Blog
Writing Prompts, Poetry Forms, News and Book Reviews
Todd’s instructions will lead to a better poem than many of those I’ve written, so write this. Modify the ingredients as necessary though: name a different music group or list an album, cite a mathematical theorem, and/or describe a moment of shame.
Bonus prompt: use a recent photo you took that contains a reflection of yourself and write an ekphrastic (your image may be indistinct).
Bonus bonus prompt: use this photo for an ekphrastic poem, emphasizing texture.
Good luck with 30/30!
This is the first day of the 30/30 challenge for National Poetry Month and my brain is mush, so here is A poem prompt from Jared Beloff.
Bonus prompt: If you were a plant in a nursery, what would your label be? That is your title. Now go!
Good luck!
Yes, another April is upon us. It is National Poetry Month, full of readings, celebration, and the challenge to write a poem every day for the month. Of course, you can cut off the last half of the month in your calendar, but technically you need to write thirty to win the cash prize (there is no prize except the reward of writing every day).
Check out the official site for this year’s prompts and those from previous years!
Other poets and writing organizations will also be providing prompts, so I will posting links to their websites and events. I will try to post extra prompts, but I will be writing or editing a poem every day (mostly editing since I need to finish my manuscript).
For preparation, here is a bonus prompt: take your favorite poem (or one of your favorites—I can never choose just one) and use for a ghostline its fifth line (or a line somewhere in the center, likely the heart of the poem, whatever line most resonates with you). Remember to erase and credit the poet.
Remember you do not need to write 30 GOOD poems, just 30 poems. That’s why May is the unofficial month of editing (or every month after until the next April). And, if you write one more poem than you usually do in a month or fewer poems but these are ones you are happier with, you have succeeded. I am revising (pun intended) the challenge to include editing older poems, many from previous 30/30s.
The true challenge is just to keep writing and having fun! Good luck!!!
Some of my favorite memories of my daughter are her attempts to rescue insects from drowning or falling. That impulse to save a helpless creature is perhaps what is best in us, or what we wish for ourselves as Daniella Toosie-Watson observes.
The first prompt is to think back to a time when you tried to rescue a creature and describe the event. Once you’ve finished, write from the perspective of the rescued. Intersperse those perspectives. See what happens.
For another prompt, use the line “To reach out and not imagine myself the” and finish it with something other than “God.” Make sure to italicize the line and credit the poet.
For the third prompt, use the first line “I couldn’t let it drown. I ripped off a piece” as a ghostline for the beginning of a poem or short story. Remember to erase the line and credit the poet.
The next prompt is to describe who or what you would save if you were God and how would you do so. The narrower your target probably the better.
This is a photo of a Luna moth I found floating in the Buffalo River on a windy day. I had managed to save a bee earlier, but the moth was already drowned. It was so beautiful I tried to preserve its body and took it home with me.
For your final prompt, write a poem or story about that same impulse, but replace the moth with another creature. See where it takes you (dark, dark places).
Good luck writing!
It is so easy to get caught in our small circles with little exploration of writers in other countries. I certainly am guilty of that. One of the fascinating experiences of getting invited to participate in an international event with poets reading in multiple languages was recognizing the emotion behind a poem even if I did not understand the words. The music spoken carried across continents.
Here is a poem shared by Ilya Kaminsky, whom I admire deeply. I hope you enjoy the poem as much I do.
Good luck writing and reading today!
I often joke about how poor my memory is—that if I were to develop dementia or Alzheimer’s, there’d be no difference. I suppose we must laugh at what we fear if we are to live a moment of peace in the present.
I adore this Marilyn Nelson’s poem—its unexpected imagery and precise language, but most of all, its recognition of the inevitability of age and memory lapses and its adamant refusal to lose the speaker’s beloved.
For the first prompt, write a poem using the line “and something mushrooms from nothing to now” as a ghostline. Remember to delete the line after you’ve finished the poem and give credit to the poet with an “after Marilyn Nelson” or with a similar method.
For the second prompt, write a response to the poem from the perspective of the speaker’s “dear.” Try to respond with a sonnet if you can.
For a third prompt, write a poem or short story using the following word list: “labyrinth,” “mushrooms,” “vapor,” “trace,” “remains,” “cumulus,” “flame,” “oblivion,” “cloud,” and “wave” but try to switch the nouns to verbs and vice versa.
