This Subtweet Is So Under the Radar, It is a Basement—Prompt for the Discreetly Annoyed

We all have friends, family members, and coworkers who drive us batshit crazy at times, especially as the family members are now temporary coworkers. HR cannot deal with a teenager, and performance evaluations mean nothing to toddlers. We cannot live without them, but we are really tired of living with them. Or perhaps it’s that friend who is so thirsty, Niagara Falls would dry up after a conversation. What to do?

You need to vent, but the one bathroom is the only room with a lock and the most happening place in the house, or perhaps the people you vent to are the ones you want to vent about. Awkward! You could write an utterly satisfying rant poem, but then you cannot ever share it. So tell the truth, but tell it slant as one famous self-quarantined poet once said.

For this prompt, make one list of five garden pests and a second list of four annoying things coworkers do (e.g. never chipping in for creamer, talking loudly on the phone, leaning over your shoulder to check on your productivity, etc.) but include the thing that is most driving you nuts. Mix and match, add predators, bug zappers, and lawn mowers. Get creative. Or vicious. Have fun!

Good luck!

Here is my coworker climbing the walls, so apparently I am the annoying one. If I disappear, look for my body in the hall closet hatch…

Juno in Love—Ekphrastic prompts

Use the following photos of Jupiter as inspiration. Throw in mythology if you like or astronomy or the metaphysical. For more photos, check out Jessica Stewart’s article “NASA Releases Stunning Hi-Res Photos of Jupiter’s Swirling Atmosphere.”

For a second prompt, write a love poem from Juno to Jupiter. Or a sex poem. You do you…or a giant planet if that’s your thing. Here are more photos from NASA

Explain the World That Does Not Exist But Should—Prompts

I am so tired of the circling of helicopters. I would much prefer the circling of finches and dragonflies.

Your prompt for the day is to start with the line “The thing is” and finish with one of the following tweets from Magic Realism Bot.

Good luck to us all.

Shoppers, Clerks and the Lady Offering Corndog Samples Next to the Cheese Aisle, Lend Me Your Ears, errr, or Hands—Prompts

More stolen prompts but now due to user error rather than technical difficulties… Below is a prompt from The Poetry Society. This prompt seems simple, but often the challenge is picking the character and circumstance.

Here are a couple of steps that might help. Make a list of five famous people or characters. Just write down the first five that pop into your head. Now write down five ordinary places that you (previously) went to regularly, such as the post office or dentist’s office. If you want, be very specific: e.g., the McDonald’s on Bryan Ave., the Jiffy Lube on Harbor Blvd., etc.

For a second prompt: write a monologue from a puppet, either from a Muppet or a random puppet, but cut the strings and remove the stage: set the monologue anywhere other than a theater or show.

Photo (and additional information about the Muppet) found on the Muppet Fandom Wiki

This puppet was at a poetry reading….she did not speak, nor walk on her own (thankfully).

Belated Easter prompts!

More technical difficulties occurred, so here is your very belated prompt:

Write a poem from either a peep’s point of view or the T-rex’s.

Second prompt: stage a peep fight and record the battle. Arm two peeps with toothpicks and place them a couple of inches apart in the microwave. Cook for 30 or so seconds. You may want to decrease power by 50%

Have fun, peeps!

Show, Don’t Tell—Prompts Inspired by Javier Zamora

We have all heard the advice “show, don’t tell”—and some of us may even give this advice too. Javier Zamora’s “Dancing in Buses” is an amazing poem that demonstrates that adage perfectly.

So now you have an example, try to create your own poem that needs no exposition. Perhaps write the movements of a lover turning away and closing the door. Include no dialogue or even expressions; just the actions. See where it takes you.

For the second prompt, write a poem using the following words “boom,” “shoulder,” “hands” “right,” “orange,” “sweep,” “ladle,” “breathe,” “ground,” and “mouth” but don’t shift to a fearful tone. If you can do so without paraphrasing the original, go ahead, but it may be extremely difficult.

For a third prompt, use the line “Look at the ground” as a ghostline. See what direction you go (pun intended, sorry).

For more great poems, check out Javier Zamora’s website.

As always, give credit to the poet for your inspiration. Good luck!

Redundancies, Repetition and Refrains—Let’s Repeat This One More Time

We all do the same tasks over and over—some necessary; others not so much. Here is your chance to structure a poem around the repetition of the task that organizes your day—try to choose a particularly irrelevant one, such as checking and rechecking that the doors are locked, the coffee pot is turned off, etc. Use that task as the refrain in your poem.

Bonus prompt: write a sestina that uses the words above.

Good luck!

Murders and Mirrors—Prompts Inspired by Kelli Russell Agodon

As some have noticed, I have a thing about birds—a lot of my poems feature birds, especially crows and ravens, and murder—so of course I fell in love with this poem by Kelli Russell Agodon whose poetry has always resonated with me. Click here to listen to read it (I will try to provide more audio links).

