Hearts for Valentine’s Day—Prompts Inspired by Rita Dove

I adore how Rita Dove takes the overused metaphors of the heart and makes love tangible. If you would like to listen to her read this wonderful love poem and also finish what she says about it, please click on the link. https://poets.org/poem/heart-heart

For the first prompt, make a list of clichés about love or loss or any other common subject in poetry and then debunk them with facts and a literal interpretation of the metaphors, ending with a statement powerful in its simple honesty and accuracy.

The second prompt is to write a love poem or story that never uses the word “love” but uses actions and the setting to convey the emotion, and remember this can be about any kind of love, not only the romantic kind. Or write an essay that again never says love, but show it in your remembrance of someone, their words, their kindnesses, their presence in a room.

For a third, write a poem or story using the following list of words from the poem: “melt,” “harden,” “yearning,” “clutch,” “muscle,” “cage,” “key,” “wear,” “bottom” and “take.”

Finally, write a poem about an object or emotion by only saying what it is not. Never name it.

Bonus prompt: write whatever comes to mind with this photo.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

“Listing Along”—Prompts Inspired by Megan McDermott

I started this blog post weeks ago but found it impossible to write or even concentrate with all the terrible news. I will try to catch up and be more consistent (yes, I know I said that last month), but this will be, as always, a work in progress with frequent missteps.

While I had difficulty coming up with any creativity of my own, I found this poem fulfilling, humorous and insightful on each read through and comforting to my former desperately lonely self. The skillful repetition both unifies and moves the poem into new directions. This poem and others by the poet can be found in this issue of Anthropocene at https://www.anthropocenepoetry.org/post/megan-mcdermott-this-morning-my-therapist-suggested-reciting-positive-affirmations-about-my-dating

For the first prompt, use the line “This will not actually kill” as the first line to a list poem of what won’t or perhaps might kill you. Be sure to credit the poet for your inspiration.

The second prompt is to create a stanza listing what your friends, former lovers or you yourself have said to explain why you are alone or why you are not as successful in your career or writing as you wish and a second stanza debunking the self-blame. Give yourself credit. Be fulsome in your self-praise.

The third is to write a list of binary oppositions (open/close as used here or light/dark, wet/dry), focus on one set and build a poem or story around the tension between the pair.

For another prompt, write a story or poem from the following word list: “anticipated,” “vibrant,” “hand,” “touch,” “open,” “unfolds,” “obtainable,” “aim,” “choice” and “shoulder.”

Or, finally, write about what a therapist or doctor advised you to do or comforted you with in a poem, story or essay. I still want to have “With your family, it is amazing you are as normal as you are” framed and hung like a diploma.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Begin—Prompts Inspired by Jill Osier

We are often told to start a poem or story in the middle of the action to avoid unnecessary exposition, but this wondrous poem by Jill Osier sets up the scene, the action, the event, for us to finish, and even though it says so little about what happens, the poem overall works. I loved it. I hope you did too.

For the first prompt, set up your own scene for the readers to fill in the action.

The next prompt is to finish this scene in a poem or story, remembering to credit the poet for your inspiration.

The third prompt is to write a list poem for “It might have happened,” listing where and hinting at what could have been.

For the third, write an essay, story or poem about what drew you (or a character) to an unexpected place, the more unusual the better but grounded (in the muck if need be).

Now for an abrupt switch, here is a bonus prompt: Write about the coming year.

I cannot think of this coming year without fearing what will come even though 2025 will likely be easier for me personally since I finished radiation and completed the required surgeries and should (I hope) be done for now with the most difficult treatments.

For the final bonus prompt, write a poem, story or essay about the coming year with hope and encouragement to strengthen others (and me). Please share your writing from this prompt or any other.

Good luck writing, and I hope you have fun. May this year be joyful for you and everyone you love.

A Less Than Merry Christmas—Prompts Inspired by Beth Gilstrap

Today with family ill is less merry than usual, so let’s dive into Beth Gilstrap’s fantastically dark “That Christmas I Ate Moonshine Cherries and Became a Fortune Teller,” published at https://stonecirclereview.com/that-christmas/.

