“You Must Sing” is such a beautiful poem by Li-Young Lee that I had to share it and hope it will inspire other beautiful poems.

For the first prompt, keep the overall structure and theme, but change “sing” to another action. What must you do? What happens next? Do you want to be found?

Remember that this is an exercise. Make sure that if you wish to share the poem as your own that it is not simply a paraphrase of the original; it wouldn’t be yours then. The goal is to keep writing and learning, not only to create poems to publish and perform.

For the next prompt, use the line “Was death a guest?” for a ghostline, a first line that you erase after the poem’s complete. As always, give credit to the poet.

For the last prompt, create a metaphor that combine an abstract concept with a place as the poet did with time and a house: “All the day’s doors/are closed” and “those hours, that house.” Try to go beyond the usual ones: the underworld and death, crossroads and a life decision, etc. Or take the familiar and personalize it so that exploration is required.