The Poem Workshop

Write a poem paying very close attention to the schemes that you use. Maybe focus on a particular set.

http://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/Schemes.htm

Write a poem about a person’s encounter with The Angel of Death/the Grim Reaper.

http://bigthink.com/robertpinsky2/re-when-does-the-specific-become-universal

After watching the video, write a poem about a specific experience or object that also has a universal meaning. Attempt to use the object or experience as a “doorway” to the universal. Make sure to choose something so natural and remarkable to you that writing about it is natural.

Spend some time leafing through the newspaper and write a poem based on a news story. It can be from a headline or the story itself.

Find lines from different poems that you enjoy that relate to the same topic and arrange them to make a new poem. If you want to make it challenging try putting them into a closed form like a villanelle or sestina.

Think about an experience when you learned a lesson. Now write a poem with your intentions in mind, then change details to better serve your intentions.

From the two words “what remains” write a poem. How do these words affect you? What do they mean? Do they refer to anyone? Did someone say them?

Read the first stanza of “Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies” by Edna St. Vincent Millay and only the first stanza. Without reading the poem in its entirety, from only this stanza continue the poem with the idea of what that statement means to you. How is childhood the kingdom where nobody dies? Is it really that?

Take some time and reflect on something that happened while working. It can be anything, big, small, funny, or mundane. Then write a poem about it and end the poem with an idiom.

If you have the urge, take a seat in the midst of nature and memorize all you can about the moments you spend there. Experience every sense and then go somewhere quiet and write a poem about what you remember.