Stimulate the Imagination!

Alice C. Linsley

Years of teaching creative writing to intermediate and high school students showed me that they are hindered by lack of imagination and limited vocabularies. I designed an activity that stimulates the imagination and expands their vocabularies. This is an example.

Random Word Exercise to build vocabulary and stimulate the imagination. Look up the meaning(s) of unfamiliar words before you try to use them in a poem.

 

Group 1: Use all 15 words and create a poem of at least 15 lines.

caged

pink

fevered brain

glimpse

warp

unfailing

endurance

spreading silence

peaceful

tortuous path

dry

derailed hope

corrosive

benign

bones

Additionally, students are to consider the importance of word choice and the value of devices such as alliteration. 

Why is "spreading silence" more ominous than "silence" alone? 

I invite readers to try this exercise. I'd like to see the results. You may submit your poem at aproeditor-at-gmail-dot-com. Include some information about yourself!

Related reading: Random Word Contests

2015 Random Word Poetry Contest Winner

This year's winner, Ed Pacht, is from New Hampshire. Ed, a frequent contributor to this blog, has written:

Poetry is a calling. As a Christian, I consider it a sacred calling, an expression of something other than earthly. I consider this true even when, as is the case in most of these poems, the subject matter is not religious at all.

A poem represents a stepping aside from ordinariness, a suspension of the usual way of thinking, an entrance into a realm of words that point to what is beyond words. I find this to be true even in the most trivial of my poems. Even when I am making a bad pun, I find that I am not seeing as I usually see, nor thinking as I usually think. And then there are poems that speak of deep things I can barely imagine, and these too arise from extraordinary ways of thinking.

Ed used all the required words and met the guidelines for this Random Word Poetry Contest. Here is his winning poem:

Merchant-Boy’s Despair

by Ed Pacht

In the southern sky flashes a clear light

amidst oily-seeming black and churning clouds

that threaten those whose course must pass beneath.

The merchant’s son has been entrusted with a task:

to lead his father’s caravan through this gloomy land

in pursuit of the scent of gold to place upon his scales.

Beneath the lowering canopy above the merchant band

they press on, encouraged by the luminous glow,

attracted by the wealth of the newly settled lands.

Their traveling clothes are patched in many places,

and their faces are mere masks of dead emotion,

no speck of joy revealed as they push on and on.

When at last they have reached to their objective,

a clipped, unfriendly voice conveys the wrenching news

that their rival has arrived some days before them,

and there’s no trade left, no business they can do,

and they so sadly must press on further southward

underneath the threatening cloud-filled skies.

Poet Ed Pacht performing his original poetry at the Exeter Town Hall, New Hampshire

Ed has an inviting manner and expresses himself in a transparent way. He reads his own work and also Chandler Hamby's "Screaming Fire" which was published here.


Other poems by Ed Pacht

Spoiled Milk
In the Wildness of My Soul
Thumbs Mightier Than Fear
The Love Soaked Road
Go Ye Into the City
Fire Screaming in the Sky
Pain Like Broken Bones
A Really Big Party
Mass of the Visitation
Lament for the Hills
Reflections on Screaming Fire
The Rose
Spoiled Milk
Why Do I Write?
Acrostic for Hannah Mulliken
Leah's Burden
Ed Pacht Captures Mickey Blue Eyes
Novum Ordo
From Random to Reason
Jesus and the Concrete Jungle
Belshazzar's Wall
My Party
Ghosties

2015 Random Word Poetry Contest

Readers are invited to submit a poem that uses all the following words. These sixteen words have been randomly selected. This list poses a challenge because some of the words can have more than one meaning. The word masks, for example, can serve as a noun or as a verb.

clear
masks
southern
speck
luminous
son
course
scent
flashes
clipped
scales
oily
patched
rival
wrenching
settled


The poem must be at least 12 lines in length and must not exceed 30 lines. Some of the words may be used in the title.

The contest is for all ages. Students are especially encouraged to submit poems. This is an opportunity to built your publications list. Submit your entries by midnight November 30 to Editor: aproeditor@gmail.com

The top 3 poems will appear at One on One: Write and Publish! (formerly Students, Publish Here!) the first week of December.


