Part Seven. Major and Minor Surgery: On Revision and Writer's Block A. Exercises Summary and Analysis

"Writer's Block: An antidote" takes the writer through a three-week course. There are specific instructions for each of 21 days. Instructions include reading poets and then writing in the style of that poet. "Writer's Block: An antidote" will cure writer's block if followed exactly, due to the large amount of writing required of the blocked poet. This is an extensive exercise; a do-it-yourself poetry boot camp that will result in 18 poems, almost one for each day of the program with the exception of the three days devoted to Irish poet Seamus Heaney..

The instructions for "Smash Palace" are to take ten well-known lines of famous poems and then ruin them by adding exactly the wrong word or punctuation...