One of our favourite exercises is the list poem. Simply pick a topic (like "love" or "shame" or "going out out") and then write a list poem, using "It is..." as the beginning of each sentence.
Rules: every line starts with "It is..."; max. 12 lines - make it as visual and vibrant as you can!
Example (chosen topic "Passion for the Planet"):
Passion for the Planet
It is stopping to pick up litter from the pavement
It is waving a placard in protest
It is feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square
It is cycling to work even when you’re hungover
It is veganuary and vegbruary and
It is Marching onwards
It is going paperless
It is creating a shrine in your room to Gaia
It is…
Absolutely LOVE some of the phrases in this! "Amorphous and trembling in the presence of sound". Beautiful. I also particularly liked the "grim pastiche on a pedestal". You've got a great ear for the rhythm of words; they bounce and tumble but still resonate and seem to linger with a kind of aesthetic eloquence, images like the "wobbling, white-hot centre of the sun", for example. I love the way the poem flows, generally, and the capitalized intrusion of your "GO CAREFULLY..." instruction - it's all bright-dark, vivid, invocative.
My only suggestion (which obviously feel free to take or leave) would be that it might be even better if you took out the "it looks like" follow-ups, and let the "It doesn't look like..." openings do their negative magic in the reader's mind, i.e. let them, via negation, invoke amorphous and trembling surrogates as the reader naturally seeks sense and certainty in the absence of it. (It's a shame to cut them altogether, I know - perhaps there could be a separate "It looks like..." poem here?)
Thank you so much for sharing this Lily!