So we have “something to push against”—Prompts Inspired by Jamaal May

I have loved Jamaal May’s writing ever since Hum came out, and “I Have this Way of Being” is another beautiful poem. I find how it builds power through its initial—and deliberate—generality particularly interesting. I enjoy poems that have something to say, a deeper layer that rewards digging (yes, pun intended here). If you want to hear him read his poem, click on the link: https://poets.org/lesson-plan/teach-poem-i-have-way-being-jamaal-may.

For the first prompt, write about a task (perhaps the task of writing or of learning a skill) and the underlying reason you do it even if you have to struggle for the words. 

The second prompt is to describe something without knowing the exact terms as the poet did with the names of the flower: you could describe trying to fix a leaky faucet or assemble a cabinet without knowing the names for the various parts and fasteners.

The third prompt is to write a poem using the following list of words: "mouth," "odd," "pastel," "lung," "fist," "weeds," "windswept," "kneel,"  "push"  and "petal."

For the last prompt, build to a penultimate line of "will have something to push against," indicating through italics and within the title (or statement below it) the quoted text and source. 

Bonus prompt: write a poem about growing and reaching toward light or whatever this photo inspires.

Good luck writing!

“Assiduous”—Prompts Inspired by Rae Armantrout

I do admire poets who can say so much in a few lines. Rae Armantrout has great short poems, and poet Tom Snarsky is a wonderful poet to follow: for his poems and for his #smallpoemsunday feed. Tonight I tried to be less wordy than usual in appreciation but failed.

For the first prompt, describe a pet’s behavior and connect it to a human trait in a poem, essay or story.

I particularly enjoy the surprise created by the break between the poem’s second and third lines. The second prompt is to take an old poem that feels unfinished and play with its line breaks, trying to create unexpected turns.

I find the poem’s snarky tone delicious. For the next prompt, write a poem or story narrated with a similarly sarcastic voice. Let your target be a politician, media personalty, even a family member or coworker—anyone is fair game as long as you don’t share it with them or people they know. A snide poem may even prevent an unfortunate outburst.

Notice how the level of detail changes among the stanzas: the first introducing the cat and offering a twist, the middle providing a clear description and the last two making the intended connection with rather abstract language. For me, the language and word choice works. I love how “assiduous” suggests both diligence and fawning especially in combination with “self regard.” For the last prompt, write a poem or story using the following list of words: “self,” “assiduous,” “bland,” “patch,” “claws,” “angles,” “superior,” “balanced” and “same.”

Bonus prompt: write whatever this photo of the younger cat annoying the older one inspires. Or use it as a metaphor for sibling rivalry, dating, office politics or other pesky human interaction.

Good luck!

Dillydallying in Yellow—Prompts Inspired by Charles Simic

As you may have noticed, I’ve switched to posting on Monday rather than Sunday nights. I hope this change improves my consistency since Sundays are less predictable.

I don’t believe I have posted a poem by Charles Simic, a poet I need to read more of. I hope you like this one as much as I did. I also need to post poetry by Phillip Crymble soon, whose work and social media posts I enjoy.

I enjoy how the poem lazes throughout—its sleepy repetition of “l’s,” “s’s” and “z’s”—until the end with its abrupt “click” sound for turning on the lamp. For the first prompt, use the last line, “To click on the yellow table lamp,” as a ghostline. After using it as the starting point for a poem or story, erase the line and credit the poet in your title or with an “after” statement.

For the second prompt, begin by naming one of the seven deadly sins (or other vice) and then provide a setting for it in a poem or story or a description from a remembered place and time for an essay.

The third prompt is to borrow the title, “The Secret of the Yellow Room,” and mash the use of personification with tropes of the YA mystery genre (Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys or more modern detectives). Be sure to credit the poet for the title.

The next is to write a poem or story using the following list of words from the poem: “lolling,” “dressing,” “breeze,” “dozing,” “silky,” “lilies,” “nuzzle,” “dillydallying,” “stupor” and “lamp.” I love the word “dillydallying”—its sound matching its meaning. The whole poem is a treat to read aloud.

Bonus prompt: Write whatever this photo of a bathroom with cat walkways and stairs inspires you to write. I have no idea where my daughter found these photos.

Additional bonus prompt: write a lullaby for this bee.

Good luck writing. Have fun.

