Poetry games

I rather like poetry games. I find them stimulating, good fun and sometimes a way out of a dry patch. Some years ago I took a course with The Poetry School entitled Adventures in Form and we explored all sorts of forms, distorting old ones and trying new ones. I particularly enjoyed Oulipo poetry using the N+ Generator. Type in/cut and paste one of your poems and see what happens.

If you want more games of Oulipo check out this site which explains and gives examples. There is also something here from The Poetry Foundation in their glossary of terms.

I searched around online for other things and came across poetrygames.org but it may be a bit basic for most poets, yet great fun for beginners, or just as a fun tryout. There seemed to be a lot of stuff for schools online. I didn't look at any but I was amazed. Things have changed since I was at school back in the 60/70's. I only remember one poem being read out to us in the school hall. I can't even remember if it was primary or secondary. I quite liked it. But it was the only brush I had with poetry. When my son was at school he studied poetry and I still remember the poem Digging by Seamus Heaney and I thought what a wonderful poem. He also studied Gillian Clarke whose poetry I knew vaguely. It seems I learned more from helping my son with his homework than I ever did at my own school.

Finally I came across these Poetry Bingo Cards by Maria Taylor and published by HappenStance Press. I think I bought them at a poetry publishers day in London a few years back. I think anything that makes poetry fun is good, and I do use other things like random words to create poetry when I am completely stuck. With my self-challenge of writing a poem a day for a year I do often get stuck. I'm having a bit of a struggle now, yet when I come through 'the wall' I hit several days when things just happen and the words flow.

If you know of any other websites or poetry games you use do let me know. I know there is a problem with my site in leaving messages quite often. You can always leave a message via twitter @heather91404743

Poetry word games

I have just joined an online line poetry course with The Poetry School called Adventures In Form.  This is an unusual sort of poetry as the forms are not your usual sonnets or villanelles but made up forms using word games.  The course is untutored but the assignments (10 in all) are uploaded each week and then participants work on them and upload their offerings and comments can be made via the forums.  There are over 20 people on this course so I have found it time consuming keeping up with all the emails in my Inbox so now I just log on to the course and view them from there.  The first assignment was a oulipo sonnet and the idea was to choose a title from a sign or saying etc., and then use the letters from that to form a poem of 14 lines.  I used the added restriction of trying to write it as as a sonnet with rhyme scheme.  What fun and what a challenge but I really got into it. It can help to use an anagram generator - one for Scrabble is good.  You can find an online one through Google.  Just type in the title and it will list all the words you can make out of the title.

The next assignment is writing what's known as N+7, meaning to change each noun in your poem to the 7th one following in the dictionary. Try using www.spoonbill.or/n+7/ You can type or paste in your poem and it will make the changes for you. It can be very funny.  Whether it is poetry is another story!  All good fun though.

Here is my oulipo sonnet with title taken from a magazine and no doubling up on letters:

Spruce up your home for spring

You refine your home in a soupçon,

root out mess, compress,

ship out in grey sing-song,

focus on genre, of purpose,

muse on scope for a fancy

corner in green or crimson;

no grimness here, sun, comfy

in rosy hue on crisp space, fine cushion;

pep up spring in fiery rinse, pour

cerise from cans, shiny, hip,

no passé guise in puce or more,

no gross or grimy form can grip

for in your eyes you can see secure

your rooms supreme, sprucy, pure.