FUN WITH WORD LISTS
We love working with word lists. You can find them anywhere.
make them up out of your dreams or what you see looking out the windowopen a book of poetry and grab words from the poems -- a big "collected poems" works bestgo to www.visualthesaurus.com and look through their "Featured Word Lists" or use their "Vocabgrabber" to create your own lists using copied and pasted texts The possibilities are limitless. We put word lists on small cards, like flash cards, and take them with us wherever we go. Tuck a couple into your notebook.
You can use word lists in many ways--tell yourself you're going to write a poem using all the words on a (20 words or less) list. Use them in order, or reverse order. Alphabetical order!
Use them to end your lines.
When you create a word list, remember to use the senses, throw in some action verbs, and a place name or two is nice. Maybe the name of a famous person--Martha Washington, Louis XIV.
Every year, CV2, a Canadian literary journal, sponsors the CV2 48-Hour Poem Contest. They provide a devilish ten word list that you must use in your poem. You have 48 hours to do it. We have entered several times and even won! Try it next spring. http://www.contemporaryverse2.ca/en/contests/2-day-poem-contest
make them up out of your dreams or what you see looking out the windowopen a book of poetry and grab words from the poems -- a big "collected poems" works bestgo to www.visualthesaurus.com and look through their "Featured Word Lists" or use their "Vocabgrabber" to create your own lists using copied and pasted texts The possibilities are limitless. We put word lists on small cards, like flash cards, and take them with us wherever we go. Tuck a couple into your notebook.
You can use word lists in many ways--tell yourself you're going to write a poem using all the words on a (20 words or less) list. Use them in order, or reverse order. Alphabetical order!
Use them to end your lines.
When you create a word list, remember to use the senses, throw in some action verbs, and a place name or two is nice. Maybe the name of a famous person--Martha Washington, Louis XIV.
Every year, CV2, a Canadian literary journal, sponsors the CV2 48-Hour Poem Contest. They provide a devilish ten word list that you must use in your poem. You have 48 hours to do it. We have entered several times and even won! Try it next spring. http://www.contemporaryverse2.ca/en/contests/2-day-poem-contest
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