Daily—Prompts Inspired by Larry Levis

Larry Levis is a great poet. His poem from 1972 is powerful, the language gutting and—unfortunately—apt today.

The first prompt is to choose a headline from the last few days and use that as your title or first line.

For the second prompt, use the first line of the poem, “He thought he could ignore the war,” as a ghostline, erasing the line after you’ve finished writing a poem or story and remembering to credit the poet.

For the third, write a poem or story using the following list of words: “paid,” “silence, “sales,” “photographs,” “flames,” “cold,” “number,” “cowed,” “nightsticks” and “alone.”

The next prompt is to juxtapose daily life, driving past schools and hospitals, and the bombings of those same places by our government.

The last prompt is to create a persona poem of War as an unavoidable internet troll or as an abusive stalker.

Bonus prompt: write how future archaeologists will decipher these carvings. How do they describe our civilization?

Good luck.

Seeing and Naming—Prompts Inspired by Fanny Howe

I hope you all are doing well—or as well as possible—in these times. Sometimes we need to step away from the turmoil and suffering if we can. I like to think that in this poem, the narrator walks into the forest to get away from other people, from herself even, but everywhere there are people and her own awareness.

For the first prompt, name the names in this forest’s trees, whose faces and hands do you see and how did they come there?

I am prone to pareidolia—seeing faces and shapes in trees, shadows on the ground, clouds, even houses and kitchen sinks—which is perhaps why I am particularly skeptical of AI hype. Humans are as quick to attribute human characteristics or sentience to objects as they are to deny them of other groups of humans. For the next prompt, write about your own experience with this phenomenon or explore it through a fictional account.

The third prompt is to imagine a world without human faces and voices and what will fill that absence and perform the naming?

For the next, write a poem or story using the following list of words: “lost,” “knots,” “hands,” “elms,” “shivered,” “wind,” “ease” and “name.”

The last prompt is to use the the line “I wanted to be air, or wind—to be at ease” for a ghostline, remembering to erase the line after finishing the poem or story and crediting the poet.

While at the Buffalo River, I saw a skeletal woman in the shape of this moss-covered rock, but my photo didn’t capture the illusion. Write whatever this photo inspires for bonus prompt.

To end on a more cheerful prompt, write from this surprised sink’s perspective. What just happened?

Good luck writing. Have fun.

What Should Break a Heart—Prompts Inspired by Brian Turner

Many years ago I was able to meet Brian Turner at a conference. I had just read his Here, Bullet and was telling a vendor how much I loved it when he walked up. He was so kind to me. I want to share his poem because it tells the deepest truth, and the photo it is paired with should break our heart.

For the first prompt, write a one-sentence poem that builds up to a devastating statement. (Yes, I know, I am giving you a Follow that! here)

The second prompt is to the line “you carry in your fists, my friend” for a ghostline. After you’ve finished the poem or story, erase the line and credit the poet.

For the third, write an epistolary poem offering advice with the direct address near the end.

The next is to write a poem or story using the following list of words: “shake,” “desert,” “irrevocable,” “seared,” “adrenaline,” “muscle,” “crackling,” “down,” “fists” and “break.”

Bonus prompt: write about ice breaking and thawing into spring or whatever this photo from northern Minnesota inspires.

Good luck writing.

Topical—Prompts Inspired by Isaac Pickell

Sorry, everyone, for the long delay. Once I missed a couple of weeks due to the holidays and a new job, I just couldn’t get myself writing again, the blog or poetry. I have been in a bad headspace in spite of such beautiful poems to discuss.

I had the fortune to run across Isaac Pickell’s powerful poem “Settle/ment” online and have loved everything I’ve read since. He kindly sent me “They took Dylan Roof to Burger King” and “Topical poetry when you are the topic” to share here.

I now have two more books to add to my ever-expanding to-read list (a wonderful problem to have): everything saved will be last (https://blacklawrencepress.com/books/everything-saved-will-be-last/) and It’s Not Over Once You Figure It Out (https://www.blackocean.org/catalog1/its-not-over). You will likely see one of them featured in September for the Sealey Challenge.

I admire poems that are honest and acknowledge the complexities of identity, of who is targeted and the collective response. This poem was posted after the Bondi Beach attack in Australia. After every reported mass shooting—most are no longer “newsworthy” here—I too pray that it will be a white man with well-known rightwing views so that an entire group of people will not be smeared and their safety further threatened. For the first prompt, write about reactions to targeted violence and which voices are heard.

