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Writing Prompts, Poetry Forms, News and Book Reviews
Hi everybody! Just wanted to invite you to hear me Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, Angela Narciso Torres, Jesenia Chávez and me at Gatsby Books (5535 E Spring St, Long Beach)! Come listen to Adrian read from his most recent book and from his other collections. I am excited to hear him, Jesenia, and Angela!
I hope to see you!
Celebrate World Poetry Day by reading poets from around the world. It’s important to support your local poetry community and learn from its members, but don’t forget to explore new perspectives and new techniques.
For your prompt, read the selection of poems at the Academy of American Poets site and write a response to one of the poems. Be sure to credit the original poem that inspired you, especially if you use a line from it as a ghostline.
Bonus prompt: discover new poets and analyze their techniques. Try one of their forms they’ve perfected or particular style.
Happy reading and writing!
This week’s prompts are inspired by Paul Tran’s “Let me be clear./Inside this story is another story” from their All the Flowers Kneeling, shared by Victoria Chang whose book Barbie Chang is one you should check out.
For the first prompt, write a sonnet about your language choices, or be truly ambitious and write a sonnet crown in a modified terza rima. I found this interview with the poet in Electric Literature fascinating.
For the second prompt, use the line “Inside this story is another story” as a ghostline. For an added constraint, reference another story within the poem. Look into the “box” of the story.
For a third prompt, think what your purpose is and lead the poem up to explaining what that purpose is.
The fourth prompt is another ghostline: take the line “Behind the door is another door” and describe the room within. Or use the line “Behind the door is another door as your title (crediting the poet) and jump into an immediate description.
These prompts of course reflect my own obsession with boxes—the ones others place us in as well as the boxes we trap ourselves and the gaps between the boxes inside boxes.
I know that I have a previous ars poetica prompt, but I so love this poem: its depth, the lack of pretension, its humanity. I have written a few, but most of them are self-deprecating, one of them even titled arse poetica. But this poem is truly lovely.
For the first prompt, write your own ars poetica. Keep to a single image, unrelated to actual writing techniques and paraphernalia. Let it open up to your own life and hopes.
For the next prompt, use the line “Everywhere I go” as a ghostline and say what you have left of yourself.
Like many of you, I am following events and spend evenings doomscrolling. It’s not productive nor helpful, but impossible to look away, and I am afraid if I were to close my eyes to events, people will try to tell me it never happened. We’ve been lied to so much, so often. Remembering becomes an act of defiance.
These next poems are inspired by Boris Khersonsky’s “They Printed in the Medical History.”
For the first prompt, choose a number that represents a significant period of time for you. Connect that number to your own life or a historical event and end by alluding to a passage or event in a religious text.
For the second prompt, use the structure of the line “It was a time of hybrid hospitals. Now is a time of hybrid war.” but replace “hospitals” and “war” with your own nouns. Remember to give credit to the poet.
For the third prompt, use the last line “because they don’t exist” as a ghostline, erasing the line after you’ve finished the poem. Again, remember to acknowledge the poet by using “after Boris Khersonsky” under your title.
For the last prompt, write what you were told never happened. No matter how small or seemingly insignificant, write it down for yourself. Keep these records. Don’t let anyone take your history away.
Some poems are terrifying: “The Mother” by Lydia Davis for example. Notice how the poem is a story that builds intensity with its simple language and repetition. It has the feel of a children’s book like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie but for homicidal mothers instead of a demanding (but adorable) mouse.
For the first prompt, write a narrative prose poem that portrays a scene between parent and child.
For the next prompt, use the pattern of a line of action followed by a line of dialogue. Try writing it one one or more stanzas and then revise it into a prose poem. What changes? Which form works best for it?
For the third prompt, Mad Lib this poem by replacing all the verbs and nouns, but do not allow yourself to repeat any of the verbs.
For the last prompt, use “But how much better if it were a real house” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and acknowledge the poet.
