I picked up this book because someone in an Amazon review called Creating Poetry a “muse disguised as paper”. It may not go that far, but it’s close. This book is full of writing prompts, each focused on the chapter’s subject, from Beginnings to Tone, Form, Research, Sound, Inspiration and more. There is plenty here for a poet to use and learn from, especially if they flip around from section to section, picking out prompts on an area of their writing they want to focus on. (I don’t think the best use is to read it from cover to cover as I did).
Occasionally, I thought the prompts for a particular subject were to specific, however, Drury encourages you to use this book as a jumping off point. It’s not necessary to follow the prompts to the letter, if the poem goes off in another direction.
Also, here is on of my responses to one of the prompts in the book. I followed a prompt focused on ghazal’s a form of poetry traditionally from the Middle East, which arranges the poem in a series of 5-10 couplets, rhymed on the same sound throughout and using the subject of love or wine to represent mystical experience. The prompt I used asked that the reader write a ghazal of my own. You’ll note that I dropped the rhyme, like many American poets do.
An Untitled Ghazal
The water in the vase is stagnant; the stems slimy.
A halo of petals on the table are emptied of fragrance.
We are always new, he says, always in the state of becoming new,
each dead cell replaced with its replicated offspring.
The leaves are dancing like translucent tissue paper.
The mottled light is bounding along the grass.
The days are an amalgamation of eyes blinking, hair growing,
lips parting, fingers thrumming over the flesh of the world.
He says, its not that time moves too quickly.
It’s that it moves too quickly.
The stars glimmer like fireflies trapped in tar.
The stars are a map of the freckles on your skin.
He says, silly rabbit, you have to have lived
what you lived in order to know what you know.
The Gerber Daisy leans against the glass.
A sun resides at the heart of its petals.