For the first prompt, write a poem or story about Christmas with family and the secrets and truths stuffed in pies, the meat and bones of conversations and silences, the throat and the belly of a family.

The second prompt is to write what you carry in “pockets and call them signs” or what you carry to ward off disaster and inevitability and family history.

For the third, write a poem or story using the following list of words: “bunting,” “borderline,” “bold,” “shells,” “roiling,” “bathwater,” “foothills,” “roof,“ “synthetic,” “choked,” “manufactured,” “wrong,” and “signs.”

My mother, as the youngest in her family, was the first to use the bath, the water pumped and carried from the yard, and heated on the stove in winter or by the sun in summer. She now uses a washcloth once and reuses a bath towel just once, the water hers alone. She can always buy more milk if she spills it; she isn’t made to cry over its loss. Write about what necessities or deprivations you have left behind.

Bonus prompt: write about the world on this globe-enclosed ship, on seas ever still, ever far from land.

Prompts Inspired by Nikki Giovanni

I was so saddened to learn of the passing of Nikki Giovanni, such a powerful inspiration. I love these two poems, although she wrote too many great ones to choose from for me to pick just one favorite.

For the first prompt, write about what you should do instead of writing while we lurch into fascism.

The second is to create a list poem of what times these really are or what you can make them be.

For a third prompt, write a poem or story about how mythological creatures prepare to hibernate for decades and centuries, what do they set aside for rebirth, what would you if you had their lifespan and abilities.

The next is to write a poem or story how to prepare for winter; what will you gather and store, or if you prefer, how you will prepare for spring.

For another, write a poem or story using the following list of words compiled from both poems: “clean,” “kerosene,” “times,” “burrow,” “bury,” “quilts,” “oatmeal,” “medicine” “bears,” “gather,” “collect” and “coming.”

The last prompt is to take a line from your favorite Nikki Giovanni poem and build a poem from it, placing the line (italicized or set off in quotation marks) at the poem’s center and crediting her in your title or in an after statement.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

“Room Tone”—Prompts Inspired by Dobby Gibson

Another week, another ER trip, another to-do list spiraling into infinity, but there are poems to read and savor. I hope you like this one by Dobby Gibson as much I do.

For the first prompt, write a poem in three stanzas: the first stanza sets the overall time and mood; the second provides a scene in one sentence with a simile; the third stanza moves to a third location (perhaps a dilapidated barn, an abandoned mall, or a closed library).

The second prompt is to take this poem and Mad Lib it: changing all the nouns and verbs with your own. Is there a line you like best? If so, write a poem or short story with that as the jumping off point, remembering to erase the line after you’ve finished the draft.

For the third, write a story or poem using the second or third stanza for the setting. Remember to credit the poet for your inspiration.

The next prompt is to use the title “Room Tone“ and freewrite for three minutes on whatever associations the phrase creates for you. If possible, see if anything you‘ve written sparks you into a draft.

Bonus prompt: write a story or poem based on this photo taken in Utah.

Good luck! Have fun!

A “ruthless mercy”—prompts inspired by Kimberly Wolf

I hope to get back on schedule after the holidays and even make up for the weeks I neglected to post. I suppose that will be my New Year‘s Resolution!

So let’s come back with a bang starting with a poem full of bangers: Kimberly Wolf’s “Mary Magdalene in the Wilderness” takes so many surprising turns and brings us to unexpected places.

If you want to read more by Kimberly Wolf, check out her website https://www.kimberlywolfpoet.com/ and buy her chapbook https://www.bullshitlit.com/shop/p/frogs!

The first prompt is only a Mad Lib writing exercise: Rewrite the poem, replacing as many of the verbs and nouns with your own. What happens? Did you find any lines you like with your replaced nouns and verbs? If so, use that line as a modified ghostline, beginning poem or story with it and then erasing it afterwards.

The second prompt is to write a poem or short story from the following word list: “laid,” “haunted,” “crowded,” “resurrect,” “escape,” “clouds,” “shoulders,” “hands,” “hallucinate“ and “temptations.” Or for a variation, read the poem aloud and underline the words that strike you and build from them. Notice how much impact alliteration and assonance have here.