For years, I struggled most with line breaks. I know I have improved now that I second guess as much with other parts of the poem (or regressed in other skills, hard to say). So much of progress seems to be retracing steps and back pedaling assumptions.
Thankfully, so many writers share their insights and poems (their own or of others) for me to learn from.
Something that stood out for me was how the interplay of the last word of the lines—“yesterday” followed by “backs” and then “tomorrow,” the logical connection of “circulation” and “blood,” but the contrast between “round” and “edge” and ending on “now” after “mistakenly.”
Those ending words themselves are a story (carried along on the lines of course but could themselves create meaning. For the first prompt, write a poem from the last word from each line and of the title but in reverse order or in a different sequence from the poem: “now,” “mistakenly,” “time,” “edge,” “round,” “water,” “past,” “blood,” “circulation,” “tomorrow,” “backs,” “yesterday,” “anything,” “forth,” and “gulf.”
What I also loved about the poem (ok, one of many things) is the motion. I felt the rocking back and forth in that initial “so forth,” the forward momentum and then that abrupt stop at “edge” before falling into the next line and finally ending on the swaying “only here. only now.”
Of course, John McCullough explains this so much better than I could:
For the next writing prompt, take a poem that just isn’t working for you and break the lines so that you have a momentum that pauses and then rushes forward. If possible, try to revise the title so that it continues into the first line.
Choose a poem that’s content fits the movement; obviously, time, oceans and rivers all work well. Let the form reflect the metaphor: time as a road with the travelers moving atop it, or the river rushing past and splashing the stones submerged in it. What other themes would mesh equally well with the movement: birthing, breathing, falling into a kiss, a falling out of a relationship, stalking, dancing.
For the next prompt, use the line “every day someone is standing on the edge” as a ghostline. Remember to acknowledge the poet with “After Lucille Clifton” for this poem.
So I am simply taking this prompt from Amy Watkins as is: “What do you love, right at this moment?” Write that and let those who love you know.
Just returned from Mississippi, where I felt as if I were trying to swim through molasses. I am not productive at home and seem to be even less on vacation…yikes.
But the new year has begun, and it is not a kindly one so far. More of the same. I am approaching this year on tiptoes and with my fingers to my lips.
My daughter of course chooses the opposite approach.
For the first prompt, write about your approach to the year. Will 2022 be cat lounging in a beam of sunlight, a china shop, or a raging bull?
The next prompts are inspired by Kate Baer’s “New Year.”
For the next prompt, take the first line, “Look at it, cold and wet like a” but choose another noun, not a newborn. Use this as your jumping off point. You can use this modified line as ghostline, erasing it, or keep as your opening line. Regardless, make sure to credit the poet.
The third prompt is a ghostline: use part of the last line, “It only wants to live” and describe how it (the year or something else) wants to live. What does living mean to you or to the subject.
For the last prompt, write a sonnet for the year to come using the description and language for a lover rather than that of a newborn.
Nature vs man (or man’s footwear), mythology, and metaphor, let’s have some fun.
For the first prompt, write a persona poem from the croc (your choice). Are you carrying your namesake to safety (or being carried), or are you displaying the trophy from your recent battle (or are the trophy)? For fun, throw in references to mythology.
For the next prompt, center the poem around another homonym pair (or multiple homonyms), such as “stalk” (follow) vs “stalk” (part of a plant) or “tire” (wheel) vs “tire” (fatigue). Or expand to heterographs (words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings), such as “bear” and “bare,” and heteronyms (words with different meanings and pronunciations but are spelled the same), such as “tear” (moisture in the eyes) and “tear” (to rip).
For the last prompt, take a famous painting such as Francisco de Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son and reimagine it with a modern photo. Write an ekphrastic poem of that photo but use the original artwork’s title.
If you need some inspiration, check out people’s recreations of famous paintings during the early stages of the pandemic here. The photo below was posted on Reddit.
Happy holidays!
