Here's an idea

Read a poem. Then write directions for someone else to create a contemporary version of that poem. Focus on technical and thematic issues in your directions.

For example, take this Dickinson poem:

I dreaded that first robin so,
But he is mastered now,
And I ’m accustomed to him grown,—
He hurts a little, though.

I thought if I could only live
Till that first shout got by,
Not all pianos in the woods
Had power to mangle me.

I dared not meet the daffodils,
For fear their yellow gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own.

I wished the grass would hurry,
So when ’t was time to see,
He ’d be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch to look at me.

I could not bear the bees should come,
I wished they ’d stay away
In those dim countries where they go:
What word had they for me?

They ’re here, though; not a creature failed,
No blossom stayed away
In gentle deference to me,
The Queen of Calvary.

Each one salutes me as he goes,
And I my childish plumes
Lift, in bereaved acknowledgment
Of their unthinking drums.

***

Some directions might be:

1. Write a poem about an unexpected feeling caused by a shift in the seasons.

2. Use four line stanzas

3. Use half-rhyme.

4. Use highly imagistic language.

5. Use medium length lines.

6. Connect the change in season to an animal.

7. Connect the change in season to something sacred.

8. The poem should trace the process through which the speaker of the poem comes to term with his/her feelings and therefore comes to terms with the season.

9. Write a poem that understands how the changes in season are connected to life, but that doesn't understand why and wonders.

10. Use the words "foreign," "stretch," and "salute."

***

Try to get at least ten or twelve, up to twenty directions.