Magic Boxes, Gifts, and Borrowed Prompts—Prompts Inspired by Kit Wright

Annelyse Gelman—a wonderful poet—started a thread of writing prompts for students, and Joanna Monk offered a lovely one, inspired by Kit Wright. This is a fun prompt for anyone, especially if you are feeling stuck.

For the first prompt, describe what you would put in your magic box and the box itself.

The second prompt is a variation on the first: for this prompt, describe what you would lock away in a box and how you would secure it. What are you afraid will escape if it opens, and/or who will be harmed?

The next prompt is to write a poem about yourself as a box and what you hold in a prose poem so that form embodies the content.

The last prompt is to write a story about finding a locked door—or box—in the basement of an old house you are renting. What happens next?

Have fun writing! Good luck!

Tomorrow morning (8am Pacific) is World of Poetry reading!

I am grateful to be invited to participate again! I hope you can you join me in the live reading, but if not I will post a link to the YouTube reading later.

As the program host and eminent poet Toufiq Zohar notes, the world of poetry is all under one sky.

Hope you can make it!

Family and Trees—Prompts Inspired by Sofia Fey

Back to the previous stream-of-consciousness prompt, I feel that this poem by Sofia Fey has that feel and is breathtaking.

For the first prompt, write a prose poem connected by repeating statements of what you know and what you don’t.

The second prompt is to experiment writing a poem without punctuation. Build intensity as you go.

For a third prompt—either poetry or fiction—write about an event that may or may not have happen. Give the flickering of memory an atmosphere, a light that illuminates outlines and highlights the shadows time leaves when you cannot bear to look straight on.

The last prompt is to use the last line as a ghostline (erasing it but still crediting the poet) or as a title (and still crediting the poet for your inspiration): “did you get hurt when you were little yes.”

Good luck writing! Have fun!

OPP—Other People’s Prompts

Sorry for the delay—I’ve been traveling. I will try to have another post up later in the week. Until then, here is a prompt from poet Kristal Phillips.

I’ve included the links for Frank O’Hara’s “Adieu to Norman, Bon Jour to Joan and Jean-Paul” and Charles Simic’s “Wherein Obscurely.”

The second prompt is from the amazing Rachel McKibbens. Check out her blog for more great prompts and buy her books! :-)

Bonus prompt: write a poem or story about what is waiting for you at then end of the hall. Not blood, but blue.

(Btw, OPP is my callout to Brendan Constantine’s Down with OPP (Other People’s Poetry) features at the Ugly Mug.)

Good luck! Have fun!

It’s My Birthday!—Prompt Inspired by Safia Elhillo

For my birthday, your prompt is to write your origin story. Did you sprout from your father’s elbow, hatch from your mother’s spleen, crawl from an abandoned well? How did you enter this world and what are your plans for it? Where are you now?

For inspiration, here is a beautiful poem by Safia Elhillo.

Bonus prompt: create a poem using the refrain “I was born” followed by a place, a time, or image. Be sure to credit the poet for the inspiration.

Good luck writing! Have a wonderful origin!!!

International World of Poetry Reading!

I was so grateful to be asked to join in the World of Poetry reading last week with such eminent poets! The program was televised in 42 countries, and I managed to sneak in. Check out the YouTube recording if you are interested.

Thanks!

Fill-in-the-Blank Time! Prompt by Joseph Fasano

Some days ideas and inspiration flow all around us as if we were a rock centered in a river, but other days it might be good to have a fill-in-the-blank kind or Mad Libs kind of prompt to get the day started. I appreciate prompts that feel like plugging in an image because they can so often inspire me to write during the dry spells. If you like this prompt, check out Joseph Fasano’s website for his books and individual poems.

Btw, I enjoy following him on Twitter: he creates threads of poems under a theme and invites others to share their favorites, and he often provides encouragement to new writers. You may too (for as long as Twitter is around of course).

The first prompt is to follow his prompt as is.

For the second prompt, take the poem you’ve written following the prompt and choose your strongest line or image. Begin your poem there.

The third prompt reverses the meaning: instead of loneliness or solitude, focus on togetherness. Follow the prompts instructions but change the repeated line to “Everyone knows where we are” (or something similar) and use “we” instead of “I” for the speaker. See what happens.

