Review of 2025 Part 1

It's that time of the year again, where we can look back on an entire year and reflect on what happened. In this short series running up to the new year, Wheelsong Books and Invisible Poets, working together have achieved a significant amount. 

Early in the year, Wheelsong published two important new books. The first, one that had been a long time in the making, featured the work of Essex poet Graeme Stokes, whose jocular and entertaining verse has been regaling Invisible Poets for so long. It was about time to enable people to own a collection of his best poetry, so Off the Top of My Head was released. It is a firm favourite with a lot of people. 

In the same month Wheelsong published Creative Deviance by Steve Wheeler. Another book that had been a long time in the making, Creative Deviance has the strap line: How to Become an Experimental Poet. It is a textbook rather than a poetry book, but features more than 50 exercises poets can practice to develop their skills in writing creatively. The result is that those who have purchased the book have found their repertoire of writing styles and range of techniques has expanded and given them greater liberty to express themselves. Look for the hashtag #invisibleEXP to discover many of the poems that have been written under the influence of Creative Deviance.

Soon February was upon us, and the second birthday of Invisible Poets arrive. To commemorate this, Wheelsong published not one, but two new Invisible Poets anthologies of all the best poems that had featured on the Live Poets Society series of broadcasts throughout the previous year. The mix is eclectic and the sequence of quality poems is stunning. The image on Anthology 2 was taken in New York City in 2015, and the image for the cover of Anthology 3 was captured in South Africa in 2009.

All of the proceeds of these two books is donated to Save the Children, our chosen charity. By the end of 2025, Wheelsong Books has donated a total of £14,000 ($18,700) to support children in crisis. 

All of these books are still available for purchase, and full details can be found on the Wheelsong Books website.  

Steve Wheeler

Pushing the Boundaries

Yesterday I was in the studio recording a series of short radio shows in my Poets Corner slot for CrossRhythms Radio. The show is divided into two short sections with a music track played in between. In the first section I provide some background and context for my poem choice, and in the second section I perform the poem. It's simple but effective and the shows go out every weekday afternoon. 

In one of my shows yesterday I talked about experimental poetry and told the story of how I became interested, and then inspired by avant garde poets and writers. Here's the story again for those many of you who will never get the chance to listen to the show.

I was in my late teens, and had been writing poetry for a short while during my school years. Now in my first job at a local college, I was seconded for a week or so to work in the college library. It was quite a large library in several floors, and the book stacks were huge. One of my tasks was to preserve some of the paper back books by removing their covers, and then rebinding them in hard covers, with the original paper outers incorporated into the new cover. It was fun, although fiddly, and I always managed to get my fingers covered in glue. 

During this time, the library was disposing of many of its old stocks of books. These included poetry and other literature. I spotted a pile of old poetry books and asked one of the library staff what was happening to them. She replied that they were being thrown out, and that if I wanted any I should just take them. I carried a boxful home with me, and I still have most of them in my collection. 

Some that caught my eye included works by e. e. cummings, Charles Bukowski and Philip Lamantia. These great American poets wrote amazing out-of-left field poetry that left me gasping for breath. I never knew that the English language could be manipulated in such inventive ways! Then I read the work of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who created vast lyrical landscapes of metaphors, similes and wordplay that inspired me even more.  

Soon I began to write in similar ways, not in blind slavish copying, but through experimentation and trial and error. I began to perform my new experimental poetry live, and got more positive responses than I did negative ones (you'll always get both). I'm now at the point in my poetry life where I feel I can push the boundaries continually to try to find new ways of experessing myself and new ways of manipulating the English language to create new wordscapes. 

My interactive textbook Creative Deviance and more recently my poetry collection eXp exemplify this creative risk taking and showcase what I have found to be possible. I hope in time these books will inspire poets to push their own boundaries just as cummings et al inspire me to push my own.

Steve Wheeler

Photo (c) Wheelsong Books Ltd

SPECIAL OFFER: If you purchase a copy of Creative Deviance directly from Wheelsong Books: wheelsong6@gmail.com you will also receive a copy of eXp absolutely free. 

