I hope you are all jumping in to 30/30 without trouble. I still have to write today’s poem and hope that this wonderful poem by Rudy Francisco can get me started (although I may just have to go to a local restaurant for the plantains instead).

For the first prompt, combine heaven with the comfort food you had as a child. Does it fall from the sky too, does it grow from trees, or is it served at the table with all the loved ones you’ve lost to time. What blessings do you ask for in heaven? What are you given?

The second prompt is Mad Libs writing exercise: replace the nouns and verbs with your own. Once finished, experiment with form: what happens when you break the lines into couplets, quatrains, etc. Remember that this will be likely be to close to the original but works as a beginning draft that you can rewrite (perhaps choosing one line from the exercise to build a new poem from for May, often the month of editing those 30/30 poems).

The third prompt is to create a poem from the following word list: “sky,” “afternoon,” “rain,” “burnt,” “cut,” “step,” “palms,” “buds,” “insides” and “hands.”

The last prompt is to describe what small decadent gift or strange ability you would ask God or some other divinity for. Don’t ask here for health or forgiveness or protection of loved ones or world peace, but for something tactile and gratifying, perhaps so absurd that only you would want that.

Bonus prompt: write a poem (or story) about this flower as a sentient being who begins speaking to you after your first sip of the draw.

Good luck with 30/30! Have fun!!!