The poem opens with the reference to the famous poem “First They Came.” For the next prompt, write who you will speak out for and who will speak out for you.

I found the poem’s deliberate shift of pronouns powerful. The third prompt is to write a poem or story using the following list of pronouns and other words: “everyone,” “target,” “universal,” “fear,” “threat,” “right,” “mine,” “my,” “they,” “mourning” and “you.”

For the next prompt, use the last lines “Don’t worry / they won’t come for you” as a ghostline, remembering to erase the line after writing your poem or story and crediting the poet for your inspiration with an after statement or in the title.

Often what is left unsaid in a poem echoes in the spaces and after the last line. For this first prompt, ask a question within the story or poem but leave the reader to answer it.

Because I admire the careful use of language in both poems, the next prompt is again a word list: “topical,” “sorrow,” “steeping,” “wait,” “innocence,” “ashes,” “whisper,” “deserve” and “true.”

The last prompt is another repeat: a ghostline. Begin a poem or story with “don’t / tell me how to” but fill in your own action. Remember to delete the line and credit the poet. This prompt I admit is my own reaction to years of obedience before rejection.

Bonus prompt: write whatever this photo from New Orleans’ Audubon Riverview Park inspires.

Good luck writing. I hope I have finally broken through my own block. I hope this year is a productive one (and better than it began).

The Museums Within—Prompts Inspired by Nikita Gill

Nikita Gill’s “When You Asked Me If I Still Think of You” is such a tender reaction to the loss and grief we all must experience. It is one of the poems to reach for after the initial shock passes.

For the first prompt, build a museum within your body for those you love. Perhaps one exhibit is found within the shell of your ear for the lover you spent a summer with at the beach and whose voice you hear within the waves.

One of the most difficult losses is that special language that lovers and best friends share, the inside jokes and catch phrases that only make sense with that person. For the second prompt, start with one of those remembered phrases and translate it for someone now in your life.

I love how the line “Who can I tell about it when all the vowels are you” conveys the devastation and isolation from loss. The third prompt is to imagine a language in which a specific letter (rather than all vowels) represents the person now gone from your life; write a poem or story about that lost letter without ever using that letter or naming it.

The next prompt is to create a story or poem using the followIng list of words: “herringbone,” “exoskeleton,” “crumbles,” “wreckage,” “sea,” “panic,” “shadow,” “shape,” “truth,” and “hearts.”

For the last prompt, use the phrase “I still say your name even if” as a ghostline. After you’ve finished the poem or story, remember to erase the line and credit the poet.

Bonus prompt: write a story or poem about who sits in this chair.

Good luck writing!

Gratitude—Prompts Inspired by Naomi Shihab Nye

Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday with its whitewashed, ahistorical propaganda and past family drama, but a national holiday of gratitude is a lovely idea, if honesty were allowed. I find Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Gratitude List” a palate cleanser to the holiday’s usual saccharine humblebrag and rancid xenophobia.

For the first prompt, write two lists, one a list of favorite foods and the other a list of insults or losses you’ve endured. Mix and match these lists to see what sparks for a poem or story or essay.

The second prompt is write a list poem of hard-fought gratitudes: “the one who got away” but now without regret, the swallowed recriminations that long passed out of you, the rejection that pushed you onward.

The third is to write a poem or story using the following word list: “worth,” “power,” “forgotten,” “wider,” “weaponized,” “worst,” “time,” “lemons,” “raw” and “salted.”

The last prompt is to spend ten minutes or so remembering people who have mentored, inspired, comforted and helped you and describe a perfect moment in your life all the while imagining them as your audience. What would you like for them to experience; what would you give them?

Bonus prompt: I sometimes prefer images that blurred or abstracted in some way. Write whatever this photo brings or mind, or describe a scene obscured by rain or shadows or glaring light.

Good luck writing. Have fun.

Building Blocks—Prompts Inspired by Ruth Stone

The title of this poem is a question that can never definitively be answered but how beautifully Ruth Stone does answer it here. Notice how she makes poetry—its structure and the very language—physical: the “building blocks” of stanzas, the feel of words and letters in the mouth, the leaves on the trees and on the ground.

For the first prompt, write your own answer to the poem’s title.

The second prompt is to imagine each stanza or a poem’s overall structure as a brick or building and the resulting universe each one creates. Walk your readers through these spaces, the foundations spanning centuries and languages.

