A poetry exercise I created (with lots of inspiration from lots of folks) goes like this:
Grab five random books, your telephone book, laptop, printer, and scissors. Since I'm a big believer in comfy, I do this exercise sitting on the floor in sweatpants.
Spread out your five books. Open the telephone book to a random number. Let's say it's 683-4592. Pick some number out of the phone number; in this case, 92 (but you could pick 68 or 83 or 459 or 4). Select one of your books, and turn to page 92 -- or whatever page number you selected. Find an interesting phrase on page 92 and type it into a word-processing document. Then turn to another phone number, and a different book. Keep typing phrases from each book (allow each phrase to have its own line) until you have about 250 words. Use each of the five books approximately the same number of times so that one doesn't get more exposure than the others.
Once you have your phrases typed, print them. With your scissors, cut out each line or phrase and start rearranging until you have a poem.
My five books are:
- The First Days of School: How to be an Effective Teacher by Harry K. Wong
- Alpha Beta: How 26 Letters Shaped the Western World by John Man
- The Art of Eating by M.F.K. Fischer
- The Hours by Michael Cunningham
- A Widow for One Year by John Irving
- Let the sky rain potatoes
- I saw a movie star on my way over here
- Photographic history of her dead boys
- Plans a classroom welcome for the First Day
- A neat impression of control and understanding
- It wasn’t real writing because it only used pictures
This exercise forces your mind to wrap itself in unusual positions. It also treats the creation of poetry as a physical act. I enjoy anything that makes words tangible.
I'd love to hear feedback or read any poems you come up with after trying this technique.
Stay tuned for my creations.
