Line Breaks via Scissors

I've mentioned the P&W weekly e-newsletter, "The Time is Now," before but I'd like to mention it again. It's a brief useful email that gives a poetry writing prompt, a fiction writing prompt, a creative nonfiction (you've guessed it) writing prompt, and a book recommendation regarding the craft of writing. I've learned of plenty of good books and used a few of the prompts myself.

This week's poetry prompt is one I'd heard of before, but forgotten about. Serendipitously, it appeared in my inbox this week just when I was struggling with a poem that might benefit from this freeing technique. I'm going to take my scissors to my poem today and see how it goes.

Here's the prompt.


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Take one of your poems that you're not satisfied with and use scissors to cut it up into its lines. Rearrange the lines, omitting ones that no longer fit. With this fresh arrangement as a working draft, compose an entirely new poem.

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And here's how to sign up for the weekly newsletter. Go to this link, and scroll to the blue sign-up button at the bottom of the page.