The third prompt is to write a list poem or a short story of what you would do if you had the power to keep a lover from never escaping your presence or memory even after your death.

For another prompt, make two lists: a list of famous lovers or enemies (or alter the relationship between two famous historical or mythical figures) and a list of binary oppositions in an adjective-noun format, as “ruthless mercy” from the poem. Take the item from each list that resonates the strongest for you and build a poem or story around them.

The last prompt is to complete the sentence “Now he lives in the sky, his terrible” as your jumping off point. Remember, as with all ghostlines, to erase the line and credit the poet.

Bonus prompt: write a story or poem from the trees looking down upon your small self as you enter the forest carrying an ax or chainsaw. Let them win.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Welcome, Children of Darkness—Last Halloween Prompts for the Year

To celebrate Halloween, let’s look at Gladys Oaks’s “The Grave Digger” for some cheerful inspiration. Yikes!

For your first prompt, write a poem or short story from the perspective of a gravedigger.

Your second prompt is to use the line “The stars are but the eyeballs of the dead” for a ghostline, your first line that you remove after finishing a poem. Be sure to credit the poet for your inspiration with an after statement or in your title.

The third prompt is to write a response poem or story to the ending couplet, “A world is but a mote waiting to die, / Floating between great ribs of looming sky.”

For another prompt, write a poem or story using the following words: “lighted,” “force,” “wrench,” “curling,” “brittle,” “sapless,” “whirls,” “hollow,” “ribs” and “looming.”

For the last prompt, write a poem that could be included in Nursery Rhymes for Children of Darkness, whatever that means to you. Bonus points for a sonnet.

Bonus prompt: write a story based on this summoning circle.

Final bonus prompt: write whatever this photo inspires.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Hauntings—Prompts Inspired by Danika Stegeman LeMayn

It is my favorite season—cool weather, clear nights, carved pumpkins and spooky decor—so let’s have another poem to haunt your thoughts. Thanks to Han VanderHart for sharing!

For the first prompt, explain how you know you are loved using supernatural phenomena, perhaps a beam encircling you from something above you in the night sky, a voice that whispers your name from an empty room, a pair of eyes glowing outside your window. Next add a scientific fact or piece of common knowledge and then end by connecting this fact to the supernatural.

The second prompt is to use the lines “It surrounds us / even if we can’t / see it” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line after finishing the poem and credit the poet for your inspiration.

The next is to write a poem or story using the following list of words: “haunted,” “radio,” “flickering,” “folded,” “square,” “emit,” “light” and “surrounds.”

The next prompt is more of an exercise. Take the poem’s lines as a kind of Mad Lib, replacing the nouns and verbs with their antonyms. If any of the lines you’ve recreated have a friction for you, take that line and make it the first line of a poem or story and continue from there.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Ghosts and Ghostlines—Prompts inspired by Andrea Cohen

As always, Andrea Cohen takes my breath away in just a few words.

For the first prompt, write a story or poem from the perspective a ghost who is struggling to communicate with the loved ones. What does the ghost want to say? What methods does the ghost choose if speaking is no longer possible?

Think on the modern usage of ghosting and its origin and constraint how the monster in Shelly’s tale is mistakenly called Frankenstein (yet truly is the monster). What other actions are named for monsters or mythical creatures and write from the creature’s perspective.

The third prompt is to write a poem or story using the following word list: “cavalier,” “language,” “silence,” “ghost,” “will,” “tell,” “last,” “mean” and “leave.” Try to switch the part of speech from verbs to nouns and vice versa.

For the next prompt, write a list poem of “the last thing / we mean” and let your title explain who the “we” is.

The last prompt is to write what you mean to do before you or your narrator in a story means to do before leaving the listener.

Bonus prompt: For this a rather wispy moon, write a poem or story about a dreamy, soft spoken werewolf or set a horror story in landscape of mist and dreary swamp with an obscenely cheerful, fast talking protagonist.

Good luck! Have fun writing!