For another prompt, create an erasure poem from an abstract (or the actual article) from a scientific journal. Remember to only delete, not add words or rearrange their order. See what happens.
Bonus prompt: write about clouds however you wish.
Good luck writing!
It can be hard to show how much we care about someone else or understand the trust another has in us. Despite our essential loneliness, we are entangled in one another, and those ties create such beauty and strength. Recently I received a message from a friend that brought me joy. I do not believe I have ever helped her as much as she has helped me, but I am grateful she thinks I have. If I could, I would slip into each nightmare to fight the monsters, find her missing clothes or book report, and catch her as she falls. And she would do the same.
For the first prompt, write a poem or story about a dream in which another person rescued you or brought you comfort, or how you would enter their dreams to rescue them. Try to keep the logic of a dreamworld intact.
The other prompts are inspired by this poem by Tara Skurtu, which is a favorite of mine. I like it so much I may have already used it in a previous post. Perhaps what I love best are the two individual lines—how they create a turn in the poem—and the line breaks: “dead then alive again, twirling” and “Today I did. Walked into your morning / shower.”
For the second prompt, write about a moment when you showed someone how much you loved them. Or write about someone offering you their love and trust. How did you respond?
For the third prompt, use the line “It’s hard to say I need you enough” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and credit the poet for your inspiration. Or you may use the line as your title but still credit Tara Skurtu.
The fourth prompt is to write a new poem or take an old poem and arrange it in couplets but have at least one single line that represents a turn. Experiment with the sonnet form if you like. Often reorganizing a poem into a new form can help with eliminating unnecessary lines or finding the actual heart of poem.
The final prompt is another ghostline (appropriately enough for this line): “And you were gone, like that.”
Good luck writing. And good luck showing how much you love and need the people in your life. Bring them joy.
Today should be a long post filled with multiple prompts, but I am tired, so tonight will be fun prompts taken from Twitter before that platform completely burns down.
For the first prompt, write a story or narrative poem that explains what happened at this Quality Inn. Bonus points if you use the perspective of the raccoon.
I wonder if people from a hundred years from now will look back on us with the same bafflement I look at this badge. Write a story or poem based on this; please explain the tails.
Write a romance or a love poem with the perspective from one of these. You can keep them as cats if you wish.
Now something a little less silly. Consider perspective and position and write a poem or story about looking up, however you interpret that.
Final prompt, write a story or poem based on this photo I took in an antique store. That mannequin is creepy af.
Have fun writing! Good luck!
Perhaps my favorite parts of video games—and the memes they create—are the quotes from NPCs, but I’d never considered how much of an NPC I must be in others’ lives—particularly that of my daughter—until reading this poem by Shane Schick.
For the first prompt, write yourself as an NPC in the video game of another’s life. Write a poem as the inn keeper/healing potion provider/task provider for your children. Bonus credit if you include well-known video game tasks/quests.
For a second prompt, write a poem or essay explaining a familiar comic book or video game character or trope and connect it to your own life (e.g. final boss) as the poet did here.
For the last prompt, write a persona poem or a flash fiction story for a game’s NPC. Choose your favorite. Run wild with your NPC’s backstory and conflict.
And, yes, I like fan fiction. A lot of writers learned their craft writing fan fiction, and writers become writers because they were inspired by others.
Have fun writing an adventure even if that quest line is your own life or set in another’s. Always give credit.
Bonus prompt: write story using this setting.
I am so excited to be included with such talented poets from all over the world!!! The reading will be live at 9pm Bangladesh time, and 7am Pacific, but there will be a recording for anyone wanting to sleep in.
Once again I am turning to poems shared on Twitter for prompts in spite of all the wonderful books of poetry I have at home (too lazy to take a picture, I guess). Btw, I enjoy following Jay Hulme who shares so many great poems.
I love the shift between each of the sections in “There is a gold light in certain old paintings.” For the first prompt, take a fragment from three of your older, unfinished poems that you never could make work and build a new poem. You might find it helpful to cut up these poems in separate stanzas. Mix and match these various stanzas to see what connects.