For the first prompt, take the first line “The night sounds like murder” but change the last word to a holiday or other celebration. Or if you wish, go through the poem line by line and “mirror the language”—try to use antonyms for the nouns and verbs (“night” to day,” “murder” to “birth,” “hardware to software,” “breakdown” to “make up” and so on. I got this exercise idea from Brendan Constantine. Make sure to give credit to the poet.

For a second prompt, use the following words from the poem: “sounds,” “change,” “days,” “breaks,” “guard,” “hold,” “across,” “bright,” “lighting,” “flock,”

For a third prompt, use “and some days it breaks itself into two” as a ghostline. Don’t forget to erase the line and credit the poet.

Good luck!

Visit That Chair The Cat Vomited On and Other Exotic Destinations—Prompts from Stay the F* Home Travel Posters

Enjoying your extended stay at Chez Home? Perhaps not. Let’s try to pretend a room is an exotic resort that you are lucky to visit. If it helps, turn off all the lights at night and see if you really can navigate your way from the couch to the fridge without at least one dinged shin.

To get us in the right mood, let’s use Jennifer Baer’s travel posters:

For the first prompt, describe the one drooping fern as if it were the entire emerald Amazon forest. Make this poem extravagantly ridiculous. For the kind of tone needed, think of the True Facts YouTube series. Here is the “True Facts: Carnivorous Plants” episode.

For the next prompt, write an ode to your bathroom, either the entire room or perhaps one fixture. After my recent plumbing tribulations, a functioning toilet is the equivalent of a bejeweled throne in value. Long Sit the Queen, er, something like that.

Or bonus prompt: write an ekphrastic poem and really catch the homage paid to toilet paper in this poster.

And for the last prompt, write a synopsis of the last show you watched, but describe only the objects in the scenes, nothing about the people. You could just make this an ekphrastic prompt and describe the living room in a sitcom. Or if you watched a detective show and a murder occurred, you could describe the murder weapon as if it were the leading character. What did it do, where did it go, when was it found, etc.?

Good luck! Have fun on your exciting vacation and poetry escapade!

See, You Are Going to Use That Textbook Again—A Twitter Prompt to Prove Your Mother Wrong

This next prompt is from a UK poet on Twitter that of course I stole because today was not a words day (or a cleaning day). If you would like to read more of the poet (which I intend to do so too after reading a few poems), check out Reckless Paper Birds.

In the past I have used other texts—scientific abstracts, Standard Operating Procedures, threatening Tweets, ads, passages from fiction, etc.—for erasure sources or found poems. I haven’t tried this particular writing exercise though—in which the original and my own writing are juxtaposed. Since I have not written a poem yet today, I am desperate for some method to get me started.

Below is the source material I plan to use for the exercise’s poem.

Good luck to us both!

Let’s Science the Shit Out of This, or Let’s Shit This Science Up—Prompts from Bad Science Tweets

Science is only as good as the reproducibility of its studies and useful only if people listen to actual scientists and doctors, except if they spout off some shit about aliens and the pyramids or make a light-hearted poem about the low risk of COVID-19 versus the flu. But for now, let’s make science just as dumb as an Administration trying to push people off of healthcare during a pandemic.

For the first prompt, use one of the following tweets from the Bad Science Twitter account as a ghostline. Go off from there. Have fun.

For the second prompt, write a poem using the following word list taken from the tweets above: “share,” “tomorrow,” “loves,” “wind” (either noun or verb), “lies,” “pair,” “years,” “lifetime,” and “shame.”

Bonus prompt: ekphrastic challenge time! Have fun with these frat boys.

Generate This Poem—Prompt from NaPoWriMo.net

For today’s prompt, let’s borrow NaPoWriMo’s Day 1 Prompt:

Here is the link to the online metaphor generator and the Emily Dickinson sample poem, but do check out NaPoWriMo.net for the site’s daily prompts for this year and previous years.

Bonus prompt: Ekphrastic weirdness challenge

Remember to stay on the trail if you are Satan!

Letter to a Deity—Prompts Inspired by Traci Brimhall

These prompts are inspired by Traci Brimhall’s two poems entitled “Dear Thanatos,” and “Dear Thanatos—“both of which address the obscure Greek god of peaceful death. Choose a minor deity, one that calls to you, and write a letter addressing the god/goddess. If you wish to also write to/about Thanatos or another Greek deity, this link is a good resource.

The next prompt is a word list compiled from both poems for you to use in your poem: “bridge,” “coiled,”bruise,” “fossil,” “damn,” “ease,” “liver,” “feast,” “testament,” and “wracked.”

The third prompt is to use the line “Damn the daylight, too. Dream me” as a ghostline. Remember to erase the line after you finish and credit the poet for the inspiration.

