writing exercises

CLASSIC POET’S CORNER: Alfred Lord Tennyson

A Lesson in ALLITERATION

Whether you’ve stumbled upon this section of my website by accident, or if you zapped one of the QR codes in my latest publication, WELCOME!

Loaded with all kinds of poetic devices and layers upon layers of secrets within its surface meaning, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s shortest poem could fill a book with all its depth. We’ll keep this lesson short and sweet though, just like the poem if you only read into it like it’s about a hungry bird.

The spotlight this round is ALLITERATION—that snazzy poetic device that requires two or more words in a verse to begin with the same consonant and sound.

Society loves alliteration. We shake this poetic device all over everything liberally like we’re salting the snowy earth with it after a severe storm. (See what I did there. Bam!) We like our Taco Tuesdays, Breakfast Bonanzas, and our Fun Fridays, don’t we? Whether it’s a book club, quilting circle, or a Facebook group, I betcha the squad’s name is composed of a cluster of words that all start with the same consonant and clip off the tongue when pronouncing it. (Now, read that line out loud for extra fun!) I’m not even going to hide the fact that I went all alliterative with the catch phrase “Classic Poet’s Corner,” when, in fact, some of the poets I use for this writerly segment are not even from the Classic Era. I just liked the way it sounded. So far, no one seems to mind.

Alliteration is a beautiful thing. It creates a melody in our heads when we read lines of poetry harboring this little gem. It gives free verse poetry rhythm while it’s lacking rhyme. It also makes memorizing poetry a cinch.

Here is an extensive list of alliterative words that you can shake into your own poetry:

Amazing, Adorable, Awful, Aching , Adamant, Austere, Awesome

Boisterous, Bossy, Bad, Beautiful, Becoming, Bright, Brilliant, Blushed

Crisp, Crunchy, Crackly, Clever, Clipped, Cloudy, Crystal, Clear

Dry, Dripping, Drought, Dusty, Dank, Dark, Deadly, Doomed, Destined

Energetic, Expressive, Ecstasy, Elated, Enchantment, Enthralled

Fond, Futile, Feverish, Fresh, Flourishing, Frightened, Freakish, Fun

Gross, Grand, Grisly, Garish, Ghostly, Gorgeous, Great, Gritty

Heavenly, Heated, Helpful, Hurtful, Hyper, Hysterical, Happy

Icky, Irritable, Irked , Iridescent, Ironic, Inspirational, Insipid, Instant

Justify, Jargon, Joyful, Jittery, Jumpy, Jovial, Jointed, Jerk

Kinship, Keeping, Kinetic, Knot, Kind, Kiss, Kaleidoscope

Love, Like, Lust, Lilting, Lofty, Liquid, Lazy, Laboring

Magnificent, Marry, Momentous, Majestic, Meticulous

Nocturnal, New, Narrow, Naughty, Narrative, Narrow, Nice

Overly, Obvious, Oblivious, Off, Obnoxious, Opposing

Perfect, Pretty, Pity, Precipitous, Precocious, Proper, Precious

Quivering, Quilted, Quiet, Quest, Quintessential, Quaint

Robust, Rotund, Rot, Ripe, Ruddy, Resplendent, Radiant

Steamy, Stylish, Secretive, Solid, Sassy, Secure, Seductive

Taunting, Teasing, Tumultuous, Timid, Texture, Timely

Upon, Underrated, Undeniable, Understated, Utopia, Uppity

Verified, Vanilla, Veritable, Vast, Void, Vulnerable, Vixen

Wizened, Wisdom, Whimsical, Wish, Wonderful, Wanderer, Wet

Xerox … I got nothin’ without Googling a bunch of weird words neither of us would use. Maybe try some silly made-up onomatopoeias?!)

Zephyr, Zoo, Zoom, Zap, Zigzag, Zany, Zesty, Zip, Zebra

Now, go forth and buckle up buttercup; you’ve got to get that gorgeous poetry written. I can’t wait for you to share your poetry with me!

~Brooke E. Wayne

PROMPT ME by YA Author, Robin Woods (Review)

PROMPT ME by Robin Woods is the perfect workbook to jump start your creativity.

Whether you are a seasoned writer or you’re simply a creative thinker and wish to exercise your writing chops, Robin Woods’ PROMPT ME workbook has countless prompts and exercises to fuel your imagination. I’ll even add that, if you’re an English teacher and you use bell work to get your students to focus, you may want to add this workbook to your repertoire of writing exercises.

The prompts range from photographs to one-liners and cater to all genres and POVs. First and third person prompts include gems like: “No matter how hard I tried, my feet couldn’t find purchase. Panic set in and my palms began to sweat …” and “When they tore down the wall, they discovered …”.

The booklet is organized so that you could just jump right into any section or simply start from page one. Journaling pages to explore your thoughts are sprinkled between the various prompts-all categorized-making it super easy to bounce around as your creative whims carry you.

There’s even a section that lets you do writing sprints with predetermined dialogue prompts. Robin Woods also includes lists of phrases that are easy to add into a paragraph to make your writing pop, like this alliterative one: “slick surface”.

Prompt Me isn’t just loaded with different types of prompts, it also includes several fill-in-the-blank charts for defining your characters far beyond hair and eye color. Some of the exercises have multiple choices that cater to just about any type of creative writing from Sci-Fi to Romance. And there’s also a list of writing prompt questions that explore self-discovery, roll play, and listing, as well as Haiku poetry exercises—a goldmine of personal journaling/bell work prompts.

Basically, this booklet has it all!

If you’re not familiar with Robin Woods, take at look at her website. She’s the author of several young adult novels, including The Watchers Series. Her site boasts a great writer’s tools section (just like the reference section in the back of this workbook) which is an excellent go-to for tips.

You can buy PROMPT ME on Amazon for $9.95 right now, and the best part is it ships through Prime, so you can start using your new workbook the day after tomorrow!