Twenty Little Poetry Projects

Are you a poet, but don't know it? Try out these 2o little poetry projects and before you realize it, you'll be a writing fiend!

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor or simile.

2. Say something specific, yet 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, or a mixing of 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 just said.

8. Use a word (slang) that 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 overheard, preferably in dialect and/or that you do not 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 of character in the poem so something he/she could not do in real life.

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

15. Write in the future tense, so 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.

FYI: Try these steps individually to create 20 separate poems, or combine them into one poem by incorporating all of the steps.