The last prompt is to take the poem’s repeated line “No one knows where I am” as a ghostline for a jumping off point. Remember to erase the line and credit the poet for your inspiration.

Bonus story (or poetry) prompt: write a conversation between the rocks and the water as it rushes past but give the trees the final say.

Good luck! Have fun!

Prompts Inspired by Robert Hass

Short post tonight because it has been a long week. I love the space between the title and the poem and how the connection leads to new directions.

These prompts are for either poems or fiction.

For the first, take a legend or myth and make one change. Phelps Narcissus never wasted away in yearning for a reflection of himself; the husband only pretended to not know his crane wife was plucking her own feathers; La Llorona’s children all swam safely to the riverbank while playing, and she is the one who drowned searching for them.

The second prompt is to use the poem’s title as a ghostline. See what happens. Make sure to erase the line and credit the poet for the inspiration.

For the third prompt, describe the folklore or rumor that spawns a creature.

The third prompt is to write the lyrics of the song he imagined they would sing. Or to describe what would you sing to call a sailor to drown and what would you gain from that death.

Good luck! Have fun!

Memorial Day—Prompts Inspired by Amorak Huey

I hope you are having a good Memorial Day. Let’s celebrate with this poem by Amorak Huey. Ah, that ending is so fulfilling.

For the first prompt, reference a famous character from classical literature or pop culture in the title but do not refer to it again until near the end of the poem. Let the ending explain the connection between the original and your/narrator’s modern life.

The second prompt is to use the lines “We all want the same thing / from this world” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and credit the poet for the inspiration.

For the next prompt, describe an event you witnessed and create a metaphor for what that memory has become for you. Is it “wound, souvenir, / backstory” or something else? Is it the cracked window you see the world through, echo of your footsteps when you are alone in your house, the festering splinter you cannot seem to pull out?

And for the last prompt, write about someone you lost but can never let go.

Good luck writing!

Prompts Inspired by and Publishing Resources from Jason B. Crawford

Hi all, I’ve started a blog post with prompts but wanted to include a friend’s artwork. My photos of the pictures didn’t turn out, so she will send me the original photos and I will have another blog post coming soon.

So instead I wanted to share a spreadsheet of contests and submission deadlines that Jason B. Crawford kindly posted.

I so appreciate their generosity. Check out their website if you would like to read their poetry, which I cannot recommend enough. My God, “Ode to the Soil” is amazing.

For the first prompt, write an ode to something normally considered mundane or unlovely. Surprise yourself (and your readers) by viewing the subject with a new lens.

The next prompt is to use “But you, you greet every body like a new / meal” as a ghostline, but have the “you” be something other than the soil or a grave or anything associated with death. Remember to erase the line and credit the poet.

For the third prompt, describe in a poem or story what you (or a character) would make if you/the character pushed out all the sorrow from within.

The final prompt is address a poem to a historical figure beginning or ending with the line “All this to say, I am jealous of your lack of / remorse.” Remember to use quotation marks around or italicize the line and give credit to the poet.

Good luck submitting! Have fun writing!

Mother’s Day—Prompts Inspired by Diane Seuss

Happy Mother’s Day if you celebrate it. If not, there’s always Mothra.

I love how unsentimental this Diane Seuss poem is, all without losing tenderness, and the opening lines are so, so good.

For the first prompt, make a list of all the places in which you had called out for your mother or wished for safety and see where that takes you, in either a story or poem.

The second prompt is to find a way to incorporate diarrhea or other messy biological function within a serious poem because I was so amazed by Chen Chen incorporating shitting into a love poem. And this poem certainly does that, and also so effectively connects a cesarean with peeling peaches.

For a third prompt, use the last line “Do you see how I persist in telling you about the flowers when I mean to describe the rain” for a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and give credit to the poet.

This last prompt is to write a poem or story using the following words: “pool,” “knife,” “flesh,” “caves,” “ground,” “underbelly,” “train,” “layer,” “solitude,” “dresses” and “rain.” Try to use the nouns as verbs and vice versa.

Bonus prompt: Write a “Happy Mothra Day” poem.

Good luck! Have fun writing!

