Chapter 3
Putting it into practice
Suggested practices to brush up on your poetry skills while engaging with the forms and functions of poetry through time for a deeper functional understanding.
We highly recommend you do these!
1. Memory Weaving
Use rhyme, rhythm, and repetition to compose a short verse designed to help commit something to memory. Make it catchy and pleasant to recite.
You’ll know you’ve succeeded here if you find yourself singing your verse throughout the day : )
2. Mythologize Inner Conflict
Beowulf made a heroic narrative out of man’s inner conflict with nature.
Take something you struggle with internally and turn it into a narrative epic made up of representational characters.
Make your loneliness a dragon, your jealous co-worker a witch, your unrequited love a valley of unknown depth…
3. The Shakespeare Soliloquy
Write a short soliloquy where a character debates a difficult decision.
Rules:
The character must contradict themselves
They must not reach a clear answer
The drama must take place in thought
4. Romantic Expansion
Write a poem where the self becomes enormous.
Examples:
you become the wind
you become the city
you become a mountain
Channel the spirit of Whitman or Blake: the individual consciousness expands outward into the universe.
5. Dickinsonian Compression
Compress a big idea into a small four line poem.
Be concise. Use line break as part of meaning-making
Make as big an impact with as few words as possible
6. Modernist Collage
Create a poem using found fragments, combining disparate elements to create new meaning.
Newspaper clippings
Memes
Novel excerpts Adages
etc
7. Poetry as Protest
Write a poem about something that frustrates you about the world.
Be direct. Be loud. Be bold
Speak to someone (the reader, society, a politician, etc.)
8. Language Breaker (Gertrude Stein Experiment)
Write a short poem where meaning and form dissolves. Break up the sentence structure, use incorrect grammar and syntax. Evade meaning
9. Contemporary Hybrid
Write a poem that blends different forms and elements
Merge the contemporary with classical
The internal with the external
The sacred with the profane
Keep playing
Final Reflection
Which practice did you enjoy the most?
Which did you find the most difficult ?
Why?