Young Creator Poetry Exercises
(have some extra paper handy for working out your ideas on)
http://www.thepoetrypoint.wordpress.com

PART ONE

A 1: Using the Record Office archive s inspiration, write a couplet using the same rhythm as Shakespeare
(two lines in iambic pentameter, it doesn’t matter if it rhymes)
example: “to be or not to be,
that is the question”
rhythm: “de Dum de Dum de Dum de Dum de Dum
de Dum de Dum de Dum de Dum de Dum”

2: Read your couplet out loud, would it work as a ‘rap’? If not, what needs to change?

B) (first get a copy of the List of Executions from the Cornwall Records Office)

1 Pick a year from the list of executions.

2 How many people were hanged at Bodmin jail that year?

3 Were they men or women?

4 What age were they?

5 What is the reason given for their execution?

6 What was their name?

7 Was another person or animal involved in the crime?

PART TWO

C) Use the answers from questions 3, 4 5, 6, and 7, in a 5 line poem which uses rhyme or rhythm.
Use a separate piece of paper.
Your poem can be “free verse”, a “rap” or combine rhyme and rhythm, like a ‘Limerick’.

D) 1) Read over your 5 line poem
see how it sounds in rhythm,
for example: da Dum da Dum, or Dum de Dum de Dum…

2) Does it make more sense when you read it on the page, or when say it out loud?