How is the 30/30 challenge for you? Almost halfway through the challenge and hitting a wall, I am three days behind on poems. All day I was just blank on how to begin (despite the prompts). I hope tomorrow is more productive, but I do not regret napping on the beach on Sunday. And, Raymond Carver’s “Rain” justifies that choice.
This is a writing exercise to get started more than a prompt: rewrite this poem, replacing all the nouns, verbs and adjectives with your own. Try to use antonyms where possible. Even with these substitutions, the structure and overall feel of your drafted poem is too similar to the original, but you can take one of the lines from your draft and use it for a ghostline.
For the first prompt, write about giving in to temptation. At the end, say whether you would make the same choice.
The next prompt is to use “Would I live my life over again?” as a ghostline, erasing the line and crediting the poet in your title or in an after statement.
For the final prompt, write a poem using the following list of words from the poem: “morning,” “urge,” “lie,” “fought,” “window,” “gave,” “keep,” “unforgivable” and “chance.”
Bonus prompt: write whatever this photo of rain falling on a koi pond inspires.
Good luck writing! Keep at it (I tell myself).