I again am behind on prompts but will try to catch up as I slowly adjust to my new work schedule, but as usual poets on Twitter have provided poems to enthrall me and make me want to share prompts.
For the first prompt, use the poem’s first line “Cruelty made me” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and give the poet credit for the inspiration.
Or choose another emotion or other abstract noun and start the poem with that line. Again, erase the line and acknowledge the poet through “after Linda Gregg” below your title. You may want to use your title to name that emotion.
For the second prompt, again use a line from the poem for a ghostline, but this time use the last line “Heaven forbid that I should be saved” as the jumping off point for a list poem of the reasons you do not deserve salvation.
For both prompts, experiment with the prose poem form and with stanzas. What shifts when you change to couplets or quatrains? Which forms works best for the material? Try to articulate to yourself why. (I often have difficulty explaining why something “works” or doesn’t, so this is an instruction for myself.)
For the last prompt, write a poem using imagery of death and rot but use them as justification for deserving mercy, that we all—all living creatures—deserve mercy while we can feel its softness.