Experimental Poetry 16: Random Interactions

One of the most random, experimental methods of poetry writing you can engage in involves conversations or interactions with other people. Everyone is different, has different views, interests and unique personalities so you are just about guaranteed unexpected outcomes. How you interact with people and the extent this happens will determine the outcome. 

Method 29: Encounters and conversations. Yes, if you're bold enough, you can walk up to someone at a party, in a coffee shop or even out on the street and ask them to give you a few phrases or words that come into their head. Or you can prompt them with a question. Whatever they say next will be the first line of your poem.

Method 30: Random responses. Try asking someone to give you the title for your next poem. It can be a topic or a theme. Where you go with that title once you have it is completely up to you...

Method 31: Three random words. Ask someone to give you three random words, and then write a poem incorporating them. The more random the better. If you really want to make it challenging, write just three lines!

Method 32: Favourite things. Ask someone what their favourite pop song is, and write a poem about it. Ask who is their favourite movie star or their favourite movie. The variations are endless. Be creative with your questions. 

If you want a really tough challenge write the poem there and then, in just a few minutes and read them the results. It's interesting what a little bit of pressure can do for creativity.

Go for it if you're brave enough!

Steve Wheeler

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method
Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes
Experimental Poetry 8: Calligrams
Experimental Poetry 9: Anarchic Poetry
Experimental Poetry 10: Timed Writing
Experimental Poetry 11: Paraphrasing
Experimental Poetry 12: Deliberate Malapropism
Experimental Poetry 13: Breaking Structure
Experimental Poetry 14: Speak out Loud
Experimental Poetry 15: Quantum Elements

Image from Flickr used under a Creative Commons licence

Experimental Poetry 15: Quantum Elements

About 20 years ago, the artist and poet Valerie Laws created an installation called Quantum Sheep. A 'quantum' is an allowed or required amount. Laws painted words onto the backs of sheep and then watched as the flock naturally moved across the field grazing. As the sheep moved around, new poems were constantly created. You might say they were Haik-Ewes.

In reality, perfect poetry was rarely observed, but as you can see in the above image the experiment demonstrated how random movements of words could create primitive sentences and breaks in lines, and generate idiosyncratic meaning for all those who observed. Poetry is like that. It really doesn't matter too much what the author intended. The reader or observer will impute their own meaning from the text regardless. 

Now, I am not encouraging you to go out into a field with a spray can and vandalize a flock of sheep. But there are other parallel methods you can try.

Method 26: Quantum elements. You will need a little preparation for this. Create a list of 66 words, a mix of verbs (drift, fall, rise, breathe, etc), nouns (clouds, ocean, jewell, sun, etc), prepositions (over, under, through, around, below, etc), adjectives (beautiful, evil, strange, wise, etc), adverbs (loudly, slowly, tired, lonely, etc), connectives (but, and, also, with, because, etc) and definite articles (make sure you have plenty of these: 'the' and 'a' or 'an'). Assign each word a number. Now grab a couple of dice and throw them. If a one and a six come up, you have the option to use word number 16 or word number 7 (1+6), or indeed word number 61. Write each word down. Repeat the process until you have a semblance of a poem. 

If you use three dice, you have a choice of 666 words (oh no, the mark of the beast!), and if you use 4 dice the choice will of course be 6666, and so on... the more dice you use, the more madness you will generate!

Method 27: Random word search. Use the same two or three dice and select a random book from off the shelf. Throw the dice to find a page number in the book. Turn to it. The second throw (with two dice) will indicate the line number. The final throw (with two dice) will tell you the word in the line. Capture each word onto paper and watch as it builds a confection of words. With some rearrangement, you should be able to create a unique poem. 

Method 28: Quantum words. Use a similar word list, either using cut outs from a magazine or newspaper, or from your own list of written words. Put them all into a box or container, and then draw them out, one at a time - without looking. Rearrange them onto a surface and see what emerges. Potentially a more successful way of doing this is to have separate boxes for nouns, verbs, connectives etc. and draw one from each as you construct your avant garde poem.

The random variability of these methods and the vast store of words should provide you with endless possibilities to create unique poetry, and with a little massaging of the sequences, possibly even some beautiful, evocative lines. 

