Layers—Prompts Inspired by Melissa Eleftherion

I love the complexity described here—how tactile the lifeforms, the fossilized remains and rocks—all exposed by the fog and by the waves’ ceaseless movements.

For the first prompt, begin with an uncovering of a scene. You could perhaps describe a crowd appearing as a train moves past, or a narrator’s view around the curve of a path or river bend or looking down from a balcony upon a parade. How do humans, wildlife, and the environment interact. Try to move the focus as you would a camera.

The second prompt is to build a poem, story or essay around indehiscent fruits that do not split open to release seeds, about the waiting potential and possibility.

For the third, is to use the last line, “what emerges from such care,” as the ghostline for your own story or poem, remembering to erase the line and credit the poet in an after statement or the title.

For the next prompt, write a story or poem using the following list of words: “cling,” “retreats,” “scars,” “rigor,” “nacreous” “fissure,” “tidal,” “index,” “coax,” “decay,” “tether” and “emerges.”

Bonus prompt: Write about the layering and interaction of the wishes from these pennies in their watery environment.

Good luck writing.

Physics Puzzles—Prompts inspired by Sharon Olds

I love this poem by Sharon Olds: how it progresses from a young child’s simple puzzle to a complex physics problem as the child herself progressed and how it connects the physics example to the mother-daughter role and then upends the expectation.

For the first prompt, open by describing the physical action of a game or child’s activity, connecting it to a specific memory either from your own childhood or from parenthood. See where it takes you in a poem, story or essay.

The second prompt is to use a scientific theory or concept as a metaphor for a human relationship or interaction.

The third prompt is to write a poem or story using the following list of words: “pieces,” “flush,” “frames,” “wooden,” “groan,” “scarlet,” “gaps,” “rung,” “hum” and “grown.”

For the next prompt, use the line “I have not grown up yet, I have lived” as a jumping off point, finishing however you would. After deleting the line (or kept in with italics or quotation marks), give the poet credit for inspiration.

The last prompt is either begin or end with the line “I have not been born yet” in a poem or story, again remembering the poet.

Bonus prompt: write whatever this photo of butterflies crowding around a wasp trap for a drink.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Sealey Challenge—Prompts Inspired by Yusuf Komunyakaa

For the last day of the Sealey Challenge, I am ending on a poem from the great poet Yusuf Komunyakaa. He visited my college, and I have never forgotten the beauty of his poetry or kindness towards students, including my awkward not-yet-a-writer self. I have kept that sense of awe and gratitude all these years.

As you can see, I borrowed this book from the library. While I want more books of his for my own home, I want to keep poetry valued in library systems. I would like to see more poetry collections there and in bookstores and more poetry readers and writers everywhere.

For the first prompt, write about a material good or product, referencing its origin (whether by plant or creature or both) and connecting it to the narrator or yourself in an essay, story or poem.

The second prompt is to use “Humans crave immortality, but oh,” as your starting point for a story or poem. You can erase the line as you would for a ghostline or indicate through punctuation or italics that the line isn’t your own; either way, remember to give credit to the poet.

For the third, write a poem or story using the following list of words: “perfume,” “iron,” “pagoda,” “trails,” “radiance,” “flounce,” “crave, “leaves,” “wove” and “world.”

Bonus prompt, write whatever this image inspires, although I wish the photo could convey the sweetness of its scent.

Good luck writing and have fun reading!

Sealey Challenge—Prompts Inspired by Shira Dentz

I was fortunate to get to hear Shira Dentz read at the New Orleans Poetry Festival. I had seen her poems online but hearing her read and the discussion about her poems afterward was a treat. Despite the stacks of books I’ve yet to read, I bought her Sisyphusina, and it is opening up new directions for me. It is a book that I will need to read slowly and repeatedly access all of its layers.

For the first prompt, write a poem in four stanzas with each preceding stanza setting up the next—the loaded in the first becoming the loaded gun in the second.

The second prompt is to describe in a story or poem or essay what this “new season” of wind would be: where and when does it reside?

For the third prompt, write a story or poem using the following word list: “sand,” “loaded,” “vista,” “static,“ “wind,” “fall,” “crawls,” “iron,” “tool” “branches,” and “marrow.”

