Writing prompts and exercises can be the perfect way to move your writing project forward. Some of our members have shared their favourite writing prompts to spark your creativity.

Photo credit: Rachel Lenkowsky

Extending the Tradition (to FBCW) 

One of the more reliable ways I have of writing a new poem is to lean on an older one, what some call, “extending the tradition.”  I choose a poem I like and write it out, double spaced.  Writing by hand works best.

Then between each line, I write in a new line based on, or suggested by, or that echoes the rhythms of, the given line.  If my lines take off, so much the better.  This can be fun – and always surprising in terms of how different the “new” poem is from the given one. (And when published, I credit the original!)

 

About Kate Braid:

Kate Braid worked as a receptionist, secretary, teacher’s aide, lumber piler, construction labourer, apprentice and journey-carpenter before finally “settling down” as a teacher. She has taught construction and creative writing, the latter in workshops and also at SFU, UBC and for ten years at Vancouver Island University (previously Malaspina University-College).

Braid has written several books of creative non-fiction, Red Bait! Stories of a Mine-Mill Local (1993), Emily Carr: Rebel Artist (2000), The Fish Come In Dancing: Stories from the West-Coast Fishery (2002), Looking Ahead: Profiles of Two Canadian Women in Trades (1990), and Building the Future: Profiles of Canadian Women in Trades (1989). She is the author of the poetry books, A Well-Mannered Storm: The Glenn Gould Poems (2008), Covering Rough Ground (1991), To This Cedar Fountain (1995), and Inward to the Bones: Georgia O’Keeffe’s Journey with Emily Carr (1998).

In 2005 Braid co-edited, with Sandy Shreve, In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry. It was re-released with a second edition in 2016 as In Fine Form: A Contemporary Look at Canadian Form Poetry. Her 2012 memoir, Journeywoman: Swinging a Hammer in a Man’s World, tells the story of how she became a carpenter in the face of skepticism and discouragement. A revised edition of her award-winning poetry book Covering Rough Ground, Rough Ground Revisited, was published by Caitlin Press in 2015. In 2018, Braid released her latest poetry collection, Elemental, with Caitlin Press.

In 2012 Kate Braid was declared one of Vancouver’s Remarkable Women of the Arts. In 2015 she was awarded the Mayor of Vancouver’s Award for the Literary Arts for showing leadership and support for Vancouver’s cultural community, and in 2016 she received the Pandora’s Collective BC Writers Mentor Award.

She lives in Victoria and on Pender Island with her partner. See www.katebraid.com for further information.