Learning about Poetry (part 1): Random Word set and Muse #1 Journaling, well...keyword freewrite

I don't know a lot about poetry.

I'm sort of switch Poetry Month and Short Story Month. Last month during Poetry Month at Reddit, I created the short story "The Art of Love and Loss", even though I was also creating Rhyming Fuel, though nobody saw that beyond my family members. This month, which is short story month, I'll try to create poetry at this blog.

A few years ago, I did a series of posts concerning fables. I'd like to do something similar for poetry where I study, learn, and try stuff concerning poetry.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/313805/Rhyming-Fuel

I wrote Rhyming Fuel because having a random rhyme word table was the easiest way for me to do something related to poetry. I don't know if I've ever seen a random d1000 rhyme word table before, so the creation seemed like a good challenge.

Having said that, I want to at least try to learn a little about poetry. Maybe a few readers out there would like to follow along or at least read about a poetry journey, however far the attempt continues.

I'm downloading an Open Textbook about poetry to serve as both instruction and inspiration for exercises that I will try.



Naming the Unnameable: an Approach to Poetry for a New Generation is Creative Commons textbook which will form the basis for at least a couple of posts or attempts at poetry.

https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/naming-the-unnameable-an-approach-to-poetry-for-new-generations

Rolling for a Random Rhyme-word set

The textbook doesn't say this, but I want a random word set to begin this experiment. This is takes words that I researched, gathered, and combined the last month and a half. It also gives me a chance to test out the list once more.

I roll a d1000 rolling a 264.

Using Rhyming Fuel, I find the random set.

#264 egg, leg, beg, peg, vague, plague, keg, bootleg, nutmeg

Muse #1 Journaling.

"For many of us, a poem starts with an idea, a memory, a sound, an image.....our
mind sorts through experiences, sensations, feelings, images, and ideas and files them in our
memory".

Here is what I am going to do. I know freewriting, which is Muse #4 in this textbook.

I as a Journaling exercise, I will focus-word freewrite the 9 words above for 10 minutes.

egg...chicken, birth, lay, breakfast, scrambled, oval, omelet, new, incubate, innovation, hot, cold

leg...broken, chair, walking, kicking, stand, standing, asleep, stable, sufficient, sore

beg...need, want, desire, must have, desperate, beggar, don't have, forgiveness, mercy, ask, motivated

peg...hang, place, hit, decide, fit, plug, mark, holt together, small fastener, home supply store, wooden

vague...unclear, murky, misty, foggy, dark, unknown, confused, brief, barely, unsure, unexplainable

plague...coronavirus, stay at home, walking pneumonia, hospital, contagious, communicable, sickness, long duration, antidote

keg... dynamite, beer, Cracker Barrel, barrel, container, holding, storage, filling, emptying

bootleg...unofficial, underground, copy, illegal, music, movie, 

nutmeg... spice, ingredient, French toast, cookies, baking, eggnog

It actually took me 13 minutes to react and write about each of the 9 words.

Okay. I now have something at least to work with maybe. At least it is a start. You may freewrite something else.

Next Poetry post.

That's it for today. In the next poetry post I might try Muse #2 Collecting, which is writing down images based on the stuff written above.