Casserole This—Prompts Inspired by Steve Ramirez

It is spooky season, and I am gnawing on my liver in envy for Steve Ramirez’s poem. Damn it, I grew up on Midwestern casseroles, and I won’t ever have a line that good!

For the first prompt, make a list of twelve creatures and monsters. Choose whichever two cause you friction, or rely on fate/happenchance, perhaps by numbering the list and then randomly rolling dice. Write a poem or story about the possible interaction, beginning each stanza or paragraph with an “as if” statement. See where you end up.

The second prompt is to write a romance about an alien or otherworldly beauty. Make gills other mouths to kiss, the Mothman’s wings another set of handholds in moonlight, fangs glinting jewels to press against the throat.

The third prompt is to write a story or poem around an image of a town as the food its residents consume—like a casserole or barbecue or donut. Let the townsfolk become a chorus to the protagonist, an outsider to their customs and expectations. What spice or flavor is added. Use a family recipe if you like.

Next, write a list poem beginning with the ghostline “when girls thought they were the color of the sea. Remember to erase the line and credit the poet.

For the last prompt, write a poem or story from the following word list: “convenience,” “transcends,” “tiptoe,” “seesaw,” “weight,” “revoke,” “fuel,” “oceans,” “landscape” and “remember.”

Bonus prompt: write a story or poem with this humanoid as your protagonist/speaker.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

National Poetry Day with John Wick and Kyra Wilder!!!

It’s time to celebrate with your favorite poems, with new poems, with poems you’ve read and poems you‘ve written. All are good. To celebrate poetry’s holiday, choose a line from a favorite poem or from one you read today and use that line as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and credit the poet.

For a second prompt, choose a poem to respond to as if in conversation or as a call and answer. Again, credit the poet and poem in your title or in an after statement.

If you want more prompts and possibly a new poem, here is a great one by Kyra Wilder that someone shared today. I didn’t know I needed a poem about John Wick but now I do!

For the first prompt inspired by Kyra Wilder, choose another character from an action movie and describe how and why the characters is tired or melancholy or mistaken or even blissful or learning.

The second prompt is take one scene from a movie and describe it to another who you wish were there to watch it with you.

For the third prompt, write a poem or story from the following word list: “split,” “cracked,” “listing,” “glissade,” “tiles,” “relief,” “thimblefuls,” “theory,” “diaphanous” and “swollen.”

The last prompt is to write a list poem describing how you want to be sad or angry or cheerful but with special effects or a kind of Hollywood glamour.

Bonus prompt: since it is October, write a horror-themed adventure in Disneyland or its mirror image in the water.

Have fun reading poems and writing today!!!

Burning—Prompts Inspired by Rae Armantrout

Short post today as my brain is a wooly sheep lost on a hillside, and a short poem for a short post!

For the first prompt, begin with an image that in a separate stanza that connects to an emotion. If you wish, follow the format of this poem by inserting a time indicator as a separate line/stanza or with the third stanza that gives speaker’s emotion. Use a famous quote. Make your last line reinterpret the quote and refer to the emotion and image described in previous stanzas.

The second prompt is to write a list poem of burning images. End with a famous quote, perhaps this one by Emerson or another of your choice.

Using “having nowhere to go, persists” as a ghostline for a poem or short story. Remember to erase the line afterwards and credit the poet.

The final prompt is write a poem or story using the following words: “blown,” “end,” “stem,” “lamp,” “blend,” “longing,” “persists,” “star,” and “burns.” Notice how much of the poem consists of one-syllable words. If you want an additional exercise, switch these words with polysyllabic synonyms where possible.

For a bonus prompt, write a poem or story based on this photo but alternate the settings or perspectives to explore how fireworks, rockets explosions, in the night can be celebrations or attacks. If possible shift from differing perspectives or settings to explore that duality.

Good luck! Have fun writing!

“When I was truly great”—Prompts Inspired by Hanif Abdurraqib

I was lucky enough to get to hear Hanif Abdurraqib read at an event. I hope to again one day and hope I will get to hear this poem in person. I am feeling the passing of time and possibilities in my bones. Although no one could say I was once great, I might have been called nice until I realized that niceness never stopped a slur from being dropped in a crowded room nor kept someone I love safe. I sometimes miss the girl I was though.

