CHANGE THE CONDITIONS YOU WRITE UNDER, AND THE WRITING CHANGES.

When you keep reaching for the same words, the same images, the same way of beginning a poem, give yourself something different to work with. These 30 experiments can help you find comparisons you wouldn't normally make, write toward something without using its obvious language, and get new material onto the page without waiting for an idea.

30 WRITING EXPERIMENTS · PDF · $22 · INSTANT DOWNLOAD

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GIVE YOURSELF A STRANGE RULE.

Give yourself a strange rule. Start with a word chosen by someone else. Borrow the language you'd use to describe someone you love from an IKEA instruction manual. There are books written only in questions, and books written according to chance.

That's what these experiments are for -- changing the conditions you normally write in, so language can do something you didn't plan.

SOME DAYS YOU GET A POEM. SOME DAYS YOU GET THREE LINES YOU KEEP.

There's no set order. You don't need to work through these front to back or do one every day. Use one to get a full draft. Use another to get three lines you keep. Skip around. The only rule is that they're for play, and for putting yourself somewhere language can play with you.

A FEW OF THE 30.

Forbidden Words

Before you write toward something, write down the five words that feel most obvious to it. If you're writing about grief: death, loss, sadness, miss, gone. Now ban all five, and write toward it anyway.

Impossible Comparisons

Compare something ordinary to something that has almost nothing to do with it. My father's voice was like a parking garage. Then write through the comparison and see what it hands you.

Titles Before Poems

Write 20 titles for poems that don't exist yet. The Summer We Kept the Refrigerator in the Garage. Instructions for Returning a Dead Bird. Pick the one that makes you most curious. Write that poem.

Erasure

Take a page you don't mind marking up. Circle the words and phrases that catch you as you read. Cross out everything else. What's left is the poem.

That's 4 of 30. The rest range from a dictionary chain you follow definition by definition, to writing an entire piece as one sentence that never ends, to giving a color to something that doesn't have one. Every exercise gets a full explanation, not just a prompt.

I've been writing poetry for more than 20 years. These experiments are influenced by Bernadette Mayer, Kenneth Koch, and OULIPO.

WHAT YOU GET

Play With Poetry PDF containing 30 generative writing experiments.

30 generative writing experiments, explained the way I'd explain them to a student sitting across from me.
Access the PDF through your account after purchase.
No set order. Keep it as a reference for as long as you write.

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A FEW THINGS BEFORE YOU START.

IS THIS A COURSE?

No. It's a short collection you read and use, not something with lessons or a schedule.

DO I NEED EXPERIENCE WRITING POETRY?

No. Half of these are designed to get you writing before you know what you want to say.

WHAT FORMAT IS IT?

A PDF containing 30 writing experiments.

You don't need a new idea to start writing. You need a different way in. Here are 30 of them.

$22 · INSTANT DOWNLOAD · YOURS TO KEEP

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