Creative Writing Exercises

The Poem as a Song

Look at the poems in the anthology which explicitly assert that they are musical compostions: Dan Chiasson's "Song for a Play," Spencer Reece's "Autumn Song," Kevin Young's "Soundtrack" and "Song of Smoke," Ilya Kaminsky's "Dancing in Odessa," Sally Keith's "Orphean Song" and "Subtraction Song," and "Beggar's Song" by A. Van Jordan. From these poems, try to determine what might make a poem a song. Are there musical qualities shared by these poems? After reading these poems, write a poem in the form of a song, with the word Song in the title.

Repetition and Litany

Look at some of the litanies in Legitimate Dangers—among them, Joshua Beckman's "[Final poem for the gently sifting public begins on the streets…], " Stephen Burt's "Paysage Moralisé," Carrie St. George Comer's "Long Goodbye," Olena Kalytiak Davis's "Sweet Reader, Flannelled and Tulled" and "The Unbosoming," Ben Doyle's "Our Man," Thomas Heise's "My Pietá," the entire selection from Lisa Jarnot, Maurice Manning's "On God," Sabrina Orah Mark's "The Experiments Lasted Through the Winter," Khaled Mattawa's "Echo & Elixir 2," Jeffrey McDaniel's "Logic in the House of Sawed-Off Telescopes," Ethan Paquin's "Where Were You," Srikanth Reddy's "Burial Practice," Richard Siken's "Saying Your Names," G.C. Waldrep's "O Canada!" and Suzanne Wise's "Confession." Then employ repetition and variation yourself as a means to create energy and force. Write your own litany.

Question and Answer

Look at the Q+A format in Carrie St. George Comer's "Arbor." Write a poem as an interview conducted between: a.) the speaker and an other; b.) the speaker and his or her self; or c.) the speaker and an inanimate object.

Dramatic Monologue

Many of the poems in this book are written as monologues from taking the point of view of someone who is explicitly not the poet. Take a look at a few of these, such as "Persephone (Unplugged)" by Stephen Burt, "First" by Maurice Manning (from the point of view of Daniel Boone), "April 13, 1865," by David Berman, "The Only Yak in Batesville, Virginia," by Oni Buchanan, "Kiss of Judas" by Jennifer Grotz, "The Elephant," by Dan Chiasson, "The Alphabetizer Speaks" by Patty Seyburn, "Native Guard" by Natasha Trethewey, and "Monologue for an Onion," by Suji Kwock Kim. Write a poem in which you assume the persona of an inanimate object, someone employed in an unlikely trade, or a recognizable figure from history, literature, or film.

Media

Joel Brouwer's "‘Kelly, Ringling Bros., Oldest Elephant, Goes on Rampage,'" is based on a headline from The New York Times. In "Public Radio Plays Eddie Harris," A. Van Jordan's speaker learns of a musician's death over the radio. Juliana Spahr's poems are occasionally accounts of everything that's happened in the world—according to the news—on a particular day. Write a poem which responds to information you received via some form of media: television, newspaper, magazine, and film.

Sequence

Look at some of the sequences of poems in this book (Monica Ferrell's "Stories from the Tower," Timothy Donnelly's "Three Panels Depending on the Heart," Arielle Greenberg's "Berlin Series" and "Saints," Rick Barot's "Eight Elegies," each of the three poems by Tracy K. Smith, Ben Doyle's "Forensics," Katy Lederer's "In Las Vegas," Tessa Rumsey's "Never Morocco," Natasha Trethewey's "Native Guard," and Nick Flynn's two "Cartoon Physics" poems, among others). Consider how these sequences function, and why they're constructed the way they are. Write a brief sequence of related poems or poem-sections.

Let's Play a Game

Look at some of the poems in this book that seem to have a lot of fun with the actual shape the poem will be taking, that strike you as particularly coy, that reference games in some way, or that engage in a great deal of soundplay and word play. Some examples are Joe Wenderoth's "Where I Stand with Regard to the Game" and "Send New Beasts," Dan Beachy-Quick's "Unworn," Larissa Szporluk's "Elsewhere," Arielle Greenberg's "Analogies," Richard Blanco's "Perfect City Code," Mónica de la Torre's "Golfers in the Family," Lisa Jarnot's "Song of the Chinchilla," Alan Michael Parker's "The Vandals," Patty Seyburn's "What I Disliked about the Pleistocene Era," and Matthea Harvey's "Definition of Weather" and "Ideas Go Only So Far." Take out a piece of paper and have fun with it. Think about ways to present your poem in an unusual, entertaining manner. As you write this specific poem, pay particular attention to humor, wordplay, shape, and surface.

Poem Beginning with a Grand Statement

Look at some of the poems that begin with declarative, occasionally extreme, direct pronouncements. Matthew Zapruder begins his poem, "Canada": "By Canada I have always been fascinated." Jeffrey McDaniel asserts in the first line of "Logic in the House of Sawed-Off Telescopes": "I want to sniff the glue that holds families together." In "On Death," Maurice Manning starts out: "The best thing about dying is it frees you/from the fear of death." Dan Beachy-Quick announces at the onset of "Prologue," "Editor,//Here are the lines my mind fathomed." Brenda Shaughnessy begins "Postfeminism": "There are two kinds of people, soldiers and women." Write a series of declarative direct statements. Choose one of them and use it to start a poem.

Prose Poetry

We have often had students ask what the difference is between a short short story and a prose poem. Investigate this question by examining some of the prose poems in this book, such as the pieces by Sabrina Orah Mark, Lisa Jarnot's "The Girl Who Couldn't Be Loved," Joe Wenderoth's "Send New Beasts" and "Where I Stand in Regard to the Game," Matthea Harvey's "Ideas Go Only So Far," Joel Brouwer's "Aesthetics" and "Divorce," Ethan Paquin's "Capstone," G.C. Waldrep's "The Miracles of St. Sebastian" and "O Canada!," and Mark Wunderlich's "Predictions about a Black Car." Then write a prose poem of your own.

Poetry as Performance

Write a poem which enacts a public performance: this could take form in any number of acts: a.) write a poem that is overtly choreographed; b.) write a poem that is an open address to a large audience; c.) Write a poem in the voice of a circus ringmaster, or film director; d.) write a poem as a stand-up comedy routine; e.) write a poem where the surface/look/sound of the poem is at least as significant as its content.

Anthology

After looking through this book, compile your own poetry anthology of twenty to thirty poems by contemporary authors. Determine your criteria for inclusion and order, then browse books and literary magazines to come up with the right poets for your anthology. Write a critical introduction to your project.