Let's Get the Creative Juices Flowing

So here's the plan... We are going to use a "Patty Exercise" to get an open forum of poetry going. Here are the directions... post what you want by commenting to this post, even if it's just a few little lines, but use at least one of the things from the following assignment Patty talked about, Jim Simmerman's, "Twenty Little Poetry Projects." I encourage you to read the previous posts and use that to springboard your own work. By doing this, each of us will be contributing to the poetry community we have created here on Formaldehyde and one another's work. Good Luck and happy writing!

TWENTY LITTLE POETRY PROJECTS

Jim Simmerman

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.

2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.

3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.

4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).

5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.

6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.

7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.

8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.

9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.

10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).

11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: "The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . ."

12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.

13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in "real life."

14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.

15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.

16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.

17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.

18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.

19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).

20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that "echoes" an image from earlier in the poem.

as published at http://mypage.siu.edu/puglove/twenty.htm