The last prompt is to write a poem that is in conversation with another poem as this one is with Emily Dickinson’s “My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun” (https://americanliterature.com/author/emily-dickinson/poem/my-life-had-stood-a-loaded-gun).

Bonus prompt: Write from the perspective of predator or prey and then switch midway.

Good luck writing! Have fun reading!

Sealey Challenge—Prompts Inspired by Clint Smith

While the challenge is usually to read new books for August, it is also good to go back and reread great books, such as this one by the great writer Clint Smith. I find more to learn and to admire in each reading. If you want to read his essays and buy his books, please check out his website, https://www.clintsmithiii.com.

For the first prompt, write about your own playground experiences and connect them to your life now in a poem or essay.

The second prompt is to write an elegy for your childhood innocence or a parent’s regret.

For the third, write about a world in which raised hands lead to answers, to another hand pulling them to safety, to life for all hands.

The last prompt is to write a poem or story using the following list of words from “Playground Elegy”: “slide,” “hold,” “gravity,” “weight,” “ripple,” “defiance,” “answer,” “growing,” “raised” and “live.”

Bonus prompt: write about flight and safe landing.

Good luck. Have fun reading and writing this month!

I forgot August is the Sealey Challenge—Prompts Inspired by Han VanderHart

Time once again has raced past me, and I forgot to post about the Sealey Challenge. Wonderful poet Nicole Sealey created the challenge to read thirty poetry collections or chapbooks this month. It is a great time to get book recommendations and share your favorite books with other readers. You can find more information and ways to participate on the website, https://www.thesealeychallenge.com/. You can also get great recommendations on the site: https://www.thesealeychallenge.com/start-here

My recommendation is Han VanderHart’s What Pecan Light. I’ve just begun and so far love it (not surprising since I have loved everything I’ve seen online).

For the first prompt, fill in the line “What are we for but to make a terrible” with your own noun and answer it yourself. Make sure to credit the poet and indicate the direct quotation.

The second is to write about the sounds of wildlife around your childhood home in a poem, story or essay. What sounds bring you back no matter how far away you’ve traveled?

The third is to write a poem or story using the following word list: “locusts,” “cadence,” “whirr,” “crept,” “retreated,” “notes,” “angles,” “pines,” “beats” and “silence.”

For another prompt, try to describe silence without using that word or its adjective or adverb forms.

The last prompt is to choose a poetry collections or chapbook and write a poem, story, or essay in response.

Bonus prompt: write whatever this image brings to mind (and yes, I know I shouldn’t have centered the flower but I like the photo as is).

Have fun writing and reading. Good luck.

“when the bread was gone”—Prompts Inspired by Nour Abdel Latif

I do not understand what finally caused the recent acknowledgment of the genocide in Palestine by journalists, pundits and politicians, but perhaps those in power will finally act. I will never forgive those who enabled these horrors. It is too late to save so many lives already lost, but we need to save as many as we can by keeping the spotlight on what’s happening. I also want to honor those who have suffered. Here is a powerful poem by Nour Abdel Latif. I hope to read more of her poetry.

For the first prompt, write about hope and remembrance.

The second prompt is to write about a better world, one without genocide or starvation, where each child is loved by the whole world, cradled in gentle hands and fed all the food and love a child needs.

The last is not a writing prompt but a mission: find poems and stories by Palestinian writers and share them so that their voices will carry to all shores.

Good luck writing.

Survival—Prompts Inspired by Andrea Gibson

It was (and is) a sad day for the poetry community to lose such a power as Andrea Gibson, although I believe they, like all those we love, remain within us. Here is the link to the poem: https://poets.org/poem/chemo-room-i-wear-mittens-made-ice-so-i-dont-lose-my-fingernails-i-took-risk-today-write-down. If you want more of their poetry, especially of them performing, here is a link to their website: https://andreagibson.org/best-poems.

I admit it was hard to choose just one poem, and I know I will post others of theirs later, but this one I needed today.

For the first prompt, write a poem, story or perhaps an instructional essay on how to build a survival shelter or what materials you use.

The second prompt is to write what you take and what you give to the world. Let it be a small thing that brings you joy in the hope that another will also experience that gift.

For the third, or perhaps just as a writing exercise, describe everything beautiful and hopeful that you can in right now.

