Love Poems—Prompts Inspired by Paige Lewis

Love is such a powerful emotion but so difficult to convey uniquely. Love poems, their language and imagery, often are clichéd and stale especially if abstract and general. Rather than grand proclamations, small personal details often are more effective in showing the passion or caring in a relationship, as demonstrated so beautifully by Paige Lewis here. Btw, you can hear the poem read their poem on the site of the American Academy of Poets if you wish.

For the first prompt, write about a game or joke shared between you and a partner or between two characters. Use everyday language and description rather than metaphors or dramatic language. Avoid using the word “love” directly.

The second prompt is to write a story or poem using the following words: “paints,” “ties,” “corners,” “shadow,” “machine,” “game,” “stretch,” “bed,” “grips” and “kisses.” Try to switch the nouns for verbs and vice versa.

The third prompt does not need to create a love poem or story; just use the line “Our shadows get dirty just like anyone’s, so we take them” as a ghostline. See where it takes you. Remember to erase the line and credit the poet for the inspiration.

The last prompt is to use the line “and watch our shadows warm” for a horror-themed poem or story. Again remember to erase the ghostline and credit the poet.

Bonus prompt: write a poem based on this image.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

To the End of Triumph—Prompts Inspired by Jack Gilbert

Jack Gilbert’s poem was shared in a thread of poems with unforgettable lines, as it should be, although it is impossible for me to pick just one line to share.

For the first prompt, do better than I and pick one line that resonates the most with you for a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and give credit to the poet.

The second prompt is to write a poem or story about the moment before the hero’s fall, the ship’s sinking, the last kiss given without any regret or hesitation. You can choose familiar tale or event to describe or create a new one of your own, letting the sweetness last to the very end line or perhaps foreshadowed in the title or opening.

The next prompt is to write a list of failures, small ones that build up to the final breaking but end on a moment of joy.

For the next prompt, write a love poem using the following words: “summer,” “island,” “burning,” “bed,” “nights,” “gentleness,” “mist,” “swimming,” “light” and “coming.”

Bonus prompt: write to the moon in this cold sky and include the sound of waves breaking on the rocks.

Good luck! Have fun!

Moonlit Journeys—Prompts Inspired by Kareem Tayyar

Since I didn’t go for that walk today, let’s be inspired by the lovely imagery of Kareem Tayyar’s poem “Midnight Rambler.” I especially love the lines: “Everywhere the waters whispered themselves / back into the dream of a single river.” Even the sound of the lines is a soft rushing.

If you’d like to read more from Kareem Tayyar, check out his substack.

For the first prompt, write a poem or short story about your own nighttime journey, moving from the tangible to the surreal.

I of course cannot resist using line “the poems the ghosts had written” for a ghostline prompt. Make sure to erase the line and give credit to the poet.

The next prompt is to write a poem using the following words from “Midnight Rambler”: “bloom,” “companion,” “waters,” “single,” “silhouettes,” “bodies,” “pillow,” “illuminated,” “walls” and “arrival.”

For the last prompt, write an apology to a former self you’ve tried to leave.

Bonus prompt: create your own myth or superstition about a ring around the moon.

Good luck! Have fun!

A Bright New Day Every Day—Prompts Inspired by Linda Pastan

So I got distracted with the holidays and spending time with family—all good, but again I am behind on posting. Ah, good intentions and road pavement…

But tonight I saw this Linda Pastan poem and Sean Dineen’ response and loved both. Instead of living each day as if it were the last—and likely my desperate attempts to apologize and correct mistakes—I would prefer to experience each day as a first filled “raw astonishment” and no regrets.

For the first prompt, try to create a poem that mirrors that “raw astonishment” in the poem. Start by making a list of historical firsts and weaving one or more of them into your own daily routine, treating each task as if it were the first.

The second prompt is to write a short story or piece of flash fiction in which you describe the first day of sentience for a character or creature.

The third prompt uses the first line, “You tell me to live each day,” as a jumping off point. Avoid using either the standard “as if it were your last” or the poem’s later recommended “as if it were the first” as the impetus. Instead, write about what someone told you or what you wish they had. Because the former is such a common phrase and your goal is to take a different direction than that of the poem, you likely will not need to credit the poet as you would for a regular ghostline.

