CPSC.gov Gives a Wild Ride—Prompts

So I normally think of our government agencies as stodgy, and then I discovered the Twitter account of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission…and my world upended.

The first prompt is an ekphrastic challenge. Write what you see. Include some interpretation if you prefer. Best wishes.

For the second prompt, write a monologue from the person/anthropomorphic cat/unknowable entity in charge of this Twitter account. Or if that is too difficult, write a poem simply describing the cubicle and desk of this person/fox-knight kitty/alien creature.

Btw, you too can follow @USCPSC on Twitter.

Bonus prompt: describe hanging out with your Enchanted Scorpion. What movies do the two of you binge?

Please do one of these prompts and share. Would LOVE to read your poem!

Good luck!

A New Grief Walks into a Bar—Prompts Inspired by Laura Eve Engel

These next prompts are inspired by Laura Eve Engel’s “My New Grief,” shared by Sam Sax. For the first prompt, use the first line of the poem “If there is new grief” as a ghostline. Don’t forget to erase the line after you’ve finished the poem (does that ever happen?) and give credit to the poet.

For the next prompt, make a list of griefs or fears. Which is the newest? Write a poem in which the new grief or sorrow meets your old, familiar worries/sorrows for drinks or for coffee. What do they talk about? Which one dominates the conversation? Which others give away and listen respectfully? Who pays the bill; do they divide it equally? Which tips the most? Which leaves first?

For the last prompt, make a list of things you did not do. Use “like it’s something I own” as your title.

Pick Your Quarantine House—Prompt

For this prompt, choose one of the following as your haven during this pandemic. Make even the house’s drawback a benefit—the bedbugs sing lullabies to you at night, the ghosts help you find your phone and your slippers, the ass is an excellent cook, and you enjoy freedom from news and animal requests.

Bonus prompt: Make one of the quarantine houses your setting for a short story. Create characters (between 3-5) and have them interact under stress.

Write a Poem for Your Loved—Prompt

I received some sad news. So the prompt for tonight is this: write a poem for a family member to let that person know how much you love them. That is all we can do.

I wish you and everyone you love life without sickness or ending or pain.

Fear and Spiders, Divided Houses, Oh My!!!—the Muff-Up-a-Quote and Ecstasy Cat Prompts

Take a famous quote and muff it all up. Let that be the first line of your poem, or make it a ghostline and erase it afterwards. Here are some examples from Twitter—from where I usually steal things.

Here are some more suggestions:

“Nattering Nabobs of Negativism” is brought to you by the letter “N”! Give it up everyone for the Spiro Agnew, man who really put the ass in assonance.

“I am not not a crook”

“I know Jack.” You know jackshit. [You’re no Jack Kennedy]

“Speak softly and carry a big stick and sail a motherfucking fleet right up in there.” Or drive a really big truck. Same thing.

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman”. Or that one. Or that one. Yep, maybe that one. No, no, the other one.

And another stolen idea from Twitter:

And if the prompt above doesn’t spark anything, here is another stolen-Twitter prompt: write a poem with “Science Diagrams That Look Like Shitposts” as the title. Or write a poem explaining what boomsday prepper is.

And for the final bonus prompt: write a poem answering this question but specifically addressing the explanation to this particular cat. Like WTH is up with that cat.

Good luck!

Short Poems to the Rescue—Prompts

So we’re deep into 30/30, and we’ve been writing diligently and the words are scattering like ants in a mowed over mound, or you are so behind that you need to add another civilization’s calendar to catch up. Either way, short poems can save the hour, the month, or the decade…

For this prompt, think about what you have recently learned from isolation, the pandemic, parenting, capitalization. What has surprised you, disappointed, or inspired you?

Write a haiku or tanka (traditional or modified) using the following as the first line (or altered for syllable count if you wish to follow the 5-7-5 or 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure):

________ taught me

Go from there.

For the second prompt, write a poem about a short poetic form’s structure using that form. Perhaps the best sample poem ever written was by this 5th grader:

You (we) can do this! Pebbles believes in us.

Good luck! Head scratches for all!

Earth Day—Prompts

Today is Earth Day, so time to write odes or any other praise poem for the Earth. Write to your mother. She cradled you into this life and will carry your ashes into the next eon.

Of course William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” is a famous example. For more inspiration, read W. Todd Kaneko’s “Where the Sky Meets the Earth.”

But like any mother, the Earth was a lover first. Flirt a little. Write her a sex poem. The photo below may provide you the impetus.

And here is the origin of Earth Day because we all need creation stories. For a final prompt, write your own origin story. Make yourself a planet. What lives within you, orbits you moonlike, and holds you in place?

Good luck!

Wear the Insults of Your Enemies as a Second Skin—Prompt

We have all had insults flung at us, suffered bruised pride and emotional scars, but hid the pain. Remember though, we survived. That is cause for celebration, for a salute to ourselves in the mirror, for our own Roman triumph down the sidewalks of our dusty old hometown.