World of Poetry Reading video

Here is the link to the recording of the World of Poetry reading. I hope you enjoy it! Thanks!

Let’s Start Editing Those 30/30 poems!

So you’ve written 30 new poems or five or none or you have a backlog of poems you’ve set aside. Great! It’s good to let them sit for a while and look at them again with fresh eyes.

There are all sorts of “rules” to writing and editing. But rules are often annoying and unnecessarily restrictive. Look at what others recommend and find what strategies work best for you.

This shirt sums up my attitude towards prescriptive guides, but I thought these recommendations were good guidelines to consider as well as Carmen Giménez Smith’s suggestions. Honestly, I love learning about the processes amazing writers use.

For me, reading poems aloud, particularly to other people (sorry, Don and friends!), helps me find the rough spots—the convoluted wording, problematic line breaks, missing words and confusing grammar/syntax. Even better is to have someone else read your poem aloud—that will really show whether the line breaks and structure work on the page for a reader.

Perhaps the admin for the UN’s account should have had someone read over the hashtags. Oops!

Btw, I once used IUD instead of IED in a poem—not the kind of imagery I’d intended—so I can sympathize.

For line breaks (my weakest area for years), try to end on a strong verb or image. If you are rhyming in your poem don’t let the end rhyme dictate the entire line, or you may lose the necessary surprise. With all the focus on the end words, it’s easy to let articles and prepositions build up for the first word of your lines. See what you can rearrange or cut.

Titles, oof. Remember that they need to hook readers. Ask yourself if you would choose to read this poem if its title were listed on a table of contents with other poems. Try to use the title to give additional context to the poem without giving spoilers. Yes, this can be difficult to balance. It’s all practice and developing your own voice/style and strategies. Some poets use the title as the first line of the poem, which can be fun. It can be helpful to look to the center or maybe three or four lines from the bottom of a poem to find its “heart” (I am unsure who recommended this, perhaps Alexis Rhone Fancher, but I heard it in Eric Morago’s workshop).

Also remember that your first lines will determine whether someone will continue reading. It’s often hard to really get a poem started, and I often need an on-ramp to the “real” poem. If this is the same for you, see what you can cut. And try not to include too much in one poem.

While you need to pull a reader in, don’t forget that the last lines are the lens through which the entire poem will be remembered (this is I heard in Brendan Constantine’s workshop).

Back to cutting, you will often hear the phrase “kill your darlings.” It may ease the pain if you keep a document of cut lines to use later.

Make sure the form fits your message. If you are using a single column, perhaps try couplets or quatrains. Experiment to see what works best for you.

Most of all, keep reading and find what you like. Try to expand beyond just a few poets or one style of writing and borrow techniques from many writers so that you develop a unique voice. And listen to yourself. In a recent workshop, I received conflicting advice on what lines to cut for an editing exercise (cutting from a 40-line poem to a 20-line poem to just 10 lines). I listened and appreciated the suggestions, but I was the one who decided. At other times, I just hand a poem over. I learn a lot that way too.

Ultimately, you need to listen to yourself. Some of the advice I’ve received was counterproductive because the readers/listeners didn’t understand my intent. As I’ve developed as a writer, I’ve found that unhelpful advice is often a sign that I hadn’t succeeded and need to rework a section. Sometimes people just like different kinds of poetry, and that is the beauty of writing and reading: there is something out there for everyone.

If a poem or story still isn’t working for you, remember everyone has had that same experience at least once—this blog post for example.

For today’s exercise, create your own cheat sheet for editing. Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, make a list of what you should consider first for a deep revision and then a final check for grammar and minor issues. Take that list and use it to revise a particularly rough poem that you wrote at least a week ago.

As with refilling a beanbag chair, things can go all over the place. Good luck with pulling it all together.

Have fun editing!

World of Poetry event tomorrow!

I am so excited to be included. It will be televised live in the morning California time, but evening in Bangladesh. I will post the link for the recording tomorrow or the next day. I hope you will join. <3

Last Day of 30/30–Final Prompt and Inspiration

Congratulations whether you wrote 30 poems, one, or none. We have made it through another month, another day, and still want to write. That is success. So let’s celebrate one of the best poems ever.

For your first prompt, write about your pet, the sillier the better. Bonus points if you provide a drawing.

