Mslexia

From the Mslexia Workshops Collection

New Writing Exercises for the Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition

Devised by ELIZABETH WHYMAN

Try out these four exercises to find a starting point for a prize-winning poem.

The muse and the mask

Write a dramatic monologue in a voice other than your own. You might choose a historical figure, a film star, an animal, an object, someone older, younger – just make sure they are different enough for you to try on their identity like a mask. Write a poem that portrays the psychological state and dramatic situation of the character, as well as their mental shifts and revelations.

Word hoard

Conduct a language search on a process or activity of your choice, researching historical names, nouns, verbs and adjectives to accumulate a set of unusual terminology. Plunder from specialist titles, instruction manuals, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. Write a poem using words from your new vocabulary, but make the subject of the poem different to the object of your search.

An eye for rhyme

Compose a poem that avoids full or straight rhymes. Instead pay allegiance to one or two of following rhymes forms:
Assonant rhyme: similar vowels, different consonants – dip/limp, man/prank.
Slant/near/half rhyme: close but not exact. Nap/shape, glorious/nefarious.
Eye rhyme: a likeness of spelling rather than sound. Love/move/prove, laughter/daughter.

Offered to the right home

Do you have a place where you keep those surprising poetic gems that occur in daily life when you least expect it? Use one of them as a starting point and see where it leads you – what first captivated you will interest your reader. Alternatively, take the last clause or line from one of your finished poems and use is as a starting point, delving deeper into the same subject matter. Go as deep as you dare – you may be on to a winner.

These workshops have been devised especially for the 2009 Mslexia Women's Poetry Competition, judged by Ruth Padel and with a first prize of £1,000. The competition has now closed. For the latest on the writing world, publishing and creativity subscribe to Mslexia now. To sample more Mslexia features or to find out about the latest issue click here.