Poetry Challenges

Visual media makes sense to our brains because we derive a sense of continuity from one image to the next, drawing connections between the images even if they don’t really actually exist. Like how when we read a comic and interpolate the action between the panels even though that action isn’t being drawn frame by frame. 

This challenge asks you to create a poem as a series of images. They can be compact images like the knock at the door or the tan line on the ring finger. They can be more complex sequences separated by stanzas like so:

She removes the band and rubs it between her fingers, 

She palms the ring and fusses the bronzy scratched finish

There are bouquets on the counter and a knock at the door

The geraniums are in season

Bees dart between the stalky underbrush

The birdbath is still all dried up from the winter

The problem with rhymed poems is that exact rhymes tend to start sounding stale after a while. 

Been/Again, Go/Flow, Aunt/Grant and so on and the reader will eventually start filling in the end of the line before it comes because the poet is forced to lean on familiar phrases and awkward structures to complete the rhyme scheme. 

This challenge asks you to write a rhyming poem that utilizes a majority of slant rhymes, or near-rhymes, rather than exact rhymes. 

If you have access to a game of Scrabble, Quiddler, Scattergories, or some other board game with a way of generating at least semi-random letters, go ahead and grab it now. If not, use this one here. Get a random or semi-random letter and write it at the top of a page. Write down a long list of words that start with that letter, both exotic and mundane. Look for a collection of words you like together. Things that could be part of the same line or consecutive lines. 

Write a poem where the action takes place in reverse. This can be either an event recounted with time moving backwards, or a change of status that would generally move in one direction (i.e. whole to broken, new to old) moving in the other (broken to whole, old to new).

For reference, see Ansel Elkins’ “Reverse: A Lynching”

Pick up one of your favorite novels, or just anything off your shelf with a prose style you enjoy. Flip through the first third of the book and grab 5-10 words to form a mini word bank. Then flip through the middle third and grab another 5-10. Do the same with the last third.

Write a 3 stanza or 3 part poem where you use the first mini bank for the first stanza, the second for the second, and the third bank for the third.

This is something that might go against your basic instinct as a writer. Many beginner or even advanced writing classes will tell you unequivocally not to do this. But poetry is Bane and the rules are Batman and poetry gets to break the rules in half over his knee like a human Kit-Kat. Mixed metaphors can be unclear and can be worse at getting a single point across effectively. Luckily, poems are  allowed to be nebulous and shrouded in ambiguity. Astute poetry readers expect this from poems and are willing to do the interpretive legwork required for a poet to juggle a few metaphors. 

Today’s challenge is to write a poem that mixes as many metaphors as you can comfortably fit in one poem. The best way to do this without having them lose their impact is to introduce them cleanly as separate elements and then start blending them into a fugue at the end of the poem. Decentralize the narration and don’t get too bogged down fleshing out a plot.

Here’s how the scoring breaks down:

2+ metaphors - stick a gold star on your nose

3+ metaphors - you’re now allowed to pronounce the “h” in what

4+ metaphors - you are legally obligated to start believing in yourself

Erasure poems, or blackout poems,  are often created by a poet finding a large bit of text, like a passage from a novel or a newspaper article, and then cutting out or crossing out words until a much smaller text emerges with a questionable authorial pedigree. 

If, for instance, you use Moby Dick, how much can you call it your own work when it’s all coming out of Herman Melville’s pen?

Write a poem that is bisected by a fairly large open space in the center. But to make things difficult, make each side readable on its own. That means essentially there’s a left poem and a right poem that can be globbed together and read as one. That’s 3 poems, really, so give yourself extra points if you complete this challenge. 

@self-containedadventures

@ladymoriamort

This is one of Dean Young’s poems from his pretty hefty collection, Bender. It’s a great read and pretty economical, and you can buy it here.