Can anyone recommend any poetry exercises or websites they've used to prompt poems? I'm having serious writing troubles. *
*Anonymous, please don't recommend a 40, Mary J, or a one night stand--been there & maybe I've done that!
About Me
- Eduardo C. Corral
- Eduardo C. Corral is a CantoMundo fellow. He holds degrees from ASU and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, jubilat, New England Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Post Road. His work has been honored with a "Discovery"/The Nation award and residencies from The MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He has served as the Olive B. O'Connor Fellow in Creative Writing at Colgate University and as the Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University. He's the interview editor for Boxcar Poetry Review. He won the 2011 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition.
11 comments:
Diana...I've got an exercise for you, which comes courtesy of Terrance Hayes.
Take a word...the longer the better...and make it the title of your poem. Now create a poem of at least 20 lines with the last line of each stanza being an anagram of the title word. This was the one I created from the word confidentiality:
Confidentiality
The FBI must be keeping track, a thick file
of comings and goings I cannot deny.
When I put my finger on the dial,
type a message, look for a confidante
someone is listening, watching, tracking every cent.
I wonder if it's Condi,
bored with the war on terror, the usual plausible denial,
she could be up playing the piano late,
"I've Got You Under My Skin," by old Cole,
or any little ditty,
to make the days go faster, or make a dent
in all the mail she's received about how she's failed
her race, playing Prissy to Dubya's Scarlett, over confident,
killing babies rather than birthin' them, even in the no-fly.
He's made Americans enemy combatants, put every city
on alert for unpatriotic signs, ratcheted up the Def-con,
made us all commies again, no confidentiality,
the Red Bastards are coming, washing in on the tide.
Condoleezza, there is hope yet,
there is still time to come to the nation's aid.
I dream of you sitting in front of Congress, nailing it
with two simple words: "Bush lied."
If I were in New York, I'd spend a day at the Met or MOMA and try to osmote something. (I know, I know, that's not a word.)
I like Ginger's idea. Other museums should work too. There is that good book by Chase Twichell--the name escapes me.
One exercise I found interesting in graduate school--look at a poem in another language, one that you cannot read at all, and "translate it."
But I always find that the passage of time helps. Sometimes you can't write because you're trying too hard.
d-
reread some poet you liked before we were cool.
Thanks you guys/gals. I appreciate all of your responses.
I'm only acting anxious because I'm finishing up my Columbia thesis: 35 pages by March 7th. I've got 25 I'm semi-okay with. So I figured, because of my time restraints, I'd try some excercises.
Normally, I try not to force things, but for the sake of my degree--I have to!
I'm heading to MOMA tomorrow morning & going to read some Breton tonight.
Think of a famous person and have a friend or relative meeting that famous person active in a mundane activity or at some odd place.
The title becomes your hook, as in:
The Day My Cousin Met Ralph Nader
or
While walking down Rodeo Drive, My Sister meets ____________ Changing a Tire
__________________
I use cut-up, too. Take a Cosmo, or other vacuous magazine and cut out all of the ads. Then take the ads and cut out all of the words that grab you. After, go back through the magazine and read headlines, cutting out any other words you like. Put them into an envelope. Start pulling out words and phrases and arranging them into complete ideas until something takes root in your imagination. Go from there.
drink.
I sent you an email at your columbia acct; not sure if you use this.
Jose,
Yes. That is my email and thanks for that A-mazing email. Truly nice of you.
Call me. I'm go over and help you.
The Donkey
1. Take a non-fiction book that has nothing to do with poetry, flip through its pages and randomly stab your finger in until your find a phrase or group of words that might lead somewhere. Run with it. History, socio-cultural examinations, religious texts, and random 19th century estorica work best for this.
2. Wander a good used bookstore. Note all the interesting titles of books on the shelves.
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