The second prompt is to write a limerick or equally fun poem to end the month on.

And the last prompt for the month is to write an instructional manual for your writing process. After you finish, erase words or phrases so that the reader is forced to fill in those blanks.

Good luck and be good to yourself!

Cabbage Dreams—Twitter Prompt

We all had dreams of being professional baseball players, ballerinas, singers or perhaps, less realistic, dragons as I did. For many of us these dreams faded, but perhaps rather than dissipating they‘ve been absorbed into the environment.

For the first prompt, describe what happened to one of your dreams and what sprouted from it. Or focus more on the plant. Did all of your childhood hopes grow into an apple tree? Describe the taste of your dreams.

The second prompt is to begin with a childhood memory of cooking or eating a particular food with family, shift into a realization or correction of a previous misunderstanding and end with a callback to that food or memory of family.

For the last prompt, write a persona poem from this cabbage dancer.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Ekphrastic Prompt Stolen from Chen Chen

Happy Sunday and happy 23rd day of 30! Let’s start the week (or celebrate the weekend) with a prompt from Chen Chen and write an ekphrastic poem.

For a second prompt, reimagine the world in which humans never left the oceans, that it is dolphins and other sea creatures who became our partners/helpers in civilization. Will we be kinder, wiser, or will be tool-wielding sharks?

For a third prompt, describe what creature you wish could carry you and where do you want to go.

So of course this painting made me think of Catbus of My Friend Totoro. So for another prompt, take a character from the movie and write a narrative poem from that character’s perspective.

And a bonus prompt:

Instead of the Knights of the Round Table, what group would meet around this table? Or make it an ekphrastic. Your choice. Rule wisely

Good luck and have fun!

Cheating Off of Todd’s Test—Stolen Prompts

I freaking love Todd Dillard’s prompts, so I am posting a couple here. Btw, he has entire threads of prompts. This first one is one I hope to write today:

I love how these instructions can push me into a new direction, and sometimes I need a poem recipe rather than a think-of-something-blue kind of suggestion. And even the title is included! By day 22, I need this kind of help.

And because I am not a totally ungrateful asshole, here is his website where you can find his poems, which I love.

Good luck and have fun!

Write that Tree Poem—Stolen Prompt

I am terribly behind on prompts (and poems), so here is one from Perugia Press. I will have another post up this weekend. Sorry, everybody!

We are often told to avoid writing about the moon or trees, but a new approach or angle can create a surprising poem. Good luck!

Carry Us through April—Prompts Inspired by Joy Harjo

If you are keeping up with writing a poem every day this month, then congratulations. If you are like me, then perhaps we will catch up, and even if we don’t we have been writing and reading other poets, celebrating their techniques. So let’s turn to a great poet and poem to keep us motivated.

Joy Harjo’s “The Creation Story” is so lovely that I would like to dwell within some of its stanzas, although my house is also in danger of stones that I myself am throwing. I found Twila Newey’s photograph of the poem—with its burst of light at the corner—perfect.

The first prompt is more of a Mad Lib writing exercise rather than a prompt; the resulting poem will be too close to the source material for it to stand alone unless you revise significantly.

• Take the first stanza and replace “love” and “light” with your own nouns.

• For the second stanza substitute your own dependent clause for “when my entrails dangle…”

• In the third, replace “ashamed” with your own adjective and the infinitive phrase with your own.

• Keep the first line of the fourth stanza but change the rest.

• In the fifth, replace “stars” and “words” with your own nouns, choose a location other than “house” and substitute “calcium” and “blood” with your own ingredients.

• Repeat the location and list what threatens it for your sixth stanza.

• The seventh stanza is your own blessing or prayer or wish.

• The last line follows the structure but replace “transfix” and “love” with a different verb and noun.

See what you have now. If one of the stanzas seems to work for you—and you have changed the structure and the language significantly enough—use that for your first line(s). Do still give an attribution to the poet.

The second prompt is to create a list of couplets, pairs of what you either do or do not fear and unexpected consequences. Vary the wording and structure from the original but do credit the poet for your inspiration.

The third prompt is to describe what you want your words to do—to carry another through a day, to plug the hole in a levee, to prick a careless reader, what?

Good luck!