The third prompt is to make the alphabet physical, its feel in the mouth or its sound (perhaps like the rustling of leaves), or its appearance on the page as the driving force in a poem or story.

The last prompt is to build a poem or story from the following list of words: “slight,” “pressure,” “teeth,” “transparent,” “ochre,”“sisters,” “ground,” “handful,” “blocks” and “invent.”

Bonus prompt: Write whatever this photograph (taken years ago with the now defunct app PaperCamera).

Good luck writing and building. Have fun!

The Bells—Prompts Inspired by Victoria Chang

Yes, I am posting another gorgeous poem by Victoria Chang, one that the Litbowl account rightly notes builds to an epic last line. Ooof.

For the first prompt, write your own (or a character’s) changing aspirations through the stages of life.

The second prompt is to make the landscape an active participant, providing plants or doors or street signs with sentience and agency in your poem, story or essay.

The third is to use “Bells have begun to notice me” for a ghostline, erasing the line after finishing your poem or story and crediting the poet.

For the last, write a poem or story using the following list of words: “passing,” “romance,” “bearable,” “frightened,” “question,” “noises,” “daytime,” “bells” and “notice.”

Bonus prompt: write whatever this photograph inspires or write a poem or story that gives an individual voice to each of these bells.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Falling and Other Aspirations—Prompts Inspired by Jordan Sanderson

When I first began writing poems again, my early ones often had the feeling of falling when I wrote them. I miss that early response. I was able to regain it from “Falling Man” in Jordan Sanderson’s Abattoir, which a friend lent me.

The first prompt is from the cover: write about the objects, useful or otherwise, that someone would find in your purse or backpack, nightstand, the kitchen drawer or other so-called junk drawer. Weave a story or essay around those objects.

The first prompt from the poem is to write about waiting below the Earth’s edge. What would you catch?

The second is to use “He envied the water at Niagara, how it never had to stop falling” as a ghostline, remembering to erase the line after you’ve finished the story or poem and crediting the poet for your inspiration.

For the third, write a poem or story using the following list of words: “rung,” “balcony,” “intentions,” ”Niagara,” “fog,” “guzzled,” “tumble,” “railing,” “sprout” and “waiting.”

The last prompt is to use the format of the statement “He tried carelessness, but he was careful in his carelessness,” substituting carelessness and careful with your own antonyms and building a poem from it.

Bonus prompt: write whatever this image of a waterfall in Idaho inspires.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Halloween—Prompts Inspired by Stacy Gnall

Finally getting over a cold, I am posting this Halloween prompt at the last moment. I am once again returning to an early favorite poetry collection: Stacy Gnall’s Heart First into the Forest.

As a former and always Midwesterner, I love this poem, its envy and awe, its challenge.

For the first prompt, begin writing about water and night and end the story or poem on a challenge.

The second prompt is to use “I’ll dress as a hand-held mirror for you” for a title and reflect images of a lover in yourself or surroundings. Remember to credit the poet in an after statement, as part of the title or through some other indicator.

For the third, write an essay, poem or story about what water is for you and your home, its heavy presence in the throat and across the nape or perhaps its aching absence in chapped lips and dusty roads.

The next prompt is to write a poem or story from the following words: “applause,” “narcissistic” “scrawled,” “hand-held,” “x-ray,” “costume,” “sheet,” “séance,” “seaweed” and “bully.”

The final prompt is to start a poem or story with the line “and this thought raises my soul as by séance” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line and credit the poet for your inspiration.

Bonus prompt: write whatever this photo of Brunswick Lake Peninsula in Ohio inspires.

Final bonus prompt: write about waking to see this shadow below you.

Good luck writing! Have fun tonight!

Claw—Prompts Inspired by Ankh Spice

Tonight let’s tell stories in whatever form you want: verse or prose or hybrid forms, anything that will immediately pull a reader in as Ankh Spice’s poem did me.

For the first prompt, tell a story about an arcade or childhood game in which you change all the rules.

The second prompt is to imagine how you were chosen for your current life, by whom or what, or perhaps the life you live pulls you on like a favorite pair of jeans, folds around you like an origami bird or plucked you randomly from a hat.

For the third prompt, make a story or poem using the following list of words: “unearthed,” “marrow,” “tenderfoot,” “clotted,” “chosen,” “sifting,” “fortune,” “growl,” “rounding” and “claw.”

