From Crossroads: Creative Writing Exercises in Four Genres by Diane Thiel. (textbook, 2005) Choose a place or a building that has evocative memories for you. Let your piece stay focused on the place as a “container” for memories.(I’m going to write about a bunkhouse. First line: Skunks lived under it.)
From The Lie That Tells the Truth by John Dufresne. Write about an emptiness in your life, some void. Give this emptiness a shape. What is it? Who is it? Something you’ve never had or had and lost.
Write a poem giving someone advice. Use the language of something else to do it. Example: I want to give you advice about your crappy relationship but instead I talk about methods to get a stubborn stain out of a carpet. It could be an extended metaphor. And fun/clever/don’t even think of rhyming.
Have you written a sonnet lately? Now is a good time. Yes, there is the rhyme scheme but you can squeeze that a little bit. You don’t want to have your lines end at the breaks. That will result in Dr. Seussishness. Enjamb, let the lines flow into the next. The rhyme should be really subtle in this old rhymed form. Write the Black Lives Matter poem. Did Ovid write about Covid? He would’ve. (He didn’t write sonnets either but so…as I used to say as a teenager.) Make it contemporary. No flowery handkerchief language.
Write a poem using a real place in your life in an important way. PS Make it really good!! (From Writing Poetry by Barbara Drake) The real good part is mine EK
Write a poem that modernizes a classical myth. Rewrite the old myth in modern terms. For instance, Sisyphus is doomed to push a car up a hill forever. You may make yourself the classical figure if you like. (From The Mind’s Eye by Kevin Clark) Don’t forget: Poetry Society of Michigan is looking for poems that have turned out well from these prompts for a reading. Send to mme642@aol.com.
Here’s a clever example from the pages of Third Wednesday Magazine. (by permission from the editors).
From Writing Poetry by Barbara Drake: Write a poem that teaches the history of your family to those who come after you.
Ekphrastic poetry: sounds complicated. It’s not. Ekphrastic art pays homage to another art form. In the case of poetry, we write a poem, taking our inspiration from a work of art. Use a painting or a photograph.
Below is an example from The Ekphrastic Review by one of our PSM members.
From The Practice of Poetry. Write a poem in which the name of a color is frequently repeated throughout the course of the poem. Consider symbolic associations (blue=sadness) as well as personal associations. (green=the phosphorescent algae on our little lake). Get the color into the title of the poem.
From the Schakal/Ridl book of yesterday:
Look at some poems by Rita Dove, specifically ones were she writes about her family. Using the history of your family, write a poem depicting one or more of the people you learned about.
Poetry Society of Michigan 