Poetry Writing Exercises
Instructions for Using Our Exercises
I am offering a selection of exercises that I have learned along the way as a gift to anyone who strays through the internet and finds our Jacaranda Web site.
You may never have heard of me, since promotion is not one of my goals in life, but I am a practicing poet. Poetry is a tool I use when I need help trying to understand the vagaries of life as I encounter them. I have had the good fortune to attend workshops on the writing of poetry offered by many talented poets -- both famous and relatively unknown. In this section, I am here offering you some of the mind opening exercises I picked up at some of those workshops.
What poetry is for me is a way of exploring that vast unknown area that exists between one's internal landscape and their interpretation of the world they live in. I once heard the esteemed poet Stanley Kunitz say that poetry occurs at that crossroads where the present and past intersect.
Poets are forever talking about getting in touch with their true thoughts by mining their own experience. They do this by doing writing exercise of one sort or another.
The row of flowers and titles on the main poetry page will lead you to exercises I have encountered along the way that I have found useful. Click on any of them that strike your fancy and you will find an exercise that has opened a window onto a whole new line of thought for me. Or, just click "Next Lesson" at the top or bottom of this page to get the next lesson in the series.
I hope you do the exercises and have as much fun as I do using these exercises. I have used all of these exercises more than once. Every time I use any of them I am surprised to find myself writing something totally different from what I wrote the last time.
Website by Kleinsteiber Consulting