So today is another holiday, World Book Day, celebrating books and reading. I think Patricia Hooper’s poem “The World Book” is perfect for it. I love how the poem references volume “S” of the encyclopedia set (yes, the pun was intentional), expanding from the subjects inside its pages to the narrator noticing the objects around her. For me, reading opened doorways into new worlds, ones far from my small town, but also led me back to better understand that place and people.
If you want to hear Patricia Hooper read “The World Book” aloud, click on the link: https://poets.org/poem/world-book.
For the first prompt, choose a letter and build a poem around words beginning with that letter. For a really difficult challenge, write a poem about losing a letter and gradually omit the letter and additional ones.
The second prompt is to take a volume from the encyclopedia and flip to a random page. The first word you notice will be your subject. See what happens.
For the third prompt, use the lines “the woman get owned them skipped / to the solar system and said” as your first lines. You can choose to erase them after finishing your poem or keep them in, italicized or within quotation marks. Either way, remember to credit the poet for your inspiration.
The last prompt is to build a poem using the following wordlist: “volume,” “leafing,” “ships,” “skipped,” “saucers,” “diagram,” “miles,” “leave,” “swirling,” “world” and “secrets.”
Bonus prompt: what question does the bookstore’s feline guardian ask and what answer do you give to gain admittance?
Good luck writing!