Wear that thick scar tissue as if it were the skins of our enemies, carry every day forward as if it were the severed head of the playground bully who pulled up our skirts or pushed us down in the mud. We have earned this stiff-necked, limping parade, and we will beat our own drumming hearts through this day and the next and the next.

For this prompt, take an insult that burned you, but make it the light that guided you through the dark. For inspiration, read or listen to “Lisp” by Sam Sax.

You’ve got this.

The Cento—A Prompt

One of my favorite poetry forms is the cento, which is composed of lines from other poems or pieces of writing. Click here for a description of the form’s origin as well as sample poems provided by the American Academy of Poets.

One reason I like the cento so much is that I practiced it in a Poetry Lab workshop guest hosted by Natalie J. Graham whose writing and teaching style I so admire. In the workshop, each of us drew a number that determined the page from which we selected the line from the stack of books passed around.

Another reason the cento is a favorite of mine is that it works as an editing exercise, helping to develop surprising connections from disparate elements and forcing writers to cut and rearrange until lines fit together. In a subsequent workshop, I was amazed by how much each poet’s cento sounded like the poet even though all of the lines were written by others.

For this prompt, gather a stack of ten or so books. It is probably easier to use all poetry books for the first time, but you can include novels of any genre, collections of short stories, memoirs, or even textbooks if you wish. For these as well as for poems with longer lines, especially prose poems, you will need to cut the line down so that it fits with the other lines chosen.

Roll dice to determine the page number (try to choose a number that will generally fall between a table of contents and the acknowledgments). If one book is much shorter than the rest, choose the last page with a poem, and if a particular page is blank or only has a section heading, choose the next closest page containing a poem.

Make sure to record the poem (author and book too) so that this can be included for later publications. Some editors may want to verify that the lines come from multiple sources, and you should include this information in your own acknowledgments section.

Some poets create entire collections out of centos, often under one unifying theme. I haven’t been able to find an available copy Diana Arterian’s Death Centos, composed of people’s last words, but I absolutely loved Simone Muench’s Wolf Centos, especially the poem below:

Two Penguins—A Prompt

This prompt is inspired by a photograph and story tweeted about two penguins. Write a poem from the point of view of one of the penguins.

That is all. Good luck.

Origin Story—Prompt

Using tweet below as inspiration, write your own origin story. Make your creation glow rainbow bright, as neon-lit night or radioactive. Weave some truth to hold the tale together. Have fun!

Bonus prompt: If your own birth and history are already well documented by renowned historians or by relatives on Facebook, create an origin story for a well-known fictional character or historical person. Wrong answers earn extras credit.

This Subtweet Is So Under the Radar, It is a Basement—Prompt for the Discreetly Annoyed

We all have friends, family members, and coworkers who drive us batshit crazy at times, especially as the family members are now temporary coworkers. HR cannot deal with a teenager, and performance evaluations mean nothing to toddlers. We cannot live without them, but we are really tired of living with them. Or perhaps it’s that friend who is so thirsty, Niagara Falls would dry up after a conversation. What to do?

You need to vent, but the one bathroom is the only room with a lock and the most happening place in the house, or perhaps the people you vent to are the ones you want to vent about. Awkward! You could write an utterly satisfying rant poem, but then you cannot ever share it. So tell the truth, but tell it slant as one famous self-quarantined poet once said.

For this prompt, make one list of five garden pests and a second list of four annoying things coworkers do (e.g. never chipping in for creamer, talking loudly on the phone, leaning over your shoulder to check on your productivity, etc.) but include the thing that is most driving you nuts. Mix and match, add predators, bug zappers, and lawn mowers. Get creative. Or vicious. Have fun!

Good luck!

Here is my coworker climbing the walls, so apparently I am the annoying one. If I disappear, look for my body in the hall closet hatch…

Juno in Love—Ekphrastic prompts

Use the following photos of Jupiter as inspiration. Throw in mythology if you like or astronomy or the metaphysical. For more photos, check out Jessica Stewart’s article “NASA Releases Stunning Hi-Res Photos of Jupiter’s Swirling Atmosphere.”

For a second prompt, write a love poem from Juno to Jupiter. Or a sex poem. You do you…or a giant planet if that’s your thing. Here are more photos from NASA

Explain the World That Does Not Exist But Should—Prompts

I am so tired of the circling of helicopters. I would much prefer the circling of finches and dragonflies.

Your prompt for the day is to start with the line “The thing is” and finish with one of the following tweets from Magic Realism Bot.

Good luck to us all.

Shoppers, Clerks and the Lady Offering Corndog Samples Next to the Cheese Aisle, Lend Me Your Ears, errr, or Hands—Prompts

More stolen prompts but now due to user error rather than technical difficulties… Below is a prompt from The Poetry Society. This prompt seems simple, but often the challenge is picking the character and circumstance.