Use the title’s format but substituting a different sports team or a famous musical group or an event as the first prompt for a poem or short story. I would probably choose the Chicago Cubs, a team long considered cursed by a goat and even a black cat and that never failed to disappoint my relatives when I was growing up.

The second prompt is to write a list poem of reasons you are no longer great or when you will be again, the more surreal the better.

For the third prompt, write a poem or story using the following word list: “mean,” “mountain,” “dust,” “shoreline,” “candles,””sugar,” “drown,” “passing,” “decade” and “incessant.”

For the last prompt, use the line “I just woke up one day and I was a still photo in everyone else’s home but my own“ for a ghostline. Remember to erase the line after you finish the poem or story and credit the poet.

Bonus prompt: describe yourself or a character as a dimming candle as the starting point of a poem or story.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

The Terror in Beauty—Prompts Inspired by Rilke

Along with the biblically accurate angels with a thousand eyes, angels have terrified me, as does perfection and all true beauty. What else splinters the lungs like those transcendent moments of sky and land mirrored in a lake with shifting hues my human eye cannot accurately define? So I am grateful to Rilke and to David Rubin for sharing this poem.

For the first prompt, name the angel who would hear your cry and write a poem or story about what happens next.

The second prompt is to use “For beauty is but the beginning of terror” as a ghostline, remembering to erase the line after you finish the poem and crediting the poet for your inspiration.

The third prompt is to write a list poem of what has declined to destroy you. Or if you prefer, write an essay on surviving beauty.

For the next prompt, write a poem or story using the following word list: “cried,” “hierarchies,” “hear,” “perish,” “power,” “beginning,” “endure,” “awed” and “destroy.”

For an additional prompt, write about a being through whom light shines. What would you give for that light to illuminate your face or hands? What would you sacrifice to make the light pass over you, leaving you in the safe harbor of concealment? What prayers would you make for either outcome?

Bonus ekphrastic prompt: describe this image in a poem or story.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Lazarus Rising onto the Web—Prompts Inspired by Kelli Russell Agodon

I spent a week in Minnesota, weeding and painting after attending a lovely wedding. It was great spending time with family, and I needed to feel the sun and cool breezes rather than sitting in waiting rooms and hospitals, worrying. So while I am still behind on reading and writing, I have better grounding. This gorgeous poem by Kelli Russell Agodon embodies my sense that I may bounce back from the last few weeks. It does seem appropriate that my screenshot is all cockeyed though.

For the first prompt, write a “ransom letter to an old self” in whatever form that takes.

The second prompt is to write in a poem or essay about a moment you interacted with a small creature—bird or insect, spider or lizard or frog—and how that interaction mimics some aspect of your life. Or make up a story about meeting or affecting a fictional creature.

The third prompt is to write a poem or story using the following word list: “leaves,” “squeezed,” “hourglass,” “slip,” “pain,” “knot,” suncatcher,” “web,” “rising,” “numb,” and “center.”

For the fourth, describe “normal” as something other than a box, or write a list poem of what “normal” feels like to you or how it has been dictated.

The last prompt is to write a poem for story from the spider’s perspective.

For a bonus prompt, write about the spider in this photo.

For an additional prompt, write as if climbing this monument were to return to your center.

(For more context if you want it, the previous photo is from staircase of the monument and statue of “Hermann the German” from Hermann Heights Park in New Ulm, MN.)

Have fun writing! Good luck!

Open Fields—Prompts Inspired by Ross Gay

Yes, I am late again with the blog. My head was too full of the beep of machines, the scuff of shoes on linoleum as nurses come in to draw blood again. Even when I leave the hospital, I know I will eventually have to return and next time we may not get her there in time. I want to leave those hallways behind to run in fields of clover and vetch, the sky an endless plain above.

Perhaps for these reasons (and its beauty) I turned to this wonderful poem by the Ross Gay for that escape and the imagery it gave me.

For the first prompt, write a poem or story about transforming into another creature. What would you give up; by what process or sense would you choose to embody this other life form?