Steve Wheeler

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method
Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes
Experimental Poetry 8: Calligrams
Experimental Poetry 9: Anarchic Poetry
Experimental Poetry 10: Timed Writing
Experimental Poetry 11: Paraphrasing
Experimental Poetry 12: Deliberate Malapropism
Experimental Poetry 13: Breaking Structure
Experimental Poetry 14: Speak out Loud

Image from Valerie Laws Website

Experimental poetry 13: Breaking Structure

Variation in poetry? Yes please! Poetry doesn't always need to be beautiful, soothing or idyllic. Poetry can also be challenging, disturbing, grating, and even downright uncomfortable to read or listen to. Make your poem chaotic and you'll capture a lot of attention! 

How do you introduce variation into your poetry? Well, in previous posts in this series I have written about surprise end rhymes, anarchic poetry and random prompt poetry. Adding an unexpected element to your writing keeps people guessing and piques the interest. 

One of the great sins of poetry is to be predictable to the point of blandness. The key aim of all experimental poetry is to force you outside of your comfort zone and into uncharted territory. If you walk this pathway, no one will ever again be able to accuse you of being a boring poet!

Method 22: Assonant endings. Ditch the forced end rhyme! There's nothing worse than a poem that loses its credibility because the writer is forced into using words just for the sake of the rhyme! If you can't or won't break out of the shackles of the end rhyme, then try using assonance instead. Examples include love/enough and rise/tried. Here, only the vowel sound is consistent. Assonant endings will give you a greater variety of vocabulary to choose from. 

Method 23: Breaking the line. Write sentences that vary in length. Forget about tempo or rhythm. Let your words flow unobstructed across several lines. The sentence doesn't have to conclude at the end of a line. Bleed part of the sentence over into the next line. Then start another sentence on the same line. This is known as enjambment. Break up the sentence into punch sized smaller lines so that it cascades down the page. Spread the words out randomly across the page, with plenty of space between them. The options are multiple. 

Method 24: Breaking the structure. Take one of your previously written poems and examine it. What could you do to break up the structure? How could you change it by inserting line breaks, adding unconventional grammar, inserting strange punctuation, or unexpected words to jar or surprise your reader? Maybe a strange, repeated refrain will create intrigue... your variation is only limited by your imagination!

Steve Wheeler 

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method
Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes
Experimental Poetry 8: Calligrams
Experimental Poetry 9: Anarchic Poetry
Experimental Poetry 10: Timed Writing
Experimental Poetry 11: Paraphrasing
Experimental Poetry 12: Deliberate Malapropism

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Experimental Poetry 12: Deliberate Malapropism

A malapropism is an error in speech or text where a similar sounding word mistakenly replaces the correct word. There are numerous examples. Have you ever been taken for granite? 

The term malapropism derives from Mrs. Malaprop, a comic character who appears in the 1775 play The Rivals, by Richard Sheridan. She is constantly prone to using the wrong words in her conversation. She mixes up allegory with alligator, and illiterate with obliterate.  However, there are plenty of earlier incidences of comic word mangling in literature, including several found in the work of William  Shakespeare. 

Modern day malapropism can be hilarious... did you know that medieval cathedrals were supported by flying buttocks? Or that the fun we have in childhood is incomparable to the fun of adultery? 

Here's a recent poem posted in Invisible Poets. The poem is I am a Warrior by Chiledu Ohagi, and this is the first stanza...

I wedge a war against my feelings
pulling down strongholds
breaking the chains of depression
My pages, my battleground
My pen, my mighty weapon
and my ink's my ammunition

It's a very good poem, but it contains a small typographical error. I wedge war should be I wage war. The error was pointed out by another member, but when you think about it, wedging war certainly sounds surreally poetic. It's on a par with writing that you'll skew for peace, or astounding the alarm. I don't think he should correct it.

Method 20: Deliberate Malapropism. This got me thinking... how surreal and experimental can you get by using deliberate malapropisms? The trick is to make the error obvious, and create a phonetic switch. Wedge sounds like wage, just as skew sounds like sue, and as astounding sounds like sounding. These are instantly recognisable as phonetic switches, because the phrases are familiar. 

Waging war is a commonly used phrase. Wedging war is not. How do you wedge a war? It's a jarring word to use, and that makes it interesting, manifesting all sorts of images. Wedging is more poetically inventive than waging. How do you skew peace? Can you astound an alarm? Again, the text suddenly becomes a little more intriguing, because the meaning now needs to be sought out. 