The next prompt is to write a story or poem using the following list of words: “arena,” “answered,” “shelter,” “branches,” “infinity,”“wrinkle,” “mirror,” “heirloom,” “rosewater,” “spinning,” and “afterlife.”

For the last, write how you would measure life, by what metrics or moments.

Bonus prompt: write about whatever this photo taken using an old app, PaperCamera inspires.

Good luck writing and living. May you love widely and deeply.

The Beauty Before—Prompts Inspired by Molly Brodak

After last week’s trip where I listened to a relative deny fascism and concentration camps, her own racism dripping from her mouth and her telling me to leave the country, I need a little hopefulness, a reminder that joy remains in spite of the horror and rot. I won’t keep silent to what is happening; I love people more than any country or any other lie. I just need to see some goodness and beauty before facing the present and its history.

The first prompt is the poem’s title itself: write a list poem, or perhaps a narrative poem, an essay or story about all the beauty you see early in the day, before its disappointments and griefs come home. Remember to credit the poet for your inspiration.

For the second prompt, write a poem or story about the panoramic view before a fall. Describe what Wile E. Coyote sees before he and as he looks down, those moments before gravity pulls him from the cliff’s height, but indicate to your reader that no matter how hard the landing, you (or your character) will rise again.

The third prompt is to write a poem or story using the following list of words: “open,” “upright,” “spokes,” “fragrant,” “mist,” “luck,” “morning,” “riot,” “minutes” and “comes.”

For the last prompt, look up the migration of a particular species of bird and butterfly and describe how it travels and what it calls home, interspersed with your own travels and homecomings.

Bonus prompt: describe this scene and however it affects you, letting the description of the setting convey the emotional response.

Good luck. Have fun writing and sharing.

A Different Kind of Life—Prompts Inspired by Naomi Shihab Nye

Although I am at a family reunion and happy to see loved ones, I cannot celebrate the 4th and its festivities while people are being kidnapped by ICE and deported to prison camps, the government is under the control of fascists and the US continues to enable genocide. I have little patriotism left, only a fear for the future and fury at what is being done to innocent people here and abroad, but perhaps that makes me the best patriot, someone who wants my country to do better.

For the first prompt, write poem, story or essay about current events and this holiday.

The second prompt is to write a poem about fireworks that blossom across the sky in hushed tones, without causing fear or anxiety in animals or those who have endured bombing and war.

The third prompt is write about someone or something that brings you hope or about someone you admire for their bravery, honesty and kindness or what future you want for this country and its role in the world.

Bonus prompt: write whatever this image inspires.

Good luck writing. I hope you have a chance to be with your loved ones.

Calling—Prompts Inspired by Sandra Beasley

This poem is perfect for job hunting, although I must admit I believe my skills—my speed in growing hair and flailing in shallow water and conversation—are hardly marketable so far. Perhaps I just haven’t found the right cubicle or puddle. As a child I visited Union Station in St. Louis and wanted to be bartender just to serve drinks surrounded by all that arched green tile and dark wood.

The first prompt for a poem, story or essay is to fill in the gaps in your résumé with the best vacations and lazy Saturdays you’ve had or to add the skills you feel give you the most joy, whether it is finding faces in tree bark and clouds or spotting mushrooms in undergrowth or remembering song lyrics.

For the second prompt, use the line “I’ll do whatever you want, as long as I can do it” for a ghostline. Remember to erase the line after you’ve finished the poem or story and credit the poet with an after statement or in the title.

The third prompt is to write a poem or story using the following words: “casino,” “dioramas,” “Latin,” “balance,” “falls,” “veranda,” “strangers,” “calls,” “broker” and “morning.”

The next is to write makes you “get up in the morning” in a poem, story or essay.

For the last, write about your calling and what or who is answering.

Bonus prompt: write whatever this photo and/or its accompanying text inspires (photo not mine).

Good luck. Have fun writing.

“Someone has to”—Prompts Inspired by Wislawa Szymborska

So here we are in another bullshit war that will kill civilians, further destabilize an entire region, create refugees to be denied entry and their humanity, waste billions of money and justify the loss of more rights here and abroad, all cheered on by the same liars and racists but now with the bonus of genocide.

So here is a powerful poem about war, the slow rebuilding after loss and destruction and whatever lessons learned are forgotten. Yes, it is beautifully written—skillful use of sound and imagery—but the ones who need to read it won’t, so let’s write a poem to shout at the worthless fuckers.