For the next prompt, experiment with repetition. Notice how each of the stanzas repeats the last word for the second and fourth lines and the ending couplets. Generally, I follow the rule of three I learned in Eric Morago’s workshop in which a word used twice is perhaps a mistake but three times is obviously deliberate and therefore a technique. It may help to create a word list. For a fascinating discussion on the form and the connections in this poem, read Mary Margaret Alvarado’s article in the Kenyon Review.
For the second prompt, make a list of loved ones you have lost and a second list of what you find beautiful. Write a poem using any items from the second list that spark with who you’ve lost from the first.
For a third prompt, write what Orpheus sang.
For the final prompt, write a poem or story that is drenched in gold, whether light or wealth, but let that color dominate the setting or theme.
Have fun writing!
Yes, the heart is a threadbare metaphor, an eye-rolling cliché, and a lump of muscle nothing like the shape of its namesake candy, but still there is a sweetness to be found as Rita Dove demonstrates in her “Heart to Heart.” As she says, “I decided to take these tired metaphors and deconstruct their camouflage, until all that remains is the true ‘heart’ of the matter: one human being, stripped of blather and artifice, speaking to the beloved.”
For the first prompt—or challenge rather—is to write about the heart and love in a way that likewise strips both down to genuine emotion. If it is easier, you too can list what the heart or love is not before redefining it in your own words and imagery.
The second prompt is to use that structure of listing what something is not before redefining it, but this time do so for envy. Gnaw on your own heart on the page.
For another prompt, write about love gone bad, broken hearts, betrayal, and bitterness. Get it all out of your system. Paragraphs if need be. Now take what you’ve written and do a blackout or erasure of it. Get rid of the adverbs, the explanations, and philosophizing. How much can you strip down to get to a single image that encapsulates all the pain you experienced?
For the final prompt—and shift to the weird—take the “Collecting your jar of hearts” line from Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts” song literally and write a poem or flash fiction. Let formaldehyde—or another preservative—keep your love forever.
Good luck! Good writing!
Writer’s block, dry periods, blank pages, and frustration—most of us experience this at one time or another. I love how visceral Linda Pastan makes this experience. I too often want to lie in the snowdrifts within my mind, the cold emptiness of the screen before me.
If you are struggling with this right now, do a freewrite by list five objects you saw today or are around you at this moment. Don’t overthink, just the first things that come to mind or that you see around you. Now describe objects, using all the senses if possible—the smell, feel, shape, color, species or brand if you can without stopping to research it (a plump, red squirrel, an oak tree, a Ford Pinto, Pillsbury Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (safe-to-eat raw), etc. What is the squirrel doing? Did it see you? Is the cookie dough whispering to you, “Eat Me. I’m Safe”?
Now describe five things you remember from yesterday. Look for connections between the two lists and see if anything sparks. If so, explore that interest in either a poem or flash fiction. Perhaps you can take that description and use it for a fiction setting. If not, no worries, the point is to just get some space cleared up in your head. Often a block is from too many ideas to focus on one rather than none, as Brendan Constantine mentions in his workshops.
For just a writing exercise, take the poem and Mad Libs it. Change the nouns and verbs. If you want to change this into an actual prompt, take one of the sentences you’ve written (perhaps your modified version of “I want to lie down / in its whiteness”) and use it for a ghostline.
For a writing prompt, use the line “I want lie down in its / whiteness” as a ghostline. You don’t need to restrict yourself to exploring the same subject matter as the inspiration poem, but of course you can write on writing blocks too.
For the last prompt, remember back to a time when you felt either empty or locked. Create a place or object to encapsulate your experience, similar to the poem above. Try to avoid deserts unless you move deeper into that metaphor or have a different direction than expected. Go all in then: add mirages, some spitting camels, hopping jerboas, and vultures for a positive note. /s
Good luck! Have fun writing!
I want to share this poem because it is so beautiful and because the poet said it had been his most rejected piece. Since I am awaiting rejections from some out-of-reach publications, I need this encouragement myself.
For the first prompt, create your own footnote poem in which the title explains the lines’ reference(s). A religious book or the name of a myth or famous movie, book, or even character would all work.
The second prompt is to use the opening line “At what point does silence become surrender?” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and give credit to the poet.
For a third prompt, write a list poem on envy using the line “This is envy, this is my blood building a boat in your / raging voice” as either ghostline or title or epigraph. Do give credit regardless.
