Unlock the Hidden Power of Words: How Connotation Can Transform Your Poetry Forever
Here are the steps for this poetry writing exercise:
- Highlight all the adjectives, adverbs, and nouns in the poem.
- Transfer all the adjectives, adverbs, and nouns to a list.
- Look up each word in a thesaurus to find its synonyms. Using an online thesaurus will make this work go quickly and allow you to copy and paste. List the synonyms for each word. You don’t need to list all of the synonyms; pick the ones that strike you as most interesting. Look for synonyms that evoke various shades of meanings or that change the meanings of your original words.
- Now make a copy of your poem (with the highlights) and start replacing words with their synonyms. Try focusing on one line of the poem, replacing words to see how the meaning changes. Then try it with an entire verse. Save the versions you like by copying and pasting them into a new document.
- Finally, take a look at the variations you’ve come up with and form them into a new version of your poem (or maybe several versions).
When you’re done, set the poem and its variations aside for a few days and then come back with fresh eyes to answer the following questions:
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