Here are a couple of steps that might help. Make a list of five famous people or characters. Just write down the first five that pop into your head. Now write down five ordinary places that you (previously) went to regularly, such as the post office or dentist’s office. If you want, be very specific: e.g., the McDonald’s on Bryan Ave., the Jiffy Lube on Harbor Blvd., etc.

For a second prompt: write a monologue from a puppet, either from a Muppet or a random puppet, but cut the strings and remove the stage: set the monologue anywhere other than a theater or show.

Photo (and additional information about the Muppet) found on the Muppet Fandom Wiki

This puppet was at a poetry reading….she did not speak, nor walk on her own (thankfully).

Belated Easter prompts!

More technical difficulties occurred, so here is your very belated prompt:

Write a poem from either a peep’s point of view or the T-rex’s.

Second prompt: stage a peep fight and record the battle. Arm two peeps with toothpicks and place them a couple of inches apart in the microwave. Cook for 30 or so seconds. You may want to decrease power by 50%

Have fun, peeps!

Show, Don’t Tell—Prompts Inspired by Javier Zamora

We have all heard the advice “show, don’t tell”—and some of us may even give this advice too. Javier Zamora’s “Dancing in Buses” is an amazing poem that demonstrates that adage perfectly.

So now you have an example, try to create your own poem that needs no exposition. Perhaps write the movements of a lover turning away and closing the door. Include no dialogue or even expressions; just the actions. See where it takes you.

For the second prompt, write a poem using the following words “boom,” “shoulder,” “hands” “right,” “orange,” “sweep,” “ladle,” “breathe,” “ground,” and “mouth” but don’t shift to a fearful tone. If you can do so without paraphrasing the original, go ahead, but it may be extremely difficult.

For a third prompt, use the line “Look at the ground” as a ghostline. See what direction you go (pun intended, sorry).

For more great poems, check out Javier Zamora’s website.

As always, give credit to the poet for your inspiration. Good luck!

Redundancies, Repetition and Refrains—Let’s Repeat This One More Time

We all do the same tasks over and over—some necessary; others not so much. Here is your chance to structure a poem around the repetition of the task that organizes your day—try to choose a particularly irrelevant one, such as checking and rechecking that the doors are locked, the coffee pot is turned off, etc. Use that task as the refrain in your poem.

Bonus prompt: write a sestina that uses the words above.

Good luck!

Murders and Mirrors—Prompts Inspired by Kelli Russell Agodon

As some have noticed, I have a thing about birds—a lot of my poems feature birds, especially crows and ravens, and murder—so of course I fell in love with this poem by Kelli Russell Agodon whose poetry has always resonated with me. Click here to listen to read it (I will try to provide more audio links).

For the first prompt, take the first line “The night sounds like murder” but change the last word to a holiday or other celebration. Or if you wish, go through the poem line by line and “mirror the language”—try to use antonyms for the nouns and verbs (“night” to day,” “murder” to “birth,” “hardware to software,” “breakdown” to “make up” and so on. I got this exercise idea from Brendan Constantine. Make sure to give credit to the poet.

For a second prompt, use the following words from the poem: “sounds,” “change,” “days,” “breaks,” “guard,” “hold,” “across,” “bright,” “lighting,” “flock,”

For a third prompt, use “and some days it breaks itself into two” as a ghostline. Don’t forget to erase the line and credit the poet.

Good luck!

Visit That Chair The Cat Vomited On and Other Exotic Destinations—Prompts from Stay the F* Home Travel Posters

Enjoying your extended stay at Chez Home? Perhaps not. Let’s try to pretend a room is an exotic resort that you are lucky to visit. If it helps, turn off all the lights at night and see if you really can navigate your way from the couch to the fridge without at least one dinged shin.

To get us in the right mood, let’s use Jennifer Baer’s travel posters:

For the first prompt, describe the one drooping fern as if it were the entire emerald Amazon forest. Make this poem extravagantly ridiculous. For the kind of tone needed, think of the True Facts YouTube series. Here is the “True Facts: Carnivorous Plants” episode.

For the next prompt, write an ode to your bathroom, either the entire room or perhaps one fixture. After my recent plumbing tribulations, a functioning toilet is the equivalent of a bejeweled throne in value. Long Sit the Queen, er, something like that.

Or bonus prompt: write an ekphrastic poem and really catch the homage paid to toilet paper in this poster.

And for the last prompt, write a synopsis of the last show you watched, but describe only the objects in the scenes, nothing about the people. You could just make this an ekphrastic prompt and describe the living room in a sitcom. Or if you watched a detective show and a murder occurred, you could describe the murder weapon as if it were the leading character. What did it do, where did it go, when was it found, etc.?

Good luck! Have fun on your exciting vacation and poetry escapade!