If you wish to read more of Traci Brimhall, check out her website. I love her book Rookery and have her next two on my list to buy.

For a final prompt, write an ekphrastic poem from the image below. You can be historically accurate (refer to the link provided above) or whatever you wish.

Good luck!

https://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Thanatos.html

Dress a Mannequin, Not Yourself—Prompts for the Pantsless

So here we are: most of us are stressed and pajama’d in our houses. What to do? Write some poems of course! Now you can finally meet the challenge of writing a poem for every day in April and earn fame and glory for generations. Or perhaps you can just write a poem while telling your kids it’s not their turn to use the computer and give you five more minutes and then they can play Minecraft.

The first prompt is by Matthea Harvey and published in a collection of prompts Swallow Cinnamon, Plant An Acorn. Although Rosebud Ben-Oni’s “Somewhere Thuban is Fading” doesn’t follow the prompts instructions, it does mention both pants and mannequins. I hope you like it as much as I do.

For the next prompt, write about where your pajamas take now that there is no place to go; create a new reality, one that doesn’t follow the normal rules of time and space and matter. For a sample poem, read “SS Nevertheless” by David Hernandez. So lovely.

For the last prompt, write about the nightmares of attending school or work without pants but recreate the discombobulation of a dream. Sew a tapestry of various dreams into an ethereal landscape. Check out Lisa Olstein’s “Fort Night” and notice the opening lines in particular.

Go Forth and Write the Wrongs, Pantsless One!

Good Luck!

Pandemics and Panics—Prompts for the Beginning of 30/30 the Challenge

Moving in the rain into a house without consistently functional indoor plumbing did not lead to frequent blogging (or anything else) last month, but today begins the April National Poetry Month Writing challenge (NaPoWriMo): writing 30 poems in 30 days.

But the lockdown and the move made me more aware of what our homes mean to us…especially when they become our perpetual living space and our confinement. If you live alone, I hope you are able to connect with loved ones. Likewise, f you are surrounded by loved ones and roommates, I hope you find some solitude.

For the first prompt, people your home with spirits, gods and goddesses. Let them live in your cabinets. What do they want to say to you? What do you say back? For a sample poem, check out “What the Medicine Cabinet Said” by T. J. Anderson III.

The second prompt is for all of the parents of young children and for those who are shifting into full-time playmates and teachers as their children are kept home from school. Set the scene of one of your interactions with your kids—is it a battle over a homework assignment, a repeated request for quiet during a conference call, a plea for some downtime? Make a list of five objects and another of five sounds. Try to incorporate at least three of each into the poem. If this is a recurring event, try to balance the immediacy with a sense of repetition. I particularly love Jenny Factor’s “Battle of Will & Exhaustion, Mother & Child.”

For the final prompt, choose a page from a novel—horror or suspense—and block out words until you find a poem that resonates with how you feel during this time of quarantine, sorrow and uncertainty. This prompt was inspired by this beautiful erasure poem by S. J. Sloat.

For more poems and illustrations, check out poet’s blog and upcoming book.

Add Your Adages in a Row—Prompts Inspired by Sara Miller

Maxims and pithy sayings bear repeating over and over and repeating them can be overbearing, but my favorite poems often employ an aphorism as a metaphor or subvert one. “Countermeasures” by Sara Miller takes the familiar and tweaks it. I love both the resulting imagery and comparisons.

For the first prompt, choose an aphorism and use it to create an extended metaphor as Miller did. Here is an online list of aphorisms. I may have already posted a similar prompt—and probably will do so again since my ducks usually are upside with their butts showing while their heads are underwater looking for their car keys.

The second prompt is to take the line “My point is that we all exist, wetly, in the hunt” for a ghostline, or if you prefer, use it as an epigraph (although one Twitter discussion indicated that some editors don’t like epigraphs and the challenge for a poet is to not have the epigraph overshadow the rest of the poem). Either way, don’t forget to give credit to Miller.

For another example of a poem that takes a common saying and “turns it on its ear” (sorry!) is “In the Ear of Our Lord” By Brendan Constantine, one of my favorite poets. Do check out his website for his upcoming performances, and I sincerely recommend his workshops. For the second prompt, deliberately botch the aphorism or perhaps mix two together and see what happens.

Good luck!

Ghostline for Death by Wedding Dress in a Forest Fire—Prompts

A second move in less than a year—especially when it was unplanned and unwanted—does not lead to productivity in other areas, so I am once again behind on posting and will probably continue to be lax for some time to come.

This next prompt is inspired by a Tweet, and while Twitter itself is political hellscape, I still find inspiring prompts, amazing poems and animal pics and videos.

For the prompt, use the following Tweet as a ghostline. What exactly does this show? Remember to delete the line but still give credit to the writer.

