19. Look Around

1. Look through a newspaper for items that catch your imagination.

2. Pretend you are Cinderella, a rock star, the last dinosaur (or any other figure from a story, movie, or real life).

3. Begin with a question:

"What kind of house would I have lived in in 1600?"

"How would I be remembered if I disappeared this very moment?"

"Twenty years from now, who will I be?"

4. Choose an object or a creature and speak to it as though it were capable of understanding what you say. You might call your poem, "A Conversation with a House" or "To a Pizza Pie" or "Words for an Old Dog."

5. Write a poem consisting of a series of images. Its title might be "A Catalog of Sounds" or "A List of Memories." Or its first lines might be, "I see -- I smell, I taste, I touch, I hear."

6. Write a poem consisting of a series of contrasting metaphors.

"A cat seems to be________, but it really is______________.

"Fog seems to be__________, but it really is______________.

"An onion seem to be______, but it really is______________.