our first collections of words were from the kits published by the magnetic poetry™ people. they have a basic set and several specialized sets for gardeners, cat lovers, Shakespeare fans and artists, among others. You can find a list of all their kits at the magnetic poetry™ web site

these are the same people who brought you the magnetic poetry Book of Poetry. this collection of magnetic poems comes with a small collection of words that you can use to get started with your own poetical explorations. (the book has a metal back cover so you don't even have to be near a fridge...)

There are other companies who make magnetic poetry kits as well. or...

you can make your own sets. thin sheets of magnetic stock are available at craft stores and stationery stores, and you can buy printable, self-adhesive label stock in various sizes. type your word set into your word-processor (you get to choose the font and the font size that you like best) and print it onto the label stock. stick the label stock onto your magnet stock and then cut out the individual words.

it is an interesting writing exercise to come up with a set of 200 to 250 nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs that might represent a particular person, subject or area of interest. (your set should contain about 300 words in total, but that has to include all the "standard" words like a, an, the, on, I, you, he, she, them, etc.)

I made Jesse and Maggee both personalized sets of words for Christmas that year. (I printed Jesse's set in a font called GrantsHand because I knew that she liked to use that font when she was writing on the computer.) I also made a set of science words and a set of urban words.

wherever you find your words, when it comes down to actually writing a poem you have to be able to find the words you want, or at least find out that you won't find the word you want in the collection that you have to work with. rummaging through a box full of words -- even if it is only three hundred words -- is a cumbersome way of surveying your word collection. we put all the words that we were working with at a given time on the fridge door in plain view, grouped roughly according to parts of speech -- all the nouns in one spot, all the verbs in another spot, all the pronouns in another. that strategy greatly facilitated the task of finding a word that was needed or an alternate word, or if there just wasn't a word that would fit, of finding a different poetically tack.

RICHARD THOMPSONTHE STORY VINE