While I obviously didn’t find a sample poem that exactly fits this scenario, I do have beautiful poems linked that I hope you enjoy as much I do. Check out “Self-portrait as Thousandfurs” by Stacy Gnall, “Boy in a Stolen Evening Gown” by Saeed Jones, “Brute Strength” by Emily Skaja and “Ekphrasis on My Rapist’s Wedding Dress” by torrin a. greathouse.

For a second prompt, choose the last line or last two lines of one of these poems for a ghostline. As always, erase the line but give credit to the poet for your inspiration.

Photo taken from the online clothing site Gem and modified with the PaperCamera app

For a final prompt, use the image to write an ekphrastic poem.

Good luck!

Imitate Your Friends and Influence People—Prompts

For the first prompt, write in the style of your friend or someone in your local poetry community (if you have one). Try to choose someone who writes in a very different style. If you tend to focus on imagery, then pick someone whose lines you admire for their sound and rhythm. Try to use similar themes as the person you are imitating. If person tends to write about the sea and vicious mermaids, use a similar subject matter. Also try to replicate line lengths and word choices.

The main purpose is to notice the techniques another poet uses and practice them in your own writing. The secondary purpose is to show another writer you admire their skills. Remember, this prompt is an exercise. The goal isn’t to write a poem to publish since you are imitating someone else.

For the second prompt, weave multiple styles/voices in a poem. I have never been able to do this, but Sarah ChristianScher is amazing at this. If you come to the Ugly Mug, ask her for advice and then explain how to do it to me please.

Imitation as a Form of Flattery and Fun

The last post focused on imitating others and repeating their words and style. Let’s repeat ourselves and others again—without the mockery though.

Most of us know of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”—it was an anthem for a generation—but Amy Newman’s version of “Howl” provide a younger generation of women with their own. I found her poem cheeky and humorous but not derogatory to Ginsberg’s. I hope you enjoy it too.

So if imitation is the highest form of flattery and to err is human, let’s take a poem we really like and muff it all up. Choose a poem whose structure you admire and use it for a template for your own poem. Here is Jack Spicer’s amazing poem “Psychoanalysis: An Elegy.” The full poem is found here.

Now below is my attempt to reproduce a similar format in a poem (full link here). Note that this poem is too close to its original (not in quality but in structure) for me to feel comfortable submitting it for publication). I think of this as an exercise poem only. After recent controversies with outright plagiarism and imitation in the poetry community, I hesitate to use others’ structures even with clear attribution. Parody of course is fine, but that is not the goal of this exercise.

For your first prompt, use the structure of Jack Spicer’s poem (his questions) but provide your own answers. See where it leads you. Again, this is just an exercise poem.

Painters and other visual artists often learn techniques by imitating the masters. It is expected and an accepted method of instruction. Writers, however, are supposed to pull from their own lives so that using another’s words is a betrayal of self and a theft. Most beginning writers imitate though—it is part of the process, which is why open mics usually have at least one poet using antiquated language in a rhyming sonnet that echoes the poems from an English lit class.

For the next prompt, choose a poem with a distinctive format/structure—a poem that you love down to your marrow.. Write a poem that matches the original’s structure but work to maintain your own voice. Again this is just an exercise.

For the final prompt, unleash your silliness. Let the painting below be your inspiration.

Good luck!

Yes, this prompt isn’t about parody, but I couldn’t resist this painting.

Imitation as Parody, Painting and Prosody: Prompts

Playground taunts often involve imitation, and parody can be the most pointed of insults, so choose a poem that irks you or a good poem from a [insert profanity here] poet. In grad school, I had a poetry professor who hated William Blake and would read Blake’s poem’s in the voice of Bullwinkle (the Moose of the Squirrel and Moose duo). Fabulous. Here is a link to

For the first prompt, find a poem (or poet) you dislike and mock a poem to all your dark heart’s joy. Dance on those bloated stanzas, bonfire that crude rhyme scheme, shout down its narrator, delight in the destruction! Go all in.

More about this painting the artist Toulouse-Lautrec can be found at this link.

Not all parody is cruel in intent though. I felt utterly seen and loved when a friend of mine included me in a poem composed of lines in the style of local poets. I immediately knew my own lines without being named (I think she wrote “my” lines better than I do though).

A recent post featured deer in poems and linked William Stafford’s famous “Traveling Through the Dark.” Let’s look at Rae Armantrout’s parody of his poem with her “Traveling Through the Yard,” both of which are helpfully provided by the blog 32degrees.

So for the next prompt, choose a poem you love and parody it all in good fun. Try to keep to the original’s form as much as possible.

For a third prompt, take a famous poem and completely desecrate it. Perhaps switch its form to a limerick as Wendy Cope did in her “The Waste Land: Five Limericks.” Introduce cats, muppets or cartoon characters. Please check out Robert Wynne’s Museum of Parallel Art for more sample poems.

Go all in! Good luck!