Another Universe

A fun poetry exercise that gets your creativity flowing is Found Poems. You take a stack of old magazines, choose interesting phrases from various pages and articles, and piece them together. The result can be startling! This exercise has you place phrases and words together that you might not put together otherwise – it opens

Now I fly with the dog in the sky….

One of the greatest joys of my life came from my poetry residency at Clark Elementary School in Franklin, Indiana. Going to the classrooms (and gathering in large groups) to teach poetry writing in a way that differed from the standard teachers’ instructor manuals was a blast! I could see the children’s minds and imaginations

Harvest (late October)

        (Photo from calto.info)

Rubbing words together

Would you like to learn a simple exercise to create interesting imagery and fresh poems? I was honored to receive an award for teaching poetry writing to children, and this was one of the main techniques/exercises I used (I’ve used this exercise with adults, too – in workshops/seminars). I learned this technique from Babara Juster