For the first prompt, make a list of cleaning tasks or repairs. Now take that list and expand those tasks to a city or countryside awaiting destruction, reversing the order. End your poem or story with the first bomb dropped, bullet fired, a cloud spinning into a funnel, or the start of rain.

The second prompt is to look at the headlines advocating for this war and find out what the author did during the last war in Iraq. Take a previous op ed or article from that journalist or politician back then and collect the statements that apply to both wars for a list poem. Or make an erasure poem of either article.

For the third, write a story or poem using the following list of words: “tidy,” “rubble,” “sludge,” “shards,” “glaze,” “shirtsleeves,” “shreds,” “rusted,” “cornstalk” and “clouds.”

The next prompt is to write an essay or story about cleaning and rebuilding the exterior/physical that illustrates an emotional/interior healing or recovery.

Another prompt is to write a poem about starting a war or causing a disaster that repeats the phrase “someone has to.”

For the last, write an essay, poem or story to stop a tragedy. “Someone has to.”

Bonus prompt: write about this stand of pine trees lost to the waves from the perspective of the one tree that remains on the beach. Or write whatever this photo inspires.

Good luck.

Humanitarian—Prompts Inspired by Dr. Khawla Badwan

This is a powerful poem about the genocide occurring in Gaza. It is hard not to write of the horrors but is difficult to do so in a way without speaking over the people who need to be heard. So while it is not my story to tell, it is important to share the stories of the people living through these horrors.

For the first prompt, reflect on how the terms “humanitarian” and “aid” are used in an imposed famine. What other terms have likewise been inverted to the point of absurdity or were created to obscure facts? Even syntax deliberately misleads, such as the ridiculous passive voice used bombing or in the US for police officers attacking and murdering civilians and ICE kidnapping and trafficking residents. Newspaper headlines should provide solid examples of propaganda and Orwell’s “newspeak” for a poem or story especially as the U.S. slides further into fascism.

For the second prompt, choose a newspaper article about a targeted group in the U.S. or one abroad for an erasure poem. Cross out any phrases or sentences that originate from the perspective of a more powerful group. What words are left? Or, conversely, cross out statements, words, or even letters—remembering to not add anything—to show the missing viewpoint if you are part of that targeted group or can do so carefully if you are not. It is easy to cause harm even with the best of intentions.

The next prompt is write a story, poem, or essay about a specific event in your life or from your family history that has been either suppressed or distorted. A variation on this prompt is to structure the narrative by filling in the gaps or replacing the euphemisms in an obituary.

Good luck.

Pride—Poems Inspired by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

This is a poem I read years ago and loved. It is perfect for defiantly celebrating the first day of June under a fascist regime.

For the first prompt, write your own origin myth for a story or poem, connecting a part of the nature or the creation of the universe to your own life. Claim the moon or a planet, a mountain, an ocean, the jet stream, or the first drop of rain in a drought.

The second prompt is to write your experience of coming out, if you have one, as if explaining a natural phenomenon in a science class in an essay, story or poem.

The third prompt is to use the line “Do you believe in the power of not listening” as your title or as a ghostline, erasing the line after you finish writing the poem or story or as your title. For either path, remember to credit the poet for your inspiration. The line would work well for a list poem.

For the last prompt, write about survival and resiliency and outliving those who want the world to be as rigid and small and narrow and cruel as they are.

Happy Pride. Good luck writing and have fun.

Prompts Inspired by Alice Notley

The poetry community lost the powerful voice of Alice Notley. She profoundly influenced so many and will be missed.

For the first prompt, create a scene of you (or a character) walking toward someone.

The second prompt is to write a poem or story using the following words: “alive,” “bare,” “shoulders,” “shell,” “ruffled,” “translucent,” “transparent,” “empties” and “air,” trying to change the usage from verb to noun or vice versa.

The third is to use the first line, “When I was alive,” as a ghostline or as your title, giving credit to the poet.

The next prompt is a writing exercise: rewrite the poem, replacing the nouns with your own. Now see if there is a line that calls out to you. If so, that line will be the first line of a poem.

For another prompt, write a list poem of the things you’ve meant to tell someone but never did.

The last prompt is to choose either poem and write a response to it, either an essay or poem.

Good luck. Write what you need to write.