Let’s celebrate another year with rising infection rates and denial because 2020 just won’t leave the building. Or at least try to write.
I love the poet’s parody of William Carlos Williams and the personification of the virus. For more information on Amber Sparks’ writing and events, check out the website.
While many people are justifiably tired of the pandemic and the resulting poems, go ahead write another because most of us have at least a few my-ex-is-an-ass poems. Add another.
For the first prompt, write a persona poem on anything related to the pandemic: isolation, grief, loss, masks, particular phrases or statistics. I will never forget how powerfully Patricia Smith’s personification of Hurricane Katrina in her Blood Dazzler affected me.
For the second prompt, write your own version of “This Is Just To Say.” I thoroughly enjoyed that not-too-distant viral spate of its parodies on Twitter.
For the next prompt, write an epistolary poem (a poem written as a letter) to a lover. What tone do you choose?
For the last prompt, write a hopeful poem about the coming year. Focus on the light reflecting on the water, tree leaning over the rock as if to whisper an endearment. Never mind the skull spray painted on the rock. It’s a poem for the light and water and the rustle of leaves.
So this month has not gone well. Family emergencies and unplanned out-of-state travel certainly do not make me more productive… But there is much to be grateful for. Even in decay, there is beauty; in a fall, movement and a change in perspective. I see the brilliance of the stars much clearer lying on the ground.
Here is another amazing poem by Danez Smith (whose most recent book is Don’t Call Us Dead), posted by the fabulous poet, Tara Skurtu (most recent book The Amoeba Game). Check out their websites for links to their poetry and other projects: Danez Smith and Tara Skurtu.
For the first prompt, use the first line “let ruin end here” as ghostline. Remember to erase the line after finishing your poem and give credit to the poet.
For an exercise prompt, replace every noun and/or verb in the poem with its opposite. For example, change the first line to something like “Forbid rebirth a beginning there / Forbid them vinegar.” This would be just an exercise: the resulting poem would be too much like its inspiration, but this is a good process to keep practicing.
The last prompt is another ghostline: use the lines “let him enter the lion’s cage & find” as the jumping off point for your own poem.
Good luck and keep writing.
Celebrate the holiday by writing scary and/or magical poems!
For the first prompt, write your own origin story as a witch or monster or magical creature. Make it as realistic as possible.
For the next prompt, use the line “and then — magic powers. It’s not like you think” as a ghostline. Or choose a substitute for “magic powers.” Regardless, remember to erase the line and give credit to the poet for the inspiration.
And for the final prompt—another ghostline—write a poem that describes the “what being asked to step out of life and into” is.
Twitter and the poets active on it are the gift that keep giving for slackers like myself. Btw, Eduardo C. Corral is an amazing poet. I loved his book Slow Lightning, and his next book Guillotine is on my Christmas list.
For the first prompt, write a poem about how we see what we want to exist in the world. Bonus points if you refer to optical illusions or that Twitter dress controversy—blue and black or white and gold.
For the second prompt, the horse with blanket is Batman. Write a poem about this caped crusader and his oats.
For the next prompt, write a poem from the following nouns in “Cayucos”: “net,” “color,” “coast,” “punt,” “scents” “ball,” “wax,” “shadow,” “tar,” and “honey” but as verbs.
For another prompt, use the etymology of a word—how it traveled from one land to another—to carry the poem onward.
For the final prompt, use the line “Day after day spent shaping” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line after writing the poem and give credit to the poet.
I again am behind on prompts but will try to catch up as I slowly adjust to my new work schedule, but as usual poets on Twitter have provided poems to enthrall me and make me want to share prompts.
For the first prompt, use the poem’s first line “Cruelty made me” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and give the poet credit for the inspiration.
Or choose another emotion or other abstract noun and start the poem with that line. Again, erase the line and acknowledge the poet through “after Linda Gregg” below your title. You may want to use your title to name that emotion.
