Writer’s Block? One Way to Kickstart Yourself!

Are you stuck? Have the notorious writer’s block? Professor Emerita Sharon Scholl likes to use this strategy to “prime the pump.”  She says, take any poem (you don’t have to like it, even) and think up an alternative to the subject/title. Follow the poet’s lines and put in alternatives to the poet’s choice of words that will fit your subject. Do this for a few lines, following rather closely to the original, and you’ll come to a point at which the original doesn’t make sense with your new version. Then, you’re on your own and have a bright, new poem where you had nothing. After that, of course, revise the poem however you see fit.