Method 21: Reiterative Malapropism. What words can you use that are homophones (sound like another word) or similarly sounding, but with a distinctly different meaning? Can you strengthen your existing poems by changing words with other words that sound similar, or pun-like, and enhance the meaning of the poem?

If you deliberately use phonetic errors such as malapropisms in your poetry, you're bound to attract some attention. Just be prepared to correct the correctors when they scrawl out from under their woks to point out your 'era'.

Steve Wheeler 

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method
Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes
Experimental Poetry 8: Calligrams
Experimental Poetry 9: Anarchic Poetry
Experimental Poetry 10: Timed Writing
Experimental Poetry 11: Paraphrasing

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Experimental Poetry 10: Timed Writing

There has been an increase in interest in the experimental poetry series that I began recently, and so, after a hiatus, I am back again with some more ideas about how to jump-start your poetry writing. All the previous posts in the experimental poetry series are linked below. Click on the links and they will take you to the posts in question. 

I have heard it said by some of my poetry friends that setting a time limit on the writing of a poem can wonderfully focus the mind. One of our published Wheelsong authors swears that if he hasn't finished a poem by the time 15 minutes has elapsed, he dumps it and moves on. A little severe perhaps, but the method works for him! Now, this may create some pressure on you, or you may feel a little stressed because you have set yourself a time limit. A sense of urgency can often bring out creativity in poets, but it may just as easily stifle creativity. You probably won't know until you try it, but timed writing not for the faint-hearted. 

Method 18: If you want to try this technique out, my advice would be to have a title or a theme in mind before you start. Set a timer to go off at a time of your choice. Begin writing, and keep writing until the timer goes off. At this point, you might wish to go off and spend some time doing something else. When you return, a few hours or even a day or two later, take a look at what you have written. It may make little or no sense, or it may be a fully formed poem! Usually it's something in between, and you may have fragments that can be transformed into two or more poems. 

Steve Wheeler

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method
Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes
Experimental Poetry 8: Calligrams
Experimental Poetry 9: Anarchic Poetry

Image by Garry Knight on Flickr

Experimental Poetry 9: Anarchic poetry

You want anarchy? You got it! Anarchy is a state of disorder caused by rejection of rules and authority. It is the basis of a number of art movements including Abstract impressionism, Surrealism, Dadaism and punk rock. Poetry too has its anarchic poets. Read for example Ezra Pound, James Joyce or e. e. cummings. The latter rejected the use of upper case letters, hence the alternative presentation of his name. Edward Estlin Cummings as I will present him, experimented mercilessly not only with words, but also the form in which they were presented. He even misused punctuation deliberately to create feelings of disorientation, fragmentation and unease. In short, cummings used just about every aspect of language to create atmosphere and hammer home his messages. 

Method 15: Syntactic Deviance. Here, there is a total lack of regard for the conventional. You really will need to step outside your comfort zone, and this is where most of you will give up. And yet, if you do pursue this avenue of experimentation, you'll discover new ways of presenting your art of poetry which might otherwise have passed you by. Forget all the rules of grammar and punctuation. Spell things differently. Create sentences without verbs. Turn the writing upside down. Write diagonally or in reverse. Be absurd in what you write. Everything and anything goes. 

For me, this is one of Cummings' best poems: It dwells on loneliness and has the metaphor (a leaf falling) inside the word loneliness. It is inventive, disruptive and unexpected. In short, it is anarchic poetry. It breaks all the rules, including fragmentation of the words to signify a slow falling of the leaf. 

Method 16: Morphological Innovation. This is where you might dispense with conventional words and create your own. You might like to take a word and extend it to convey a meaning. Delicious becomes un-delicious, or chocolate becomes chocolate-ness. Go even further and blend words together to make new ones, or neologisms. A rabbit's burrow becomes its rabbitat and agonising over the loss of your luggage becomes bagonising. Be inventive. There are no rules, and you'll create your own language of poetry! These new words are known as portmanteaus and they are a part of morphological innovation. 

