Have you ever sat there staring at the paper, ready to write,
but unsure where to begin? Want a solution that will overcome
even the worst writer's block? Anyone can start writing poetry
today using a few simple techniques. One, two, ...? Did you say
or think three when you saw the above? If not, you certainly
would when I asked you to fill in the blank. Your mind is a
powerful machine that recognises or creates patterns. To make
this work for you as a poet, you simply have to lay out the
materials in an implied pattern, and let your mind do its thing.
The "materials," in this case, of course, are words or ideas. So
let's round up some materials for an example. If you want to
write a poem about thunderstorms, you might start by writing
down relevant words, and then choose the more evocative ones:
flash, blowing, rumble, night, deadly and rain, perhaps. Now you
set the pattern. In this case, we'll write a four-line poem,
using one of our words in each line. We'll only decide if we
want a ryming poem after we s