Warm-up Poetry Writing Exercises

If you’re going to exercise, it’s a good idea to warm up first. That way, you’ll get your body geared up to do the heavy lifting, the hard running, and the strenuous workout.

Writing’s no different.

Poetry writing exercises are ideal for times when you’re feeling uninspired or lazy, or maybe your poetry is getting stale and you need to take it in a fresh direction. These exercises are good starters and don’t require you to actually write a poem, but they get you thinking about rhythm, language, and imagery.

Poetry Writing Exercises to Warm You Up

These poetry writing exercises are short and simple. You can probably get through them quickly and they will stretch and flex your writing muscles.

Alliteration and Assonance Exercise

Create a list of word pairs and phrases that are built around alliteration or assonance. Remember, alliteration is when words in close proximity start with the same consonant sound (as in pretty picture). Assonance is when words in close proximity echo vowel sounds (bent pen). Try to come up with at least ten of each. The more, the better.

Metaphor Exercise

Make a list of significant life events – birth, death, graduation, marriage, having children, starting your own business. Choose events that are life changing. Now, for each of these events, try to come up with metaphors. A well-known metaphor for life is that it’s a dance. Expand on this exercise by writing a poem about the life event using only the metaphor.

Lyrics and Musicality Exercise

Earlier I said none of these exercises require you write a poem, but this one does ask you to write a song. Actually, you’ll be rewriting a song. It’s simple – choose a catchy song that you enjoy and rewrite the lyrics. Try to go way off topic from what the original lyrics were about. You can play the song while you work the exercise, or search for the lyrics and use those as your baseline. The idea is to get your mind on rhythm and musicality, so rock on!

Poetry writing exercises are meant to be helpful and fun. If you used any of these exercises, feel free to post your results in the comments. And keep on writing!

Do you have any poetry writing exercises to share? Have any special requests for exercises that deal with specific areas of poetry writing? Leave a comment!

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