The last prompt is to write a poem using the following words from the poem: “day,” “race,” “minutes,” “first,” “raw,” “ingénue,” “morning,” “roar,” “clear” and “surface.” If possible, try to write a hopeful poem (this is definitely a challenge for me).

Bonus prompts: write an ekphrastic poem using this photo, or write a surreal poem or short story about this flower hatching as an egg and describing what emerges.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Mermaids and Monsters—Prompts Inspired by Sirianna Helleloid

I love the visceral imagery and rhythm of Sirianna Helleloid’s “Ariel Ignores the Great Master’s Bidding.” This poem has such great wordplay and use of slant rhyme and alliteration that it begs repeated readings.

The first prompt is to choose a mythical creature, fairytale character or a Disney princess and retell the story for modern times, giving your speaker an unlikely profession. Describe a banshee who works as an actuary, the Big Bad Wolf as a venture capitalist or perhaps Sleepy Beauty as a barista. Sometimes making a list of five fairytale characters and a separate list of five professions can be helpful in getting started if you are stuck.

For a second prompt, use the poem’s first line “I crawl my way out of the ocean, grinning. New feet” as a ghostline. Or, begin with the last line “It’s a long swim to the horizon” to jumpstart a story or poem. Remember to erase the line and give credit to the poet.

The third prompt is to write a poem or story from the sisters’ point of view as a response poem. How do they feel about her leaving them for land? How does the story end for them? Don’t forget to reference the original poem and author in your title or as in “after” statement. Do be careful to make this your own telling.

For another prompt, write a poem or story using the following list of words in an urban setting: “blow,” “knees,” “shanties,” “circle,” “bank,” “foam,” “cruise,” “hungers,” “graffiti,” “mirror,” “walls,” “cash” and “horizon.” Where possible, try to switch nouns to verbs and verbs to nouns.

Bonus prompt: write an ekphrastic poem using either of the watercolors by Xiao Faria da Cunha, which accompanied the three poems by Sirianna Helleloid.

Bonus bonus prompt: write a poem or short story from the sand mermaid I made years ago at Newport Beach.

What is she reaching for?

And what does it mean that even the wind will erase her? How temporary is our own existence as the waters rise?

Well, on that last cheerful note, good luck writing! Have fun!

Gentleness—Prompts Inspired by Heather Swan

Short post despite the delay—I am having difficulty concentrating on anything but my mom’s upcoming surgery. Every day is a stone to carry.

Btw, Joseph Fasano is a great person to follow on Twitter (while it lasts) for his lovely poetry threads.

For the first prompt, write a description of a scene from nature, or perhaps an intimate moment in your home, to build up to the point you want to leave the reader with.

The second prompt is to use the following word list to create a love poem that never uses the word “love”: “bend,” “spine,” “rests,” “leaves,” “floats,” “sways,” “upright,” “opening,” “burden” and “breaking.”

The last prompt is to use the lines “If it could always / be like this” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the lines and credit the poet for your inspiration.

Good luck 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!

Beginnings and Endings—Editing and Writing Prompts Inspired by Ruth Awad

Good editors can show you new directions that you cannot see while in the middle of your poem, but you can use the same strategies for your own editing process. I have been told that some of my poems seem written to get to that last line or image. If you have received the same comment—or if an existing poem simply doesn’t work—take the last line, move it to the beginning, and edit from there.

For the first writing prompt, take either the first line—“And the lie is that I survived because parts of me / didn’t”—or the last line—“None of us got what we deserved”—as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and give credit to the poet.

For the next prompt, make a list of sorrows that you, or others, have carried. Be specific. Are you still carrying them? How did you release them? What now?

For the third writing prompt, write a poem using the following word list: “lie,” “take,” “mirrors,” “look,” “listen,” “light,” “lost,” “worry,” and “remind.” Try to switch the verbs to nouns and vice versa where possible.

