TWENTY LITTLE POETRY PROJECTS
Jim Simmerman
1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: "The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . ."
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in "real life."
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that "echoes" an image from earlier in the poem.
Open the poem with the first project and close it with the last. Otherwise use the projects in whatever order you like, giving each project at least one line. Try to use all twenty projects. Feel free to repeat those you like. Fool around. Enjoy.
So this is what I came up with:
Sometimes my day is cold spaghetti,
clammy on my tongue with jealousy and apathy and a hint of sadness,
all muddled noodles intertwining.
Because I’ve seen their smiles and heard their laughter,
but through the cold window of loneliness.
And he says, “Put scorpions in their bed!”
but that’s no solution, only sceleri scelus,
so like Ovid, alone with his myths, longing for Rome,
I wait for metamorphosis,
to crumple my wings and scrunch back into a caterpillar,
into a little girl whose grandpa calls her Hopi,
but not like the Indians, for they have no home.
Then the rain hangs curtains on my lonely view
and I dream of dancing elephants,
until my sister is calling because my phone is ringing,
and I float through my window
(it tastes of ice and champagne).
And I will meet her, drenched in the smell of rain,
and we will laugh and run like children,
whom time and mud can never touch,
because the day isn’t like spaghetti at all;
it’s as shapely and round as a callipygian,
as warm and buttery as freshly baked rolls.
