your word choices. Try it with a floundering poem, not that you have any of those.
Read some Russell Edson pieces. Then write one of your own.
From A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver: Read Elizabeth Bishop’s The Fish. Write a poem using lots of specific descriptions: metaphors, similes, and details (which Oliver calls “texture.”)
From The Mind’s Eye by Kevin Clark:
Think of a common everyday activity that you might do: feed the cat, scratch your head, make the bed, etc. Choose one activity. Let your imagination go wild. How can you make this activity into something weird, wild, or bizarre (or beautiful)? Write a poem that does that. Since you want to emphasize the physical as well as the strange, concentrate on good verbs. Limit the poem to fifteen lines.
Reading poetry can be good in hard times. Writing poetry can be better. How else do we figure out what is truly on our minds unless we set it down on the page? Because we are not seeing many people now (I have seen four people other than my husband and the mail carrier since early march) it is more important than ever that we communicate, even if it is with ourselves.
