Once again, you are to imitate a poem. This is the same assignment as last week but with different poems. Again, this is a great exercise for learning how to write great poems. (Think of this as something like learning how to play the piano. Most musicians learned how to play other people’s songs before composing their own.)

This is the last time that I will give you the “imitation” assignment; however, the reason I include so many example poems in your assignment packets is to give you a poem to bounce off of. (You may also consider imitating or grabbing ideas from more than one poem.)

This week, try not to imitate the poems quite as closely as you did last week. In other words, let more of your own voice, your own sense of rhythm, your own line breaks, your own words choices, any very importantly, your own subject matter come out. Also, you do not need to closely follow the line using nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc, as the original writer does. Your goal is to imitate a poem but to do it so well that a reader won’t know you’ve imitated a poem. However, the same impulse toward specificity, concrete images, and full description (layered description) as the original poet should be followed.

I have included a wide variety of poems, many different poets, many different voices, many different aesthetics, so you should be able to find something that interests you.

This exercise was taken from course materials prepared by Judy Jordan,
Southern Illinois University