Method 17: Ad Nauseum. This Latin phrase means 'until sick'. This is the point in your poetry where you can go completely out on a limb and do totally unpredictable stuff. And then do it again, and again, and again, until it sickens, and then keep doing it until you run out of paper. 

Steve Wheeler

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method
Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes
Experimental Poetry 8: Calligrams

Image from Wikimedia used under a Creative Commons licence.

Experimental Poetry 8: Calligrams

Calligrams - also known as concrete poetry- are  pieces of text where the design or layout of the letters creates a visual image related to the meaning of the words themselves. The calligram above is by French poet Guillaume Apolinnaire and it's one of the best examples. He has used words such as bouche (for the mouth) and nez (for nose) as he describes his lover.

Concrete poetry is not easy to accomplish, but if you are determined, you will able to create something that is not only an interesting poem, but also a visually appealing piece of art. Here's how it's done:

Method 13: Concrete Poetry. All calligrams start with an idea. Think of something simple... like a cup, a heart or a star. Their shapes are idealised, and have a cultural resonance. They are all easily recognisable. 

Now write a poem about the object you've chosen. It needn't necessarily rhyme. You just need enough words to be able to create your calligram. If you create your calligram using a word processor, you'll be able to change the size of the text, the spacing, and even the font style very quickly. However, until you make it concrete, by either screen capturing it, or exporting it into a pdf file, you can't be certain what it will look like if you share it on social media.

Here's an example called Swan and Shadow by John Hollander, which depicts in words and image exactly what he wishes to convey about the grace of a swan floating on its mirror image in calm water at dawn. 

Method 14: Hand-made Calligrams. An alternative is to create it by drawing it on paper, or even by cutting out text and pasting it onto paper. Start by creating a pencil outline, and then gradually filling in the shape with the words, using a more permanent medium. It will take time, trial and error, and lots of corrections. But eventually, you'll have your own calligram and you'll be justifiably proud of what you've achieved. But do be careful. Calligrams are very addictive.

Steve Wheeler 

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method
Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes

Top image from Wikimedia Commons, Swan image from Pinterest used under a Creative Commons licence.

Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes

For me, poetry is the art of constructing sentences and stanzas in a novel and entirely unexpected way. That means surprising readers with strange confections of words, and avoiding the predictable. One of the most predictable facets of sub-par poetry is the end rhyme. Badly thought-out, lazy or forced rhymes in poetry detract from the message, musicality or aesthetics of the piece. And there are so many bad rhyming poems! If you're intent on using end rhymes, then at least make them unusual, unpredictable, comic or perhaps even shocking. 

Method 12: Unexpected End Rhymes. One of the stanzas in a comic poem I wrote many years ago goes like this:

Got to write a poem and I got to write it soon
They've given me from now until the end of September

Yes, it's jarring, but it always raises a laugh from my audiences when I perform it live, because everyone expects me to say June. Comedy is often about the unexpected. And comedy has its place in poetry, especially the performance genre.

Even more absurd is another stanza toward the end of the poem:

I wandered lonely as a cloud amongst the forest glades and jungles
And all at once I came upon a host of golden ... daffodungles

I'm depicting the struggles of the poet as he tries to force an end rhyme. Poetry shouldn't be about forcing end rhymes and in the process losing the meaning or the message of the poem. Too many poets seem to think (especially when they are new to the scene) that all poetry must rhyme. It doesn't, and the worst kind of poetry is poetry where the rhyme has been forced or contrived. In the above poem I'm making fun of this approach, and saying - look, if you're going to rhyme, make it meaningful, and if you can't achieve that, make it shocking, unexpected, comic instead. 

Steve Wheeler

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method

Photo from Flickr used with a Creative Commons licence

Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method

Some of my poetry is considered surreal and dreamlike. I've even published some of my more bizarre dreamscape style poems. Some appear in the collection Nocturne, which is a night-inspired panorama of dream-state poetry. But some of those dream-like poems were not actually inspired by dreams. They were inspired by random sampling of sounds and images while I was very much awake and listening to conversations, or in the case below, watching a movie.

