Random-Word Poem

By Carol Woolum Roberts

I continue again this week with another writing exercise from the book “The Writer as an Artist” by Pat Schneider.

This month, during National Poetry Month, I am participating in a 30-day journaling project through the Isolation Journals.  Each day I am working on an exercise about writing poetry.  Then I will share what comes from the exercise.  I enjoyed this exercise much better than the first exercise last week.  And I felt I had more time to work on this poem, and change it and edit, and get it to a poem I like.

Exercise 12

The Random-Word Poem

A writer in my workshop introduced me to an exercise she credited to poet Carolyn Forche.  Like good folk songs, which change as they are passed from person to person, so this has no doubt altered in translation.  This exercise springs me out of my habitual patterns, makes me think and write in fresh ways.

Make a list of 10 or 20 random nouns on one side of your paper, and a list of random modifiers on the opposite side.  Then draw lines to make the most unlikely combinations of nouns and modifiers.  Write a poem in which you use at least five of those unlikely phrases.

Here are my nouns and modifiers I listed and the combinations I put together.

Here are the unlikely phrases I used in the poem.

Endless wine

Stinky computer

Slick cheese

Bubbly hilltop

Furry ski resort

Angry daffodils

Fragrant book

Colored mirror

Cozy sheets

Cobbled crows

Itchy cookies

Drenched fireplace

Frozen pottery

Joyful water

Loved willow bush.

And here is the poem I wrote from some of these unlikely phrases.

Spring Backyard

Under a new covering of snow,

the drenched fireplace remains

cold.  The angry daffodils

shiver in their beds.

No cozy sheets for these spring bloomers.

The cobbled crows pick at the

itchy cookies in the frozen

pottery under the loved

willow bush.

I sit bundled up on my patio,

drinking endless wine, and

breathing in the stories from

my fragrant book.

I gaze into a future full of hope, reflected in the

rose-colored mirror.

_________________________________________________________

Maybe you would like to try this poetry exercise this week.  I really enjoyed doing this exercise, and writing this poem.

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