For the last editing prompt, take a poem you’re unhappy with and change the verbs to their antonyms. What happens?

Mother’s Day—Prompts

Today was a hard day. Many people cannot see their mothers due to the risk of spreading the virus or because of distance (and restrictions on travel) or by loss. I am sorry. It is hard to be away from loved ones and harder still when we can never see them again. And it is difficult for people who had to cut family ties for their self-preservation or whose continued meetings with family bring more pain than joy.

For the first prompt, write a poem about a moment in time when you and your mom seemed to completely understand one another. Try to create a conversation between the two using the contrapuntal form (discussed in a previous blog post).

Or perhaps nothing was said, but your eyes met or you reacted the same way simultaneously. If so, describe the setting. Use inclusive language as if even the furniture and pictures on the wall and the TV show playing in your home were all part of this moment with the two of you. Or if outside, bring the breeze, the humming of insects, the smell of grass into the experience.

If you have never shared a happy moment of understanding with a mother, write about that moment you did have with someone else. Family can be by blood or by choice. Celebrate a loved one.

Here is a lovely poem by Ada Limón that can be your inspiration.

For the next prompt, write a poem using the following words from “The Raincoat”: “brace,” “work,” “unspooled,” “unclouded,” “drive,” “unfettered,” “home,” “solid,” “give,” and “whole.”

For the last prompt, start a poem using “I never asked” from “The Raincoat” and go from there. As always, give credit to the author.

First Day of the Decade—Delayed Prompts

Forget about New Year’s Resolutions, let’s resolve to make the decade a better one for everyone. For the first prompt, make a list of last year’s and the last decade’s regrets and mistakes. Limit yourself to only the first ten that come to mind. Take that list and burn it. Write a poem about the flames and the smoke rising from the fire, the beauty in letting go.

For the next prompt, tell us how you will make us—and yourself—proud as the poet Alberto Ríos instructs in “A House Called Tomorrow,” published by the Academy of American Poets. Believe in your own goodness. Hold onto that belief gently, lovingly.

For the next prompt, describe your “house called tomorrow.” Is it sleek chrome and mirrored glass, or it your future a crumbling two-story with your childhood bedspread frayed on a too-small bed, or do you move toward a simple ranch in endless looping cul-dul-sac? Is there a white picket fence or twisted wrought iron or a hedge of thorns? Do you knock on the door, ring the doorbell, or push it open? Does the door open easily for you, or do you stumble over the threshold?

For a third prompt, write a poem about all who came before you. What is your family tree? What flowers bloom in spring, what fruit falls at its feet, and what sings in its branches. What feeds upon it, and what remains?

The last prompt is a word list: “centuries,” “march,” “breaking,” “bridges,” “charts,” “forward,” “cure,” and “applause.”

The Prose Poem—Prompt Inspired by Danielle Mitchell

What is a poem—the answers given often contradict the prose poem. What is a poem without stanzas echoes what is a poem without meter and rhyme. Perhaps what I appreciate most about the prose poem is that it requires a poet to think about what defines his/her/their own poetry and consciously choose those elements in this hybrid form.

For the first prompt, write a prose poem using imagery and themes from the tale of the minotaur in the labyrinth from Greek mythology. Here is a link to the myth if you need a refresher. Notice imagery/repetition the poet uses: “labyrinth,” “spiraling steps,” “thread,” “string,” “maze,” and “stairwell.” Who or what else could be a labyrinth? Are you the minotaur or Theseus?

For the second prompt, use the italicized line “If you get lost, just go deeper in” as a ghostline. Where do you go? Or your narrator? Are they one and the same? Or do you choose to keep the second person? After you have written your first draft, consider switching (from second person to first or third to second, for example). What changes?

For the third prompt, consider the differences between this poem and the poet’s other two poems published in the same issue of Connotation Press. How do these three prose poems differ? What themes/images does the form lend itself to? Write a poem using ten words compiled from two or all three of the poems.

For a fourth prompt, write a poem mapping the three landscapes described in the poems: forest and maze, muddy field and pond, and swamp.

And as always be sure to credit the poet for the inspiration, be careful to maintain your own voice in any poems you plan to submit and of course buy the book (check out her site)!

