Creative Exercises for Poetry: Words of Wisdom
In my graduate program we were encouraged to take workshops in all genres of writing instead of only sticking to our thesis focus. While I was working toward a memoir, I loved reading and writing poetry, and I especially loved my poetry workshop leader, Becka McKay. Becka was also my thesis mentor; a seemingly odd choice to be guided by a poet for a memoir project, but I appreciated and valued her poetic eye since my project wasn’t a straightforward book of essays. She always motivated me to write through the difficult stories I wished to tell. I felt supported and heartened to try and fail and experiment with my work, and I still feel this encouragement today.
One of my favorite exercises we did in our poetry workshop was when Becka would give our class various constraints for our poems. Sometimes she would write words on the whiteboard and we’d have to use them in a poem within a form and structure of our choosing. We were also free to designate a subject, a theme, a point of view, etc. Words are everything in poetry; there can be no arbitrary word choice, no word out of place. Everything must be intentional.
In a “Very Short Prose” workshop I recently took with AM Ringwalt at The Porch in Nashville, TN, we defined prose poetry together as a class. Some of our findings in no particular order:
free form, less constraints, length – could be longer, a paragraph, no line breaks, a block of text, still lyrical in nature, can use poetic devices, plays with sound, showcases a response in feeling, an affect at the end, the final line might play into meaning and/or genre-
These definitions feel like a reprieve. A poem can be so many things, can look so many different ways, and therefore there is really no right or wrong when one sets out to write poetry.
The exercise I have for you today is one of word choices, rather than one of form. Implementing the three words below, write a poem in any form with any subject of any length. The only requirement is to use all three words however you please.
*Mud
*Milkyway
*Leap
Happy writing!!
