Gaming for poetry addicts

On Valentine’s Day, I went over to my friend Steve’s house and I made him play poetry games with me. Poetry games, which have been enjoyed for thousands of years, are one way that many modern poets such as Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and Charles Bukowski (who, by the way, is a past Spout contributor) and more recently this writer and her unenthusiastically-forced-into-creativity Valentine’s Day date, continue to cut loose (in more ways than one). Magnetic Poetry is an example of a derivative of these games. For anyone who loves words, here are a couple of my favorite poetry games, below, to get you started.

Poetry game #1: Everyone partaking in the round picks a descriptive word, a color and a location. Now players must arrange each of these words in a poem.

Poetry game #2: Cut out a paragraph from the newspaper or a magazine and create a poem using only the words available.

Always remember that poetry games can be played alone, but Spout encourages collaboration and is adamantly against loneliness.

Don’t forget, after indulging in a set of poetry games, send us your favorites and perhaps they will show up in a future issue of Spout magazine or I may just post them right here on the web for all to see, such as what my friend Steve came up with (scroll down) — for what good is anything, including a blog, without poetry?

Toodle pip,

-Libby

Here’s a charming poem that my reluctant friend penned on Valentine’s Day during round one.

Postcards

By Steve Madsen

I gave him a glare

from across the parlor

as he instructs the help

in his bossy matter of fact tone

I went to Bucharest

and Budapest

with purple flowers

pressed in my journal

and a silver pistol

in my luggage

She sends me postcards

and telegrams and

I can never catch up