Writing Cheat Codes Week: Homages

I’ve been writing the same book since <checks files> 2011. I’ve been trying to achieve the impossible feat of writing the last two poems in my collection before I delete another two. A writer friend gave me a neat trick for overcoming this problem. It goes like this:

Take one of your rejected poems.
Delete every second line.
Rewrite those lines to make something entirely new.
Delete the lines from your previous poem.
Fill in the gaps with new content until the new piece is cohesive.

It’s not the sort of cheat I’d recommend for daily practice, but I got a couple of decent poems out of it. Still, I prefer homages when writer’s block has me in a headlock. They’re difficult; don’t get me wrong, but they use different muscles than those you need to write a new piece.

Writer’s block isn’t one problem. It’s one of a thousand problems. There are many different kinds. Sometimes, like an ankle sprain, it only exhausts certain muscles, and the rest of your body is perfectly functional. Just because you can’t use your legs, doesn’t mean your arms are useless, and just because you can’t write a new poem, doesn’t mean you can’t write an homage. Homages use arms when ankles are hurt. They have their own unique challenges, but they aren’t the same challenges involved in creating something new, so they’re often an option when you’re blocked, @gureag . There’s a reason just about every writer who ever lived has written an homage to Sylvia Plath. Even poet laureates have done it.

So what’s an homage?

It salutes another writer by incorporating elements of their work into an original piece. It can also involve recreating their work as something new. You can achieve an homage by modernizing an archaic poem, rewriting it in a way that’s personally relevant, or simply adopting its structure for a new theme. Homages give you a skeleton to add muscle to, but they play an even more important role for new poets.

They teach.

They let you “try on” an accomplished poet’s tools to find out how they work and which ones fit. It’s tough to learn writing mechanics in abstract terms, so homages let you learn them in practice.

It’s often better to run than sit on Google reading about how to run, and it’s often better to write an homage than sit on Google reading how to write. Of course, today we’re going to write homages. Choose one of your favourite writers and adopt elements from their work to create something new.

Bear in mind that homages are not plagiarism. They must bring something new to the work they're celebrating.