For the last prompt from this poem, write a poem using the following word list: “silence,” “whimper,” “storm,” “sacrifice,” “platform,” “knife,” “ram,” “voice,” “smeared,” and “speck.” Try to use the nouns in the poem as verbs and vice versa in yours.
Now for a change, rather than writing, let’s talk about where to submit poems. I ran across Angela T. Carr’s list of publication deadlines late so that many of the January submission periods have already closed, but there are still publications open until February.
If you have a full-length poetry collection ready, Emily Stoddard generously shared a list of 183 publishers, their deadlines (if set), and reading fees (if any) on her substack.
As always, I am grateful to the generosity of so many in the poetry community.
Bonus prompt: write an ekphrastic poem or short story based on this scene.
Good luck writing (and editing) and submitting!
I realize I haven’t regularly been posting fiction prompts, so I will try to work on prompts that can be used either.
Since it is a new year, let’s take inspiration from the Uraba lugens caterpillar and build upon what we’ve done in the previous year(s).
For your first prompt, take a poem or short story of yours that you feel was successful and create a “sequel” if possible by starting with the last line of that poem.
Your second prompt is similar: take your favorite lines from four or five of your unfinished poems and Frankenstein a new poem as if you were creating a cento. Mix and match to see what works.
For fiction/creative nonfiction or poetry, write advice/life lessons and offer praise from a former self (or character’s self) to your (or a character’s) current self. If possible, create a Greek chorus trumpeting your achievements.
Another possible direction to explore is to imagine all of the past year’s achievements/sins budding off of you like extra heads or sprouting into limbs or vines. What would you carry with you; what would you let separate from yourself?
And, finally, create a character/persona that mixes human and other traits. Btw, I have no idea what is going on in this store window.
Good luck writing! Have fun!
Had a migraine, so I am definitely not with it today. I do want to share the list of poems that Sonia Greenfield shared on Facebook though. I hope you enjoy the poems as much as I have. You can read her own poems on her website. Btw, Sonia’s book All Possible Histories is amazing, and she has a new book out, Helen of Troy is High AF, which sounds awesome. Links to purchase the books on also found on her website.
Your first prompt is to write a response to one of these poems. You can do so however you wish: use a line from one of them for an epigraph or a golden shovel, create a conversation to a poem, or take lines from several and write a cento.
Your second prompt, inspired by Sonia’s new book, is to write a short story or poem from the personal historical or mythological figure(s) who is “high AF”: what kinds of snacks do they reach for, what ex do they want to text or send an animal messenger to, what obsesses them at that moment (the play of light on a stream, flickering torch, the laces on their shoes)?
Bonus prompt: what the hell is my new kitty thinking? Trick question: nothing! Write from the perspective of the void (or of Onyx, aka Goofball).
Have fun!
I am still working on the prompt I’d started, but I wanted to get something out for a prompt or at least start a discussion. You have probably often heard that we should “separate the artist from the art” by people who want to continue promoting the writing or other artwork by a racist shithead or a rapist or abuser of some kind.
My opinion: fuck that. Our lives inform the art we make, and art comes from more than just an individual but from a surrounding community. If someone abused/abuses other artists within a community, that person doesn’t deserve to be uplifted by that same community (or a larger one).
Obviously, this is a decision every person has to make individually, and each situation (and its context) differs. For me, I have less of a problem of sharing, teaching, and promoting the work of a dead writer who no longer materially benefits, but I also want to focus more on living artists. Of course, there are writers who do or have done terrible things to others that I am unaware of; I am not a part of elite literary circles and am generally an outsider for even the larger Southern California writing community. Promoting and buying the work of generous and supportive writers is my goal. I appreciate all the guidance and encouragement I have received.
So, yes, I am a judgmental ass, but you probably already figured that out. And, sorry, Dad, I know I promised to work on using the f-word and other profanity less often. One resolution already down.
Now on to the prompts!
For the first prompt, write a poem on how to remove yourself from your writing, a kind of reverse ars poetica if you will. How would you erase your perspective or voice? What particular techniques or style is your writing known for? Self-deprecation is welcome. Or have fun with boasting. Either way, enjoy yourself!
