Twenty Little Poetry Projects

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.

You may skip 5 of these directions. The final product should not have numbers, and does not need to go in order. Feel free to mix the order of the lines as you choose.

That said, the best poems are those in which the lines somehow play off of one another. Maybe it's through sound (use of end rhyme, internal rhyme, etc.) or content. 

Allow the poem to surprise you!!!!