We love working with word lists. You can find them anywhere.
You can use word lists in many ways--tell yourself you're going to write a poem using all the words on a (20 words or less) list. Use them in order, or reverse order. Alphabetical order!
Use them to end your lines.
When you create a word list, remember to use the senses, throw in some action verbs, and a place name or two is nice. Maybe the name of a famous person--Martha Washington, Louis XIV.
Every year, CV2, a Canadian literary journal, sponsors the CV2 48-Hour Poem Contest. They provide a devilish ten word list that you must use in your poem. You have 48 hours to do it. We have entered several times and even won! Try it next spring. http://www.contemporaryverse2.ca/en/contests/2-day-poem-contest
- make them up out of your dreams or what you see looking out the window
- open a book of poetry and grab words from the poems -- a big "collected poems" works best
- go to www.visualthesaurus.com and look through their "Featured Word Lists" or use their "Vocabgrabber" to create your own lists using copied and pasted texts
You can use word lists in many ways--tell yourself you're going to write a poem using all the words on a (20 words or less) list. Use them in order, or reverse order. Alphabetical order!
Use them to end your lines.
When you create a word list, remember to use the senses, throw in some action verbs, and a place name or two is nice. Maybe the name of a famous person--Martha Washington, Louis XIV.
Every year, CV2, a Canadian literary journal, sponsors the CV2 48-Hour Poem Contest. They provide a devilish ten word list that you must use in your poem. You have 48 hours to do it. We have entered several times and even won! Try it next spring. http://www.contemporaryverse2.ca/en/contests/2-day-poem-contest
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