Animus, Schadenfreude, and Rancor: Giving Birth to All My Little Bitter Joys—Prompts

I want to thank Jan Stinchcomb for messaging me this poem. It is incredible.

For the first prompt, use the last line of Dayna Patterson’s “Self-Portrait as Titania with Newborn Animus”: “All my words call for bandages” as a ghostline. Go from there. Ignite.

I find the imagery in this poem breathtaking. Only on a second reading, did I notice all of the sound devices—alliteration, consonance and assonance as well as the careful attention given to rhythm. So many examples of sound repetition: “womb of worry,” “faith has fled,” “fathers’ fallow,” “What are we but the leavings.” So lovely.

For the second prompt, write a poem in couplets and include this repetition in at least one of the two lines and consciously slow down phrases and lines for greater effect. The phrase “vernix of red flame” felt heavy in my mouth as did the hyphenating of phrases—their slowness mimicking the birth in the poem. I am not a sound poet and often miss these devices, although I am trying to improve both my performance and my awareness of sound and rhythm for the reader. If you prioritize sound or at least balance it with imagery more than I, please offer suggestions in the comments. I would love to hear them.

For the third prompt, take one of the questions in the poem and write a response poem answering that question.

For the final prompt (as usual), write a poem or story using the following words: “vernix,” “fringe,” “cusp,” “scorch,” “linkage” “flesh,””rope,” “render,” “sterile,” and “wounds” but do not use either birth nor botany/farming as your subject matter.

And as always, make sure to avoid mimicking another’s voice—make the words and images your own—and acknowledge the poet for your inspiration.

Good luck!

The List Poem to Out-list All Others—A Try-to-Follow-This Prompt

For prompts, I often provide a list of words to use in a poem, but then I saw this poem made up of a list, and, well, I was just floored. So the challenge for you (and me) is to create a list that is a poem, one that sucks your breath back down your throat until you aren’t sure if you are made to breathe air or water or some hybrid of envy and awe.

It is probably best to start with a category so that all of your words are cohesive and then break that category by adding other parts of speech. Although I can almost never write a poem from my own prompts, I do have a vague idea for this one. Wish me luck! And I am wishing you luck too!

Somehow I saw the figure of Buddha when I was in the Cathedral section of Blanchard Caverns, but the shape didn’t come through in the photo.

The CDC’s 7 Forbidden Words—Another Word List Prompt

As you may have read, the Trump Administration is prohibiting officials at the CDC from using seven words/phrases in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

The list of forbidden words:

1. Evidence-based
2. science-based
3. vulnerable
4. entitlement
5. diversity
6. transgender
7. fetus.

Several poets have suggested using these seven words in a poem. I first read of the prompt from Cathy Park Hong on Twitter, but several others posted the idea on Facebook.

Here is an opportunity you might like: Sarah Freligh and Amy Lemmon invited poets to submit poems in any form but using all seven words (preferably in repetition) to CDCpoetry@gmail.com for publication on their blog. Check their blog out for updates, more prompts and poems.

Femme Fairy Tale Word List

Word lists, yes, word lists. While all of us remember having to write out vocabulary words, exercises using words from one poem or by a particular poet can propel some useful freewriting or even lead into a poem or short story. Just as a form can force our writing into a new direction by its restrictions, word lists and ghost lines can offer a starting point. Sometimes a box opens into a whole new room.  

Below is a femme fairy tale word and phrase list from “Little Red”in Double Jinx by Nancy Reddy.

Choose eight and climb in. See where it carries you.

Gorged                                                                       Kindling

Grainy                                                                         Hearth

Swallowed                                                                  Framed

Rib cage                                                                      Rumbling

Papered                                                                       Hidden

Shelved                                                                       Pinned

Belly plump                                                                Vivisection

Gobbled                                                                      Pink

Roast                                                                           Fall

Cracking                                                                     Inside

Nancy Reddy

Rather than reading the poem that originated the list, which may restrict your own originality, check out the fabulous "The Case of the Double Jinx" by Nancy Reddy.