Former contests:
2011 Spring Random Word Poetry Contest
2011 Fall Random Word Poetry Contest
2010 Random Word Poetry Contest
2009 Random Word Poetry Contest
2008 Random Word Poetry Contest

Winners of the Random Word Poetry Contest

And the winners are... Jordan Romain and Ed Pacht.  Here are their winning entries:

Web of Lies

Your web of lies appears to show
the gladness of a kind soul,
masking the prickly strips of silk,
fragments that flash
like hollowing salutes.
A pair of love-soaked silk ribbons
swoop between the pillars,
cinching a tightly laced corset.
The dust of betrayal fades,
revealing a blood-red trench.
In its midst clay
molds your life to the lies
you created.
Deeper still,
iron chains box and bind you.
Before you realize, you are forever deep
in the bottomless pit,
caught in your web of lies.


---Jordan Romain (Grade 10)



The Love-Soaked Road

The cacti stood in prickly rows beside the path,
much like pillars lined beside a sacred way.
A pair was walking hand-in hand in blowing dust,
bare feet slapping on the hard-packed clay.
In gladness beginning a journey together,
they watched the eagles swoop so far above,
with snow-white feathers flashing in the sun
in silent salute to their growing love.

For two whose lives were cut to ribbons
by the iron forces of a cruel world,
pounded into battered fragments,
and into the trash with scorn were hurled,
there seemed no choice for such as these,
that were prisoned, and trapped in that dark box,
and hopelessly caught like flies in a web,
straining and struggling to break through the locks.

Then a kind soul with a voice like silk
discovered those two, each in a trench,
brought them together, lifted them up,
and left them alone on a little stone bench,
hollowing there a place in their hearts
each for the other, where pain had been,
reaching to touch both hands and soul,
each healing the other deeply within.

The cacti stood in prickly rows beside the path,
much like pillars lined beside a sacred way.
A pair was walking that love-soaked road,
bare feet slapping on the hard-packed clay.
In gladness beginning a journey together,
they watched as sunset made the sky red,
a radiant salute to their growing love,
knowing that soon their vows would be said.

---ed pacht

Random Word Poetry Contest

You are invited to submit a poem for the November contest.  You must use all the words in the list below.  Some may be used in the title.  The poem must be at least 12 lines and the form is optional. Rhyme is not required. 

Deadline:  Dec. 5, 2011

Here are the words you must use:

ribbons
love-soaked
red
trench
fragments
swoop
web
pillar
box
prickly
salute
flashing
gladness
a pair
clay
hollowing
dust
kind soul
silk
iron


Email your poems to me at aproeditor@gmail.com.  Good luck!

To read the poems of former winners go here, here and here.

And the Winners Are...

There were 5 entries this year and all were good, but only 2 were chosen as winners. They present very different images and are well crafted.

And the winning poems are Miriam Parrish's Topaz's Misadventure and Ed Pacht's Lament for the Hills.



Topaz’s Misadventure

The unblemished day is young;
The verdant hills are calling.
Topaz paces the plush new grass,
Tense, alert, tongue lolling.

She longs to leave the yard and go
Where grand adventures hang
(A joyride or a cat pursuit)
To earn a fearsome name.

She leaps over the gate and runs
Past streets and alleyways,
Even through dew-studded spiders' nets;
She will not be delayed.

She trots into the local zoo
Exploring here and there until
She comes across a tawny beast,
Sitting statue still.

He has a slanted, mint-green gaze;
A mane of golden wealth.
His tasseled tail flips listlessly;
His paws suggest his stealth.

She barks, and rage consumes the beast.
Reaching, he rants and roars
With pride and fearsome fame!
Pup flees to safety's tempting shores.

Exhausted, frightened, and contrite;
Thirst for adventure quite spent,
She gladly returns to paradise:
Life without embellishment.


--Miriam Parrish





Lament for the Hills


Reaching for the verdant hills,

he loudly roars in deep frustration,

that the onward march of progress,

the embellishment of daily life

by things that no one really needs,

and the constant urge to take a joyride

through the once unblemished countryside,

so quickly touches and consumes all that it sees.