The second prompt—similar to the first—is to write about knowing the experiences of another. What would you learn from seeing from behind another’s eyes? What would the world look like below as you drifted along thermals or above you from the depths of the dark seas? Most of all, how would you gave this knowledge? What is the entry into the other’s world?

The third prompt is to use the line “from its mouth made me” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line after you’ve written the poem and credit the poet in an after statement or in the title.

The last is to write a story or poem using the following word list: “belly,” “bit,” “maw,” “bloom,” “brook,” “sheen,” “torches,“ “knives,” “glisten,” and “cast.”

This poem is from his third collection catalog of unabashed gratitude.

For a writing exercise, describe the color and texture of gratitude, its density and half-life.

For a bonus prompt, write an essay, poem or story inspired by the carving and/or the text (photo taken in a Portland train station). Or write about the photo below (taken in Borrego Springs). What would the world feel to a horse of metal hooves and wire mane? Would the rare drops of rain be cooling relief or an unwelcome thick corrosion of the coat?

Have fun reading! I hope you have done better on the Sealey Challenge than I have this year.

Good luck with your writing!

The Position of the Sun and You—Prompts Inspired by Jonathan Humanoid

I hope you are all reading tons of poetry collections. Alas, I am just not able to concentrate on anything while I am recovering, so I am posting about a poem and a book I read previously (but of course still love so much so that I wrote one of the blurbs). I find the opening image and the mirroring of positions and repetition/replacement of the sun with the speaker and the intended audience powerful and intriguing.

For the first prompt, center a poem or story around an adage or aphorism as the poet did here with the metaphor of the sun. Here is a good starting list of aphorisms: https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/examples-aphorisms. If you want a little more direction, write about the aphorism, “Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom” with imagery of the moon.

The second prompt is to write a four-stanza poem addressed to another person with the first stanza (quatrain or any other) opening with an image that joins the speaker and intended listener, the second developing that image or natural phenomena, the third connecting the image to an emotional or philosophical truth and the fourth reconnecting the image and emotion to the relationship between speaker and the “you” of the poem.

For the third prompt, write a list poem beginning with the line “This isn’t a love poem” as the title or first line (remembering to credit the poet regardless) for what this poem is not.

For the fourth, write a poem or story using the following word list: “sky,” “open,” “letting,” “settle,” “sun,” “still,” “closer,” “perspective,” “trouble” and “turn.”

If you would like to read more, here is the publisher’s link: http://www.arroyosecopress.org/books.html#thumb.

Bonus prompt, write a poem or story about using the following photo for inspiration.

Good luck with the Sealey Challenge. Have fun reading and writing this month!!!

Rain and Recommendation—Prompts Inspired by Ilya Kaminsky

So I haven’t been reading nor writing this month in spite of good intentions. I hope you all are doing much better on the Sealey Challenge than I. I have high hopes for next week though!

Since my attention span is short and Sunday is for small poems, let’s turn to another of my favorites by Ilya Kaminsky.

For the first prompt, use an image or scientific fact or natural phenomenon to be your letter of recommendation in a short poem. Let your final line or stanza make the bridge.

The second prompt is to use the lines “yet I believe / against all evidence” for a ghostline for a poem or story. Remember to erase the line and give credit to the poet. Or use these lines as your title instead, again crediting the poet.

For the third, write a list poem of what has eaten you; provide fractions or percentages. What remains?

Bonus prompt: write a conversation between this fish and the centered moss-covered stone in a poem or story.

Good luck reading this month and writing! Have fun!

It’s August! Sealey Challenge!

Every August, try to read a poetry book a day. The book can be a chapbook or a full length or even a book you want to revisit. Best of all, take a selfie and share your recommendations with others and check out what others are posting to discover new poets. For great recommendations, check out the website: https://www.thesealeychallenge.com/.

And don’t forget there is even a bingo game board! Don’t forget to post and tag for a chance to win a book!

And, yes, I am posting this a day behind because I am starting a day behind. But I have several chapbooks to read, and even if I don’t finish a book every day, just whittling down my to-read stack feels great! I am starting with John Brantingham’s Gone Back to Wild!

Have fun reading!