1. Write a poem about the most dangerous thing you have ever done on purpose or unintentionally.
2. Select an ordinary object (spoon, shoe, your own thumb, etc.) and stare at it intently for ten minutes without looking away. Write a poem about what you have seen.
3. Take one of your poems and reverse all the lines (last line first/first line last). Polish this new poem and consider if the result is worth saving.
4. Using a pen and several pieces of paper (a computer won’t work for this), write as fast as you can for ten minutes. Don’t try to make sense or pay attention to spelling, grammar, punctuation, or anything except writing. If you find yourself making sense, start the next sentence with the letter of the last word in the sentence that came before it. At some point you may feel that your hand is doing the writing and that you have no idea what you are saying or what you have said. At the ten-minute mark, stop. Do not write another word. Go back, read what you have written, and circle all the interesting phrases and metaphors. Can you put these together and make them into a poem if you now craft and polish them? (Note: this technique is called “Automatic Writing.” It was frequently used by the French surrealist poets to free the imagination and get inspiration).