He looks with love upon the slanted slopes,

studded with the flowers that glow like topaz,

plush with verdure green and cool as mint,

and watches as a bighorn ram leaps upon the rocks above.

Yet there are those who would destroy this grandeur,

not contrite for all the wreckage they may cause,

seeing nothing but the bottom line of what they net,

the other green on which their thoughts all hang,

and thus it is, in reaching for those verdant hills,

he loudly roars and cries his tears of deep frustration.

 
--ed pacht
 
 
Ed's comment is worth publishing also.  He describes how the random words suggest images so that a poem forms like the swirling force of a tornado. He wrote: "I'm always amazed how it works that, if I take one or two of the words in the list, a theme emerges and sucks the rest of the words into its vortex.  The first two lines, including three of your words certainly set the pace for this one.  I had no idea where it might be going, but it unfolded amazingly quickly.  I didn't expect a piece of environmental commentary, but that's what came out, and the lines are longer than I usually do, but here it is."
 
Congratulations to Ed and Miriam! And thanks to the other poets who participated.
 
Watch for another Random Word Poetry Contest in October.
 
 
 
 

Random Word Poetry Contest IV

Attention: Poetry Lovers!

Every year STUDENTS PUBLISH HERE! hosts a random word poetry contest.  Everyone is invited to participate.  Here are the details:

You must use all the words in the list below.  Some words may be used in the title.  The poem can take any form you wish.  Poems should be between 12 and 30 lines. Words may be used in any order.

Submit your finished poem to Alice C. Linsley at aproeditor (@) gmail-dot-com.  The deadline is Wednesday, June 8, 2011.
Here are the words you must use:

slanted
embellishment
roars
studded
verdant hills
contrite
mint
plush
net
leaps
unblemished
joyride
hang
topaz
reaching
consumes
___________________

The 2010 winners were Ed Pacht, John C. Nichols and Dior Hartje.  Read their poems here.

Ed Pacht was a winner in 2009. Read his winning poem here.

John C. Nichols was a winner in 2009 also. Read his poem here.

Ed Pacht was the winner in 2008. Read his poem here.


I look forward to reading your work!

Alice C. Linsley

A Reminder about the Contest Deadline

Tuesday, October 19 is the last day to submit poems using the random word list.  So far I have received 4 entries, inlcuding a submission from each of last year's winners.

Here is the list of words to be used. 

endowed
lackluster
smudges
burst its bonds
harpy's tune
carefree
sunken ship
miserly
full stature
ebony
luminous
lilting
distant
sheltered
pounding
slivers
casting up
bested
terrestrial
peers

They really were randomly selected, but they do suggest themes that move in a certain direction.

Please send me your submissions as soon as possible.

Best wishes,
Alice C. Linsley

Poetry Contest: Randomly Selected Words

Contestants have 2 weeks to use all of the following words or all but 3 of the words in a single poem. The 3 words that are not used in the body of the poem must be used in the title.

Submit your poem to Editor at aproeditor - at- gmail - dot -com and I will post the winners on October 20.

endowed
lackluster
smudges
burst its bonds
harpy's tune
carefree
sunken ship
miserly
full stature
ebony
luminous
lilting
distant
sheltered
pounding
slivers
casting up
bested
terrestrial
peers

Random Word Poetry Contest

Each year I post a list of randomly selected words that can be used to write a poem and I post the best poems.  Tomorrow the list will appear with instructions on how to compete.

Here are the winners from last year's contest:

Lay of the Angry Jiggler of the Smooth Speckled Stones
by Ed Pacht (June 2009)

Caring for none, dryer than death,
his empty spirit falling away,
he trudges onward in a weary road,
with a smoldering bitterness deep within
that pierces like a painful splinter,
laboring longer, clenching fists,
longing for he knows not what,
and never coming to find it..

Before him looms a towering presence,
a pair of dark forbidden portals,
opening to a land of ugliness and deep despair,
reeking with the smell of rotting broken eggs,
with a doom forecast for those who fall into its lure,
drawn by their own deep hidden hatreds,
straggling or stranded in their horrid grip,
and falling through those gates into that smoking pit.