“where/extinct and extant split everything”—Prompts Inspired by Rose McLarney

I hope you are all surviving the disasters and destruction of democracy. It is particularly now that I find myself reaching for poems and stories for solace. Despite the loss central in the poem, the language and imagery in Rose McLarney’s “Fossils Aren’t Found in Appalachia” are so beautiful that I am pulled out of my own worries.

For the first prompt, take a pair of words similar in sound and/or spelling but contrasting in meaning and build a poem around that relationship.

The second prompt is to use “What we have to study of history” as a ghostline for a story or poem, using the line as the starting point and erasing it afterwards but remembering to credit the poet.

The third prompt is to write a story or poem about an object given to the narrator or a character from a loved one lost to time or death. The poem’s use of “room-filling light” and “animates” is so powerful placed before “lifted from the box,” “long lain” and “buried.” Gorgeous language.

For the next, write a poem or story using the following word list: “fossil,” “extant,” “gradation,” “lingering,” “ache,” “lifts,” “animates,” “remains,” “downstream,” “buoyant” and “together.” Or read the poem aloud, and write down the words that resonate for you. Notice the skilled use of alliteration and assonance (for example, “l” and long “a” sounds and later “s”).

For the last prompt, write about what is carried within your body; what stories does it hold?

Bonus prompt: write about a poem, story or essay whatever this image inspires.

Good luck writing! Have compassion for yourself.

“Neuroses and Camaraderie”—Life and Writing Prompts Inspired by Rachel Lauren Myers

OMG, sometimes a poem just hits, and “Alternate Game Plan” by Rachel Lauren Myers certainly did. I need this poem on a t-shirt, as a reply to last month’s credit card bill, as the Ars Poetica I wish I’d written.

Ok, first prompt, write your own ars poetica. Bonus points if you reference clowns, cartoons, and/or cursed objects. For more discussion about the form and some sample poems, check out the American Academy of Poets website, https://poets.org/glossary/ars-poetica.

The second prompt is to write a story or poem based around “Build a hilltop of cursed” or “A temple to mediocrity.”

One of the aspects I love about this poem is its ability to so effectively combine conversational language with literary devices. Notice the repetition of the short “i” sound, especially in the lower third of the poem, and the “s” in “Listen: if this all goes to tits we’ll skip.” By randomly interspersing rhyming words (or slant rhymes) among lines rather than placing at the line’s end and escalating the repetition, the poem keeps building momentum without sacrificing surprise: “shit,” “manuscript,” “lit,” “relit,” “skits,” “it” and “tits” and the repetition of “Let them laugh at us.” For the third prompt, borrow a phrase from a friend and let that be the central message of your poem or story.

The next prompt is to write a poem or story using the following word list: “closing,” “dismount,” “address, “trust,” “cherry,” “asteroid,” “hilltop,” “temple,” “oil,” “hacks” and “laugh.”

For another prompt, write an essay or poem about what your characters have given up.

Write a list poem about what you will do if you someone laughs at your writing.

The last prompt is to base a poem or story on a similar structure: begin by addressing someone else about a shared worry or insecurity, include a description of spilling or dropping something or other clumsy/forgetful moment, and end on an assurance about the original concern.

Bonus prompt: write a poem or story based on the photograph I took in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Good luck writing! Have fun and support each other; times are hard.

Body for Writing—Prompt by Han VanderHart

I am still working on a longer prompt but wanted to get one out this weekend, so here is a great prompt by a poet I very much admire, Han VanderHart.

Bonus prompt: write an essay, poem or story that works in one or more of common phrases that include the word “body” in them and juxtapose the phrase(s) to the experience of your own body, its location, interactions and value in the world. Here is a list that you can look through to see what clicks for you: “body politic,” “body count,” “body double,” “body check,” “body bag,” “body pillow,” “body of evidence,” “body of work,” “body of water,” “beach body,” “mind and body,” “body and soul,” “the body of the email,” “bodybuilding” and “body shop.”

For a variation on this prompt, take one of the common “body of (something)” phrases and reimagine its parts. For example, what would the physical parts of a “body of work” be? How would they function and what are their vulnerabilities?

Bonus bonus prompt: what objects—whether found or gathered or constructed—would you rebuild yourself with? What parts of yourself would you keep?

Good luck writing! Have fun!