On Writing Poetry

"The trick is to find out what we know, challenge what we know, own what we know, and then give it away in language."

"Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's."

Begin with what you know, and then let yourself move out from what you know into the larger questions. This is when you will enter into the world of discovery and imagination. Robert Frost said, "No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader."

"As the minutes of your own life open and fall, catch them in poems. You've been given one life, one set of unique experiences; out of those particulars, make the poems only you can make."

~The Poet's Companion

Can you write a poem in 40 minutes? Maybe. It's tough. We are going to try. In an effort to give us direction and focus, I want to guide you through the beginning of your poem; after the first few lines, you are on your own: go where you want to go. Don't worry if what comes out is messy, shapeless, or different from what you intended; we can revise. The point today is to get a complete draft written.

1. Begin your poem with "I am from..."
2. Include at least three concrete details (proper names, specific objects) in the first five lines of the poem.
3. For at least the first ten lines of the poem, you cannot end a sentence at the end of a line.
4. Either the first or the second sentence in your poem needs to be short.
5. Go into depth and specific detail about at least one item/place/person in the first 10 lines of your poem.

Here is the beginning of my draft:

I am from a land where the grass is blue and the bourbon is strong,
where Light Up, Louisville! has more to do with tobacco than fireworks,
where thoroughbreds and basketball and Wendell Berry coexist in rolling harmony
because the hicks are also poets and the poets love to gamble
and everyone, yes everyone, agrees that the sun shines bright
on My Old Kentucky Home. With every visit, it looks even older.

**If you are having trouble, try...
1. asking a question
2. using personification or alliteration
3. changing your mind in your poem.
4. using italics or bold or all-caps
5. stating something plainly and boldly--even if it scares you
6. including dialogue
7. including lyrics from a song
8. responding to what people think about you or where you are from
9. use a cliche in a fresh way
10. replace adjectives with active verbs