But in his ears there is a hint of harmony,
a quiet song of softly gentle sweet persuasion,
whose renderings, like a tinkling wind-chime chorus,
draw his tortured soul to look another way,
to turn aside from those dark portals,
to turn himself toward pleasant gates,
to enter into the Presence of the place,
to know, to find, to love, in joy.


A Lonely Chorus of Wind Chimes
John C. Nichols (June 2009)

I find that I
Am caring for none,
Feeling no remorse as I swiftly stab
The lifeless living with glass so fragile
Like a broken egg, like a painful splinter
Stuck in my heart.
I find that I
Am longing for all, yearning for that
Which is me denied.
Yet ev’ry word I spew is naught but
A lonely Chorus of Wind Chimes
Tinkling in the straggling breeze.
I find that I
Am falling away burned out and broken.
My heart’s deep desires
Imprisoned and slain
By that towering presence, that presence of this place
Which sucks my passions dryer than Death,
Colder than space.

It is Kurtz to me—
An Abomination, a Heart of Darkness.
A truth so black a lie must suffice.
I wish it were not so.
I wish these renderings would return to my mind,
So that I may paint in harmony once again
And with this gentle persuasion
I bid thee:

Set me free that I may write again.

Stones in the Stream

Ed's Pacht's second response to the Poetry Challenge is similar in content to this first poem (here), but flavored differently.

Stones in the Stream
by Ed Pacht

The smooth speckled stones, straggling or stranded
in the rapid-running washing of the stream,
the liquid jiggler with its song like a chorus of wind chimes,
the gentle persuasion of musical renderings
that bring to life the presence of the place,
the towering presence of the harmony
of God and all the beauty He has made,
and stir in simple hearts a longing
for what they do not know they need.

And to this presence sometimes comes a seeker,
who has been laboring longer than he can endure,
whose thirsty spirit, drier now than death,
contains no promise but a forecast of disaster,
a seeming slide toward those forbidden portals,
a destruction just as sure as broken eggs,
an aching like a painful festering splinter, caring for none, and slowly falling away, with his fists a-beating on those portals,
seeking what he cannot know.

The smooth speckled stones washed in the stream,
the gentle persuasion of musical renderings,
the promise of peace he has not known,
the harmony of the Presence of that place,
the touch of nail-scarred loving hands.
Freedom.

A Lonely Chorus of Wind Chimes

That's the title of John C. Nichols' poem, sumbitted in response to the Poetry Challenge to use words from a random list (see here).

“A Lonely Chorus of Wind Chimes”
John C. Nichols

I find that I
Am caring for none,
Feeling no remorse as I swiftly stab
The lifeless living with glass so fragile
Like a broken egg, like a painful splinter
Stuck in my heart.
I find that I
Am longing for all, yearning for that
Which is me denied.
Yet ev’ry word I spew is naught but
A lonely Chorus of Wind Chimes,
Tinkling in the straggling breeze.
I find that I
Am falling away burned out and broken.
My heart’s deep desires
Imprisoned and slain
By that towering presence, that presence of this place
Which sucks my passions dryer than Death,
Colder than space.

It is Kurtz to me—
An Abomination, a Heart of Darkness.
A truth so black a lie must suffice.
I wish it were not so.
I wish these renderings would return to my mind,
So that I may paint in harmony once again.
And with this gentle persuasion
I bid thee:

Set me free that I may write again.

Poetry Challenge Results

Three poems have come from the recent challenge to use words from a random list (see here). For the next week, I will post some of the results. Other poems may come in later, as the deadline for this challenge is June 30.

Ed wrote: "Alice Linsley put out another of her challenges. To use words from the following list in a poem of from 12 to 30 lines. I intended to use just some of them, but as this moody piece began to grow, I found more and more of the words being worked into it. The poem finished, but untitled, I discovered I had used all but two of the suggestions, thus the rather cryptic title, implying that there is an untold backstory behind the poem. Maybe there is..."

-caring for none
-a painful splinter
-Presence of the place
-broken egg(s)
-towering presence
-renderings
-forecast
-jiggler
-gentle persuasion
-chorus of wind chimes
-falling away
-forbidden portals
-harmony
-straggling or stranded
-smooth speckled stones
-laboring longer
-dryer than death
-fists
-longing

Here is the first response to the Poetry Challenge.

