Finding your Inner Poet (and a sneak of CSI Case File #17)

Happy Wednesday Crafty friends from around world!

This past week, I shared a journaling tutorial over at CSI.  Since April is National Poetry month, Debbi (founder of CSI - Color, Story, & Inspiration) has asked the Design Team to share our challenges, ideas, and inspiration for journaling. In spirit of National Poetry month, I would like to share a great idea for writing poetry that I found in this book, 'Inner Excavation' written by Liz Lamoreux. Liz shares a secret in discovering your ‘Poet Within’.

The thought behind this little secret, is to create a Word Toolbox. The Word Toolbox allows you to form lists of words that can be randomly assembled to form an idea, phrase, thought, or feeling.
For example, grab a book off of your bookshelf and write down several words from each page. Let your eyes jump from word to word until the ‘right word(s)’ stands out to you.

After you have your list, (and if you feel the desire to write), start free flow writing, using your word list as an inspiration starter. You can use one word or all of them.

When I use this method of writing, I like to use all of the words, filling in the blanks with what comes to mind. I create short poems that can be written within minutes.

For example, this is the first poem I wrote using the Word Toolbox secret.
{written November 6, 2010)

Please

I play on emotions

To free the velvet instrument

Of pleasure inside myself.

The music sings my story

Of Gold and silver, and the

Feather plumes adorn my stout

And rosy head.

Water soothes the ornament of life

And is plentiful.

Don’t argue, this is the path of

My story….

Love is abundant.

My Word Toolbox included the words:
Play, please, velvet, emotions, pleasure, ornamental, gold, silver, plume, feathers, adorn, water, story, instrument, fat, stout, chubby, abundance, flexible, humorous, argue, plethora, sing, free, music, motion, plentiful.

Here is a picture of my Word Toolbox journal. You can see I ripped out a page from an old dictionary, and circled words that jumped off the page at me.

I follow the same process for each of my Word Toolbox Poems.

1. Find inspiration from an old dictionary, book, magazine, etc.
2. Circle words that inspire me.
3. Free form write sentences using the Word Toolbox list as a starting point.
4. Once the poem ‘feels right’, I usually type or neatly write it in its final form.

For me, this entire process, from start to finish, usually only takes 30 minutes or so. I don’t do this every day, only when the urge hits me, but I follow the same process every time.

Here is another one. I used an old Electricity Instruction manual as my Word Toolbox inspiration.

Self

Define the self

Single energy, mutual effect

Multiple frequency.

Three phases to build self respect.

Chapter two, test the self

Direct energy, name the differences

Let your skin feel the wire

Chapter Nine.

Remove the graphic nature

Transform.

My Word Toolbox included these words:
Test, name, nine, difference, mutual, build, effect, three, phase, define, graphic, skin, frequency, two, 2981, self, respect, comprehensive, single, wire, energy, direct, chapter

And one final poem. The Word Toolbox came from a Young Adults book.

Trailers and Banjos

The gentle girl asked in an unsmiling way

Spoken with a thankful twinkle.

Along the street, the wild boy

Could see the gorgeous girl.

At last, the reason was apparent to each other.

Nothing was left as the

Sun shined on the grave.

The circus was no more.

My Word Toolbox included these words:
Trailers, banjos, shining, along the street, thankful, asked, gentle, girl, wild, circus, went on, laughing at each other, gorgeous, see, reason, spoken, grave, twinkle, unsmiling way, last, nothing.

As you can see, this form of poetry writing can get rather addicting. I used the Word Toolbox concept for my journaling on Case File #17, so be sure and check it out during the reveal.

I hope you enjoyed this peek into MY inspiration for poetry and journaling. Try it, you might like it. :)

And here is a sneak of the next Case File.  Doesn't it look divine?