Here's a brief section of my poem Strange Things Happen When You're Dreaming:

The cracks form into crevices like canyons drawn with crayons. The scorched mud coalesces into quintessential islands. Down from the highlands bitter winds are blowing in their surges, as they whistle into sand filled ears that nothing ever purges. You run, but shadows follow you, descending and ascending ... they lengthen ... as the sun goes down you see the light is bending, and you fly so high, so very high o’er land without a sound to keep your fearful feet a-running over barren desert ground, and in the distance, you can hear a thousand voices screaming: and everyone will tell you strange things happen when you’re dreaming.

The technique works like this:

Method 11: Movie Sampling. Choose any movie you like. Play two or three simultaneously if you wish. Begin to write, and as you do, randomly listen to the dialogue or glance up at the sequences of images and try to capture them. You won't have much time, so do it quickly because the scene or dialogue will rapidly change. As with much of the text you generate with a random writing method, you'll get a lot of seemingly unintelligible sentences or phrases. It really doesn't matter. Leave it for a while, and then return to it. Read it to see what emerges. With the poem above, I scribbled down many random ideas from watching the movie in real time, and then returned days later to transform it into some form or rhythmic narrative, with the internal rhymes added.

Steve Wheeler 

Images from Rawpixel used under a Creative Commons licence

Previous posts in this series:

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts

Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts

Poets are always looking for inspiration for their writing. Sometimes, an idea, or phrase or picture will jump onto your head. It's easy to write a poem from that kind of inspiration. At other times, the old writer's block sets in and you struggle to find that great idea for your next poem. It's then you might need to force it a little. Here are three more methods:

Method 9: Random Words. There are lots of free to use Random Word generators online such as this one and this one. Select one and use it to create a list of random, unrelated words. Any one (or all) of those words might be the one(s) that prompts your next masterpiece.

Method 10: Random Images. It's easy to find random images. You'll find them in magazines and coffee table books, and many poetry groups routinely post photo prompts. You'll also find them all over the web. Go to Google or another search engine and type in Random Image. Up will pop at least 4 unrelated images, and at least one should inspire you to write poetry.

Method 11: Reverse Images. This time, once the have the images in front of you, write instead about the opposite, the reverse of the image or the idea it represents. Think about that object, person or idea in a strange or surreal alternative context, where it couldn't possibly comfortably exist. If you see hate, write about love. If you see peace, write about conflict.

We'll explore more experimental poetry methods next time. Keep writing!

Steve Wheeler 

Image from Flickr used under a Creative Commons licence

Previous posts in this series:

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices

Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices

Many poets get into a rut at some point in their lives, and begin to churn out the same old stuff, time after time. You know how it goes... You try to take a different route, but end up reverting to the same old beaten track you've been down so often. You want to write something unique, different, but it ends up just like all your other poetry. It can be very frustrating. How about doing something extraordinarily different to write your poems? Are you up for the challenge? Then read on...

Method 8: Overlapping Voices. Have you ever been at a party, a shopping mall or other social gathering where you stand there and try to listen to all the voices talking simultaneously? This cacophony of sound feels like a waterfall of noise - a sonic wallpaper - and its usual to consign it to the background and focus on your own conversation as you block it out. But what if you listened more closely and tried to discern the things people were discussing all around you? 

Now imagine trying to capture all those words on paper. Transcribing at this level is utterly impossible, but that's the point... If you want some new ideas or lines for your poetry, listen to what's going on around you and try to grab the words. The voices will overlap, the topics will be diverse and the noise will be difficult to penetrate. It will be an absolute mess, but from out of that chaos comes order!  

Another less conspicuous way of doing the same thing is to record the multiple conversations from a party or a visit to your local coffee shop, or listen to several recordings simultaneously (e.g. Radio or TV news) and try to grab the words you hear from the hubbub of voices. The idea behind this method is that you either hear words or phrases you can capture, or you will imagine you hear those words. Either way, it doesn't matter because you'll be creating a new piece, regardless. 

Steve Wheeler

Image from Flickr used under a Creative Commons Licence

Previous posts in this series:

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations

Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations

Method 6: Fake Translations

Now here's a really strange idea for you (They will get even stranger, believe me): If you want to break out of a rut you find yourself in - especially if it's about something creative, like writing poetry - try this on for size. Grab hold of some foreign text - it really doesn't matter what the language is, it simply needs to be a language you are not very fluent in. Also, it doesn't really matter what the subject is about, it just needs to be a foreign language text.