Lay of the Angry Jiggler of the Smooth Speckled Stones
by Ed Pacht

Caring for none, dryer than death,
his empty spirit falling away,
he trudges onward in a weary road,
with a smoldering bitterness deep within
that pierces like a painful splinter,
laboring longer, clenching fists,
longing for he knows not what,
and never coming to find it..

Before him looms a towering presence,
a pair of dark forbidden portals,
opening to a land of ugliness and deep despair,
reeking with the smell of rotting broken eggs,
with a doom forecast for those who fall into its lure,
drawn by their own deep hidden hatreds,
straggling or stranded in their horrid grip,
and falling through those gates into that smoking pit..

But in his ears there is a hint of harmony,
a quiet song of softly gentle sweet persuasion,
whose renderings, like a tinkling wind-chime chorus,
draw his tortured soul to look another way,
to turn aside from those dark portals,
to turn himself toward pleasant gates,
to enter into the Presence of the place,
to know, to find, to love, in joy.

Another Random Word List

At Students Publish Here! we have enjoyed using random word lists to create poems. Here are some poems that have been produced using such lists:

http://teachgoodwriting.blogspot.com/2008/05/another-religious-poem.html

http://teachgoodwriting.blogspot.com/2008/12/ed-pachts-christmas-poem.html

http://teachgoodwriting.blogspot.com/2008/04/from-random-to-reason.html

I invite readers to submit original poems using the following list of words:

caring for none
a painful splinter
Presence of the place
broken egg(s)
towering presence
renderings
forecast
jiggler
gentle persuasion
chorus of wind chimes
falling away
forbidden portals
harmony
straggling
stranded
smooth speckled stones
laboring longer
dryer than death
fists
longing

Poems should be between 12 and 30 lines. Words may be used in any order. Poets are not required to use all the words.

The results will be published at Students Publish Here! (Two submissions have already arrived, as of May 28.)

Deadline: June 30

I look forward to reading your work!

Alice C. Linsley

A Poetry Experiment

Ed Pacht, who contributes regularly to this blog, recently wrote, "You know, the very existence of a word is a powerful attack upon randomness. Every word or phrase, even a bit of nonsense like 'slithy tove', is a purposeful ordering of reality to an end. I'd say further that it is impossible for a single human mind to make a truly random selection among words. One's brain is, it would seem, wired so as to make connections, even when they are not apparent. Actually, the list I worked from, if I'd found it without attribution, would have made me think of a personality much like what I've come to know of yours. I would not/could not have made that selection myself. Writing the poem actually felt like taking a journey with Alice into her own wonderland."

This caused me to wonder what would happen were Ed to provide me with a random list. Would I create a poem that reflects his inner world? So I proposed an experiment and he wrote back with his list and said: "You're on -- as random as I could make it. A couple of them popped into my head. I randomly did page roulette on a thesaurus, a dictionary, my BCP, my Bible, and a couple of books I've been reading. Even so, the choice can't be entirely random as what was chosen is whatever caught my attention during the process -- and my attention is uniquely mine."

Here is Ed's list: tinder-box --magic-lantern slides--peace offerings--semi-transparency--tabernacle--headstone--visible sign--careful observations--gaunt little man--leaping lizard--hearing impaired--attention deficit--waterfall--bright image--spring pollen--bouquet--diamond sheen

And here is the poem I wrote. I wasn't able to use the phrase: magic-lantern slides.


Athos Tabernacle
Alice C. Linsley

Gaunt little man in monkish garb
beside his hermit house sits
in contemplation of the headstone moon
streaming light on his bearded face.

From gnarled fingers flow whispered prayers,
a waterfall of beads on a black cord with a diamond sheen.
At prayer, attention deficit, though not hearing impaired,
He strikes a bright image of semi-transparency.

Careful observations of high soaring hawks and leaping lizards
Of spring pollen from earth’s bouquet,
He too is a visible sign of Heaven’s peace offerings,
His soul a tinderbox for the Divine Fire.


Related: Random Word Contest