For the next prompt, describe a surgery on removing your writing from yourself. Is a particular poem in a section of your liver? Your gallbladder? Why does it need to be removed? Are all those embarrassing poems about your ex housed in your appendix and need to be cut out? Do you have sestinas in your tonsils? (I admire people who can write sestinas; mine suck, seriously.) Do all your unfinished drafts ache like an abscessed tooth?
So you may have heard of “poet voice.” How a poet reads their poems can annoy (or infuriate) others, and there are as many opinions on the right way to perform a poem or read poetry aloud as there are poets. If someone reading aloud differently than speaking conversationally annoys you, describe how “poet voice“ should be excised. Since my speaking voice sounds like a hyperactive chipmunk, I have tried (and mostly failed) to develop a deeper voice that can carry a room, so I am guilty of “poet voice.”
What voice or voices (or personas, if you prefer) do you carry within you? Are they past selves? Or do you carry a chorus of mentors/critics within you? Would you remove it/them if you could? If so, how could you remove them? Amputation? Lancing? Antibiotics or antifungals? Maggots to eat the rotting flesh? Describe the voice(s)/persona(s) and their removal in a poem or flash fiction.
Graphic photo below!
Over the weekend I went to the Oddities and Curiosities Expo: so much taxidermy and dead butterflies.
Would the removed poems/artistic inspiration/narrative voice(s) be stored wet?
In conjunction with the previous prompts, write an ekphrastic using the following (graphic) photo.
And for the final (weird) prompt: describe the diorama the surgeons would find if they searched inside you for your muses.
And, if you are wondering, why yes, I DO believe I have ADHD.
I hope this post hasn’t been too graphic or disturbing and that you have fun!
I’ve been traveling, so I haven’t written prompts for a while, but tomorrow begins a new year, and somewhere there is a new leaf fluttering in the wind, hope leaks like an old faucet and all that.
I believe I’ve used Lucille Clifton’s poem, but I love it.
For the first prompt, write an apology to your former selves for all the terrible things you’ve said about them. Or write a poem from the perspective of a former self—your 17-year-old self or your 30 year-old self or yourself at any age or period of your life—and forgive your current self for leaving you and your hopes and beliefs behind. Be kind.
For the next prompt, make a list poem of all that you plan to let go in the coming year.
For the last prompt from this poem, use the repeated line, “I am running into a new year,” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and give credit to Lucille Clifton.
These next prompts are from Barbara Crooker’s “The New Year.”
For the first prompt from “The New Year,” begin with a list of failures, mistakes, rejections, and/or losses but end on an image of perseverance as the poet did.
For the last Crooker-inspired prompt, use the line “Nobody wants another poem” as a ghostline or as your title. Prove the bastards wrong.
And finally the last prompt of the year is an ekphrastic using the photos below.
I hope the new year is full of sparkly wonder. Best of luck writing and editing!!! <3
With the holidays, I will likely be even more behind on prompts than usual. I will try to make this prompt the last sad one for the year. Try!
InSight, NASA’s Mars lander will soon lose power and go offline. Its last message is strangely heartbreaking. Here is the Guardian’s article on InSight and its mission on Mars.
For the first prompt, write your final goodbye in a poem.
For the next prompt, write a poem or short story from the perspective of a mission team member receiving Insight’s message or from one of its programmers.
Your next prompt is to write the final message from your coffeemaker, laptop, or appliance, or even your favorite sweater or chair. What kind of “life” did it have? Will it miss you?
For a final prompt, write your last moments from the perspective your household appliances, furniture, and decor.
Not feeling great tonight, so I am posting some prompts I saw on Twitter. I hope you all have a great night!
I tried to find the inspiration poem but could not. Larry Fagin (1937-2017) published twelve books. I am especially interested in his The List Poem: A Guide to Teaching & Writing Catalog Verse. And now I am contemplating my own mortality and lack of published books.
Anyhoo, here is another prompt that could work for a fiction or poetry.
Here is the article “The Mystery of the Blue Whale Songs” by Kristen French if you would like to read more. I found it fascinating as well as the sonic pollution hypotheses not found in French’s article but in a Twitter thread. I am going to miss Twitter.
And a bonus ekphrastic prompt:
(Be assured that we dumped this jar found in the back of the fridge out and refilled the hummingbird feeders with fresh sugar water).
Gotta love some colorful contamination!
Good luck writing!