The last prompt is to write about childhood treasures and the process of and uncovering and sifting in an essay, poem or story.

This post seems to fit well with the previous prompts. I particularly like the description in the Alt text:

Here is something I found in my parents’ yard on a visit, and it weirdly seems to have a similar shape to the stuffed animal the dog hid.

Bonus prompt: write anything that the photos above inspired or write about anything you have uncovered and why it was hidden.

Extra bonus prompt: write about a zombie attack or whatever this doll planning to do to the green bear (the pumpkin seems to know something is up).

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Relativity—Prompts Inspired by Susan L. Leary

Words have so many meanings, layered and even obscuring or contradicting one another; some meanings are recorded definitions but others private associations. For me, “contentment” contains satisfaction, yes, but also peace and a quiet joy, not limitation nor smug self-satisfaction; it is entirely positive. Susan Leary’s poem “Clean” first uses “clean” with laundry and then to less simple meanings, building a poem around its connotations and associations for her and her relationship to her brother. It is beautiful and generous.

For the first prompt, choose a common word that has deep significance for you, using the word as the title and layering images to invoke its multiple meanings and finally ending on the word. This prompt can work for a poem, essay or even a short story.

The second prompt is to begin a poem or story with a call, not necessarily about a death or an emergency, but one that galvanizes the subsequent actions or reflections.

The third is to write a story or poem using the following list of words: “call,” “house,” “standing,” “couch,” “fatigue,” “stretched,” “shovels,” “summery,” “ocean” and “clean.” Try to switch the usage from noun to verb or vice versa.

Another prompt is to use the phrase “while it seems so symbolic, it’s all rather simple” as a ghostline, remembering to erase the line after you’ve finished the poem and to give credit to the poet.

For the final prompt, write a series of explanations as a Rube Goldberg machine of cause and effect. If you want musical accompaniment or just want to watch a fun Rube Goldberg Machine, here is Okay Go’s “This Too Shall Pass”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w.

For a bonus prompt, use the following Venn diagram to inspire a poem or story. Or find another or, please, create your own and share:

Final bonus prompt: write whatever this photo of the beach at San Clemente inspires.

Good luck writing and have fun reading.

Anaphora and Epiphora with Pedro Iniguez

Social media is rotting our brains, but it does give us a way to discover and share great writing. At least we will be lyrical in the looming apocalypse.

I love how this poems uses anaphora and epiphora (or epistrophe) to build depth and power from modern, everyday language. This repetition along with assonance, consonance, and actual rhymes throughout provide rhythm and momentum.

For the first prompt, let’s borrow the poet’s structure: build a poem of eight lines in which the first four lines share the same beginning phrase (anaphora), a fifth line that provides the shift into epiphora. Note that the poem alternates words in the repeated phrases. These slight changes can function to deepen meaning: the “we” and the “they” of their bodies. I take the last line to mean that the Mexican people nourish the Earth while alive and after death, connecting back to the title. What may work best is to structure the first half as a problem or question and the second half as the solution, answer or a rebuttal.

The second prompt is to build a poem or story using binary oppositions (life/death, mind/body, Earth/space or others such as light/dark, male/female, young/old, spring/fall, temporary/eternal, etc.) only to blur those categories. You can break down those categories in the very title as the poet did or gradually complicate their boundary. This focus on binary oppositions could seem outdated, so maybe pair the structure with modern and conversational language and syntax.

The third prompt is to write a poem or story using the following list of words: “afford,” “corpses,” “scrape,” “age,” “minds,” “clear,” “repair,” “bones,”“corrode” and “nourish.”

The last prompt is to write an essay, poem or story on the looming, or perhaps existing, “digital hell.”

Bonus prompt from Todd Dillard:

And a final bonus prompt since it seems like cheating to use someone else’s prompt: find beauty in the breakdown or write whatever this photo inspires.

Good luck writing. Find joy where you can.

Building to a Fall—Prompts Inspired by Emma Bolden

I admit I fangirl Emma Bolden’s writing, so it will be no surprise I am sharing another poem of hers. I love the imagery and precise control of sound, the depth within the often conversational tone, the unexpected turns, the ending.

If you would like to read the recent issue of Whale Road Review, a fabulous journal, here is the link: https://www.whaleroadreview.com/issue-40-fall-2025/

For the first prompt, write a list poem of the lies your body tells, or write a story or essay if you prefer.