For the second prompt, again use a line from the poem for a ghostline, but this time use the last line “Heaven forbid that I should be saved” as the jumping off point for a list poem of the reasons you do not deserve salvation.
For both prompts, experiment with the prose poem form and with stanzas. What shifts when you change to couplets or quatrains? Which forms works best for the material? Try to articulate to yourself why. (I often have difficulty explaining why something “works” or doesn’t, so this is an instruction for myself.)
For the last prompt, write a poem using imagery of death and rot but use them as justification for deserving mercy, that we all—all living creatures—deserve mercy while we can feel its softness.
Although I didn’t know her personally, I was saddened to hear of the passing of Kamilah Aisha Moon. She will be profoundly missed by so many.
I chose two poems that friends of hers (also incredible poets) shared. You can read more of her poems and her prose at her website.
For the first prompt, write a poem in which the first two lines are repeated as the last, but alter the meaning through careful punctuation or emphasis.
For the second prompt, use “It would be now when you feel” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line after writing the poem and giving credit to the poet.
This is such a beautiful poem. For the third prompt, use personification to make an emotion or abstract concept real and breathing. Give it life and agency.
For the fourth prompt, write a poem using the following words from “To a Dear Friend Mothering Misery”: “precious,” “life-long,” “sing,” “heartbeat,” “warmth,” “setting,” “place,” “adore,” “grow” and “home” but make it a poem of homecoming and joy, of finding the place where you belong and are not alone.
For the last prompt, write a poem using the phrase “Leave it be” as a ghostline and write a list poem of what you must let go or leave to its (or her/his/their) own choices and consequences.
Good luck and best wishes.
As always, I am grateful to poets sharing their favorite poems. “The Committee Weighs In” by Andrea Cohen is an amazing poem, and the ending a gut punch.
For the first prompt, use “It’s a little game / we play: I pretend” as a ghostline. Remember to erase those lines and acknowledge the poet.
For the second prompt, write a poem that begins with a snippet of dialogue between you and another and have the rest of the poem provide the underlying context. Leave something to guess.
In that same Twitter thread, another Andrea Cohen poem was shared: “Refusal to Mourn.”
So much said in so few words!
For the last prompt, write a poem in four lines or less. If necessary, write a longer poem and cut down to its heart. Use the title to help guide the reader.
Good luck!
This photo may sum up life as we now know it. Write an ekphrastic poem. Bonus points if you use “razzle dazzle” or “Hello, My Baby” or cartoon dancing frogs.
I can never unsee this.
Yes, the song IS stuck in my head…and now yours.
So today is Labor Day, a holiday meant to be celebrated by taking time off, but of course here it is a day in which some employees must work so that others can relax. Telling, that it is also the same day that the unemployment extension ends because nothing says workers are valued quite like forcing them to return to jobs without living wages, sick leave or health insurance in a pandemic.
Work itself becomes our sole value in a society in which purpose and others’ profits are intertwined and even our own identity fades into a job title.
The first prompt is inspired by Marge Piercy’s “The Secretary Chant.” Write a poem in which your body has transformed into your current job, or a former one. Are the lines on your forehead rows in a spreadsheet or rows of corn? Is your mouth a name tag and each hand a styrofoam cup? Try to incorporate onomatopoeia as the poet did.
For the second prompt, write a prose poem about the process of transforming into a cubicle or a screen. Do you resist, or is it a relief to slip into all that beige wall and carpet or an email inbox?
The next prompts are inspired by Gary Snyder’s “Hay for the Horses.”
For the next prompt, use the line “I sure would hate to do this all my life” as a ghostline. Remember to delete the line and credit the poet with your inspiration.
For another prompt, write about a task from your first job and what you do now, either as paid work or the unpaid labor of childcare and housework.
For the last prompt, describe your hands or another part of your body that aches or suffers bruises or cuts after a day at work.
It’s strange how the bones are indistinguishable from the rocks in the picture, but not in person.
