Exercise for the day

This blog was created primarily to help inspire you to make poetry a regular part of your daily life. Toward that end, I'll be sharing some of my favorite exercises for getting around writer's block. I've been thinking about my forthcoming book, The Alphabet Conspiracy, and the poems in it. The first one is an abcderian, a poem that uses the alphabet for structure--first line begins with or revolves around "A," next one "B" and so on all the way to "Z." My poem "Intercession" used the Patron Saints Index to create an alphabetical list of all the things there are saints for. You can do something like this, too. Take a book down from your shelf that has an index and compose your own abcderian using the items you find there (note, you might have to make something up for some letters, such as "X," but you're a poet--you can use your imagination).
Good luck! And if you like, post your poem in the comments field.
Happy writing!

War Poetry

I just came across this quote by Randall Jarrell: "The real war poets are always war poets, peace or any time." It reminded me of a discussion my class had last week at Write by the Lake on the perils of political or social commentary poetry. I'm trying to think of who might be our "real war poets" right now (and admittedly am a bit distracted because I'm proofing my manuscript).
Which American poets writing now do you think transcend the reactionary and resist simplifying complex political or social issues?