7 Poem Starters When You’re Feeling Uninspired

Writer’s block happens to everyone, including poets. If you’re running low on inspiration, try these poem starters to get writing again!

1. Play Dictionary Roulette

Take any book or dictionary, open to random page, look away and stick your finger somewhere on the page. Whatever word (or words, or image) your finger lands on — write that down. Now, do it again. And again.

When you have a list of about five words, write a poem connecting them all in interesting or unexpected ways.

Of course, five is just a number I pulled out of my pocket — you could use more word-prompts, or less. You could even use a single word. (I’m planning a second article dealing with how to turn one-word prompts into poems — stay tuned.)

If you go the one-word route, remember you can also find lots of prompts online. I recommend Robert Lee Brewer’s Poetic Asides blog, which offers prompts every Wednesday (and every day in April and November).

Or, you could take up a 100 Themes Challenge, as I have!

2. Have a Little Fun with Genre

By “genre” I don’t mean science fiction or mystery — although you can certainly write such genre poems, and they would be awesome.

Rather, I mean playing with different kinds of writing, especially the kinds we normally don’t consider poetic. In “Cream of Fool Ivan: A Recipe,” for example, I took the rather mundane recipe genre and turned it into a poem. You can do the same.

To get started, take a boring, everyday “writing genre” like a grocery list or recipe and twist it. For example, if you choose the grocery list, shake it up by changing your point of view and putting unexpected items on the list. Ask yourself: Who is writing this list? Why do they need these things?

You can also try it with inventory, instructions, SMS conversations, log books, and even business emails.

The key is in the twist. How can you break past our expectations?

3. Mix Up Your POV

In the last tip, I mentioned that you should think about the point of view in your poem — who is writing and why.

Well, you can extend that idea into a poem starter all by itself.

Look around you for unusual POVs. What about that spider weaving her web in the corner? That lone sock lying on the floor? That bird taking a crap from the telephone wire?

Look for a perspective that catches your fancy, and then write a monologue from that POV.

But remember — have FUN, and do something unexpected!

4. Play the Song Lyric Game

First, open your digital library — e.g. iTunes or Google Play, if you have it — and put your songs on shuffle.

Now, write down the first lines of the first 20 songs that come up. (If you get an instrumental, you can skip it.)

Keep going until you have 20 lyric lines, which can be as long or as short as you wish. Try not to skip songs, though, even if it seems like you could never use the line that comes up. (When I did this, I had to include foreign language lines, since I have a lot of foreign-language music. Translated, they had an interesting effect on the resulting poem!)

After you’ve collected all 20 lines, start revising. Take all that random raw material, find connections, rearrange lines, edit and rewrite them, until you have a good flow from beginning to end.

Note, however, that if you want to share this poem, you have to change it significantly. We don’t want to plagiarize the songs. We’re using them as a starting point, a source of inspiration. The art is in how you then run with it and revise it into a new creation.

5. Turn News Into a Poem

Go to your favorite news source (or a radical one you can’t stand, or a humble local paper, etc.) and skim for articles that catch your interest.

Dramatic stories are fair game, but look also at quirky stories, or standard-fare stories with a single quirky twist or quote hidden inside.

Now, take your preferred article and turn it into verse. Use your intuition to find the best line breaks, as well as the bits you should leave out. And as you’re writing, elaborate — add notes, add thoughts, add details that didn’t appear in the original.

But again, if you want to share this, you’ll have to take out all the borrowed material. Elaborate and revise; don’t plagiarize.

6. Write a Dream or Daydream

This is probably the simplest to do, if you’re a dreamer. (And aren’t poets usually dreamers?)

Take a dream or daydream of yours and record it in verse. Of course, you should give yourself freedom to change the details. Don’t feel like you have to stick to what “really” happened.

If you don’t have any dreams in mind, try this:

1. Dim the lights, pull the curtains, and lie down flat. Relax. If it’s noisy where you are, feel free to use headphones.
2. Breathe slowly and evenly, from your diaphragm. (Focus on lifting your stomach and fill the bottom of your lungs before the top.)
3. When you’re fully relaxed, keep your eyes closed and let your mind play. In this state you can have some vivid daydreams, which could provide a core image for one of your poems.

If you need help with relaxing and meditating, I recommend getting a copy of Living Write by Kelly L. Stone, along with the meditations CD. I bought it on a whim when it was on sale, and it’s helped me a number of times.

Also, consider keeping a dream journal by your bed. I don’t do it anymore, owing to time constraints in the morning, but when I was a kid I kept such a journal and managed to record a lot of interesting material.

7. Embrace BOPs (Bad on Purpose)

This is an idea I got from Katherine MacKenett — the FridgePoet I interviewed in December. She challenged herself to compose a mini-magnetic poem every day for 365 days, and on some days inspiration was less readily available than on others.

So, some days we were treated to BOPs — poems that were Bad on Purpose.

Now, to be fair, her BOPs weren’t actually bad. They were kind of simple and silly, but they had a childlike charm that made them a delight to read. I bet they were fun to write, too — which is why I’m recommending them to you.

The valuable thing about BOPs is that they give you permission to play and experiment, without the pressure of creating something serious, deep, and polished. It’s SUPPOSED to be bad. So let loose and have fun!

To make a BOP, just start playing with language. Play with sound, goofy rhymes, weird statements, funny images. I think once you get started, you’ll be surprised at what comes out.

Even if you don’t like the result, at least it’s got you thinking creatively — changing your perspective, thinking from unexpected angles, making unusual connections.

Actually, that’s the idea behind all of these poem starters.

You just need to get started, and then keep up the momentum and trust the process. Inspiration will come back. Be ready for it when it does!

And, in the meantime, how about sharing some BOPs in the comments? 😉

---

[mailmunch-form id=”439193″]