Quick Dice Poetry Exercise

Published on: June 22, 2024

#posts #creativity

When I wrote about creativity and Dungeons and Dragons, I mentioned I had adapted roll tables to create a random poetry prompt. I thought I'd write up the process in case it's useful for anyone else.

I got this idea from Tiny Prep, which is a way to create dungeons by rolling dice. You leave the decisions of creativity up to chance and it helps you start writing without judgement.

This exercise is meant to be quick, no more than 5 minutes. You just need two standard dice (d6).

First pick a prompt. Roll a dice and write about:

1. A memory
2. What you can currently sense (see, hear, feel, taste)
3. A random word (generators like this are useful.)
4. A random photo
5. Open a book at a random page and choose a phrase at random.[^1]
6. A headline from a magazine or newspaper

You can set a timer for five minutes and free write to this prompt to see what comes up, or you can try to restrain it further. Recently I've been rolling a second dice to guide the type and form of writing:

1. Write a haiku
2. Write a tanka
3. Write a cinquain
4. Write a sestet
5. Write a vivid description, using as much detail as possible
6. Free write

You could also roll another dice to set the time if you want. Can you write a sestet in a minute? Genuine question as I have no idea!

I find this exercise gives me a good starting point for a poem, something I can build on and adapt. Hope it helps you start some poems.

[^1]: This is known as bibliomancy

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