Since I just started a new position at work and am always behind even on a normal day, I am weeks behind here even though a writer I respect wrote up her revision technique and even provided photos. This delay is a whole new level of lazy for me, but you all now get to enjoy learning Kristen’s revision technique without waiting any longer!
***
Revision Technique—Cutting Up
by Kristen Baum DeBeasi
Here’s a technique I used to revise a poem that was mired in too muchness. My first draft lacked focus. Its title was one thing, while its subject was another thing and the idea that emerged was a third, somewhat messy thing. But I wanted this poem to work. I wanted to pay tribute to my high school English teacher, who was the original inspiration for the poem.
So, based on a recent workshop prompt (given by Moon Tide Press’s Eric Morago) I went to work.
My first step was to reformat the poem, setting the document to double space and the letter size to approximately 16 (if you try this, use your discretion). You may like slightly larger or smaller letters depending on line length or other variables). For me, I chose a letter size comparable to the size on my fridge magnet words (which I also use to create poems, but that’s another story) so I could easily read them without needing to be too close.
Next, I printed the entire poem and cut it into words and word-groups. I chose to preserve some phrases while separating others, based on their meaning in the original poem and how much or little I wanted to preserve that idea vs. allow the idea to evolve in my creative play.
Once everything was cut into single words or into word-groups, I set to work arranging and re-arranging, working first in small sections toward the direction I knew I wanted in the poem—Mr. Mortensen. I chose to work on photos from the Upper Peninsula, as that’s where I had attended high school, so the visual inspiration was in the same vicinity as the poem’s meaning and subject.
I kept playing, trying to include phrases then taking them out. Eventually, I arrived at the point where I thought I wanted a couple of words that hadn’t existed in the previous version of the poem, so I wrote them in bright pink and added them to the mix:
There were parts that no longer fit the larger poem and, for fun, I experimented with creating smaller poems of them.
Finally, after photographing the results, I typed the new version of the poem, adding and refining punctuation. Further revision resulted in eliminating the two lines following “And for what, Mort?” as unnecessary.
Here’s the final result of this revision.
Mr. Mortensen
as best he can he works
at the desk, the beaten
visibly slumped rayon trousers
his olive green, graying
socks hitched up
him, imparting
prepositional phrases, predicates
as the dealer of subjects,
his face glucose dimmed,
protracting from his brilliance
and he works to stay in that
one-blinking-light town.
and for what, Mort?
even as I read, eyes open,
my thirst would say, take
what you can and run
that light
—the blinking yellow—
would tell me
take caution
intolerance
finds you,
the outside world
showing itself
The original poem, before this process was:
Blinking Yellow
In my thirst for poetry I read
of subjects, predicates, prepositional phrases.
Even as I grope for their meanings
I remember the long ago classroom—
those melamine desks to fold into,
the asbestos-tiled floors, the beaten
teacher desk Mr. Mortensen sat behind,
his face to the windows, we students an army
of unrule between him and the outside world.
His olive-green rayon trousers hitched up
so his graying socks visibly slumped
more with each class, each mass of unruliness
before him, imparting English to the ones
who wouldn’t ever move and to the few
who weren’t meant to stay in that
one-blinking-light town. Take caution,
that light would say, telling highwaymen
to slow a bit, eyes open for pretty girls walking
in twos or threes during lunch period, or
take what you can—it’s all for sale, as the dealer sign says.
And Mort, at the desk, one massive leg beneath
The middle drawer, the other showing itself
It could still do math—a forty-five degree angle
Protracting from his torso. His brilliance dimmed
by glucose. Intolerance finds you wherever you are.
And he works to prepare each student as best he can
For what lies in store.
Take what you can. And run.
***
To read more of Kristen’s writing and to discover her music, check out her website and her SoundCloud and follow her on Facebook and Twitter at @kbaum12. She is awesome, and I hope you get the opportunity to join her in a workshop as I have gotten to do!