The second prompt is to replace the last word with your own and build a story, poem or essay around the line “I’ve never/known a verb more terrible, more gorgeous than to,” remembering to erase that line afterwards and credit the poet in your title or with “After Emma Bolden.”

The third is to use the language and imagery of structures—buildings, bridges, cities, institutions, family relationships, etc.—and then show them breaking.

The next is a writing exercise: rewrite the poem replacing all the nouns and verbs with your own. If you find a line you like, use that for a starting point for a poem or story.

For the last, write a story or poem using the following word list: “centered,” “clot,” “sharpen,” “eye,” “translation,” “shelter,” “blank,” “shutter,” “bud” and “smooth.”

Bonus prompt: write about whatever this photo of a fake medieval castle built in the 1920s inspires, or if you need something more direct, write about the ocean looking in onto this courtyard and what it thinks about the invention of time.

Good luck writing and living during this fall.

Layers—Prompts Inspired by Melissa Eleftherion

I love the complexity described here—how tactile the lifeforms, the fossilized remains and rocks—all exposed by the fog and by the waves’ ceaseless movements.

For the first prompt, begin with an uncovering of a scene. You could perhaps describe a crowd appearing as a train moves past, or a narrator’s view around the curve of a path or river bend or looking down from a balcony upon a parade. How do humans, wildlife, and the environment interact. Try to move the focus as you would a camera.

The second prompt is to build a poem, story or essay around indehiscent fruits that do not split open to release seeds, about the waiting potential and possibility.

For the third, is to use the last line, “what emerges from such care,” as the ghostline for your own story or poem, remembering to erase the line and credit the poet in an after statement or the title.

For the next prompt, write a story or poem using the following list of words: “cling,” “retreats,” “scars,” “rigor,” “nacreous” “fissure,” “tidal,” “index,” “coax,” “decay,” “tether” and “emerges.”

Bonus prompt: Write about the layering and interaction of the wishes from these pennies in their watery environment.

Good luck writing.

Physics Puzzles—Prompts inspired by Sharon Olds

I love this poem by Sharon Olds: how it progresses from a young child’s simple puzzle to a complex physics problem as the child herself progressed and how it connects the physics example to the mother-daughter role and then upends the expectation.

For the first prompt, open by describing the physical action of a game or child’s activity, connecting it to a specific memory either from your own childhood or from parenthood. See where it takes you in a poem, story or essay.

The second prompt is to use a scientific theory or concept as a metaphor for a human relationship or interaction.

The third prompt is to write a poem or story using the following list of words: “pieces,” “flush,” “frames,” “wooden,” “groan,” “scarlet,” “gaps,” “rung,” “hum” and “grown.”

For the next prompt, use the line “I have not grown up yet, I have lived” as a jumping off point, finishing however you would. After deleting the line (or kept in with italics or quotation marks), give the poet credit for inspiration.

The last prompt is either begin or end with the line “I have not been born yet” in a poem or story, again remembering the poet.

Bonus prompt: write whatever this photo of butterflies crowding around a wasp trap for a drink.

Good luck writing! Have fun!

Sealey Challenge—Prompts Inspired by Yusuf Komunyakaa

For the last day of the Sealey Challenge, I am ending on a poem from the great poet Yusuf Komunyakaa. He visited my college, and I have never forgotten the beauty of his poetry or kindness towards students, including my awkward not-yet-a-writer self. I have kept that sense of awe and gratitude all these years.

As you can see, I borrowed this book from the library. While I want more books of his for my own home, I want to keep poetry valued in library systems. I would like to see more poetry collections there and in bookstores and more poetry readers and writers everywhere.

For the first prompt, write about a material good or product, referencing its origin (whether by plant or creature or both) and connecting it to the narrator or yourself in an essay, story or poem.

The second prompt is to use “Humans crave immortality, but oh,” as your starting point for a story or poem. You can erase the line as you would for a ghostline or indicate through punctuation or italics that the line isn’t your own; either way, remember to give credit to the poet.

For the third, write a poem or story using the following list of words: “perfume,” “iron,” “pagoda,” “trails,” “radiance,” “flounce,” “crave, “leaves,” “wove” and “world.”

Bonus prompt, write whatever this image inspires, although I wish the photo could convey the sweetness of its scent.

Good luck writing and have fun reading!