Next, sit down and read it, and try to make sense of what is being said. You may recognise a few foreign words and know their translation. Use that as your starting point as you create your latest poem. Try to guess what is being said. It doesn't matter if you're wrong and the translation is false. That is all part of the fun and creativity of trying to create a poem out of a foreign language text. Language is language, and as we all know in poetry, words can be made to mean what we want them to mean. 

Method 7: Foreign End Rhymes

This is even stranger: Using the same kind of foreign language texts, look for words that appear to rhyme. Use them in your end rhymes in the poems you have already written. Replace the end rhymes you already used with the foreign end rhymes. It may not work, but have a go. You may create something unique and mysterious. It may start a whole new trend in poetry writing!

Have a go, try again, and then try again. The more you attempt these false translation techniques, the more they will begin to make some creative sense to you. 

Steve Wheeler

Image from Flickr used under a Creative Commons Licence

Previous posts in this series:

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness

Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness

This is the second post in my series on experimental poetry. There are many poets who, down through the ages, have tried to push the boundaries of poetry beyond what is expected, and in some cases, what some might consider acceptable. But poetry, as I will keep saying, has no rules. Look at the work of poets such as Ezra Pound, e e cummings and Edwin Morgan, and you will see this is true. 

One of the ways to break out of a poetic rut is to forget all the rules and techniques you already adhere to when you write (Yeah, I know. It's not easy), and just write freely and without any constraints. 

Method 5: Stream of Consciousness is a technique where you simply write (or speak into a recorder) at random, using whatever comes into your mind. Better still, try writing without even thinking - unconsciously.  Perhaps the results will be unusable or gibberish. It doesn't really matter. You are creating something. Just keep writing and do it very fast. Let your mind run away with you. Sooner or later there will be something that emerges that you could never have created by simply sticking to your tried and tested methods. 

This method might result in some really strange and original poetry, but even if it doesn't, the very act of writing freely without thinking too much will loosen you up as a poet, and allow you to exercise and develop your writing agility. Who knows, it might even make you stand out from the poetic crowd!

Steve Wheeler

Photo from RawPixel used under a Creative Commons Licence

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Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry

Poetry isn't rocket science. Poetry is about emotions, not about scientific formulae. And yet... and yet.... in poetry there are so many wonderful, weird and wacky techniques, it's very difficult to know about them all, or begin to fathom how you might use them. 

Many poets are happy with the way they write. They stick to their tried and tested styles and techniques and go merrily along their way. But if you're like me, you are constantly looking for new ways to express yourself through your poetry. If you're like me, you're always less than satisfied with the way you write and are always on the lookout for ways to stretch your abilities and skills. 

If you are like me, then this is the blog series you've been looking for. In the next (I don't know how many, I really don't) series of blogs I intend to explore experimental poetry in as many of its many colours as possible. And hopefully, you'll come along with me on that journey and push yourself to your poetic limits. So here's the first experimental technique... it's known as found poetry. I wrote about my own experiments in Found poetry in various blog posts including this one. 

Method 1: Open Books. Open up a few books at random, and lay them all around you. They can be books on any subject, including literature, recipe books, science manuals or magazines. Begin to write, and as you write, keep glancing at random at the open books and grab words, lines or phrases you see, and then incorporate them into your writing. It doesn't need to make any sense. Experiment to see the results.

Method 2: Read Out Loud. Find a magazine or other printed text you can tear up, cut up or otherwise vandalise. Begin reading our words, sentences or phrases at random. Record yourself and then listen back to see what sounds (phonics) have been generated. They don't need to make sense. They just need to make an interesting sound.  

Method 3: Blank Outs. Using the same materials above, blank out with white type correction fluid or colour out with a marker pen, or colour with a highlighter pen at random. Watch to see what patterns of words emerge and incorporate them into your latest poem.

Method 4: Cut Up Poetry. Cut out words, sentences and phrases and glue them onto a blank page and watch to see what patterns emerge, before using them in your latest poem. 

Go for it. There are no rules. Just experimentation and possible masterpieces of random, avant garde writing. 

Steve Wheeler

Photo (cropped) from Wikimedia Commons