Chapter 21

The Block Method of Unblocking Writer’s Block

I mean this title literally and figuratively. Too often, the critic inside us, our own personal crow, can keep us from writing. Writing Poetry to Save Your Life is intended to give you an ongoing method of inspiring yourself to reach into the cave of the past and memory, to find there the stories you need to tell and that we need to hear.

As you continue working, you need to be certain you are carrying your courage and your willingness to take risks. You have to promise yourself and me that you won’t listen to that crow that will make you doubt yourself and your purpose.

Because I want you to write every day, I’ve provided many prompts in the following pages, and I am repeating for emphasis what I’ve written in previous chapters.

Take out a pen and a journal, notebook or pad of paper. Pick a spot that is quiet and a time when you won’t be interrupted, and give yourself the gift of 20 minutes just for you and your writing. Look only at the first block of prompts. Read all five prompts and then choose one. Do not think too much about it. Pick the one that appeals to you the most. Write as though you are speaking directly to the reader. Do not erase or revise as you go along. Write out the prompt in your own handwriting at the top of the page.

Then let yourself go. Write whatever comes into your mind. Let connections form. Do not allow the crow to tell you that what you are writing isn’t any good and that no one would want to read it. Let yourself move back in time to the moment you are writing about.

Envision the person you are describing, the place. Call all of your senses into play. Let that inner poet, that person buried deep inside you, write the poem for you. Don’t stop until your 20 minutes are up. Use a timer if you need it.

When you’ve finished, read the poem aloud to yourself. Before you start to read, you will have to knock the crow off your shoulder, because the crow will try to tell you what you’ve written is terrible and a waste of space. The crow will tell you it’s so bad, it’s embarrassing. Don’t listen. Here is my gift to you – my voice in your head, saying: Believe in what you’ve written. The story you have to tell is important and valuable and I want to hear it.

If you have a friend you trust enough, read this rough draft to that person. As you’re reading the poem aloud to yourself or to someone else, you might spot some place in the poem where you’ve repeated yourself unnecessarily or where the sound of a line seems wrong. Put a question mark next to that line. Put the poem away for at least a week. Only after that much time has elapsed should you even consider revising. You must be careful at this stage not to let the crow ruin the poem by cutting away its vitality and energy.

A poem can take a year or two to revise or it can sometimes be almost perfect after one or two revisions. Each poem is different.

Remember, too, that all of us who have written for a long time have hundreds of poems that don’t work. Those poems I keep in my very thick “failed poems” file. It’s okay. Maybe I’ll go back later and see if there’s anything to be done with those poems. When I wrote those poems, I needed to write them, but something about them didn’t have the impact I wanted so I placed them in that file. It’s okay to have a file like that. Not every poem is intended to be a finished product, but each poem you write helps you to explore your interior life and assists you in making other poems stronger.

On your next writing day, you will move on to the second block of prompts and repeat this pattern, and keep going until you’ve gone through every block of prompts in this book. Then, go back to the beginning and start again.

The idea here is to surprise your subconscious mind into letting go of its secrets. What does a particular prompt remind you of?

What person does it make you think of? These prompts offer you the magic carpet that will take you to the cave inside yourself. It’s dark in there and scary, but that’s where your poems and stories are. Take a risk and go inside.