Prompt a Poem!—A Daily April Poetry Challenge

Guidelines:

• To ensure your poem is posted to our website, please submit by noon the following day. (For example, poems using the April 5 prompt should be submitted by noon on April 6.)
• Submit a poem for as many prompts as you would like.
• If you would like your poem credited, please be sure your name appears on the poem itself (not just the file name).
• We are not able to post poems that are not based on a prompt.
  

As we near the end of National Poetry Month, we have a second revision exercise brought to us by the poet Jon Holland.

Step 1: Find 5-7 drafts of poems or free writes that have a common theme or central subject. Pile them all into a single document

Step 2: Sequence these free writes and drafts. You could order them via chronology or emotion or musicality or the color wheel or you could use probability to order them somehow. It doesn’t matter. Just put some sort of intention behind the ordering (even if the intention is randomness). You don’t have to edit anything at the line or section level here, but feel free to revise or delete in this step if something keeps snagging you.

Step 3: Rewrite these drafts/free writes by hand, combining them into one poem. Like use a pen or pencil or crayon and write on a piece of paper or a wall or something. No copy-and-pasting here because you’ll be less ruthless in your deletions. You could also write on a typewriter. Just NO WRITING ON THE COMPUTER FOR THIS STEP.

Step 4: Now, rewrite your handwritten poem. Feel free to type this draft.

Think of a joke. Any joke. If you can’t think of a joke, google ‘joke’. Now, write a ten- minute long joke with no punchline. Use all the sensory detail you recall or found in the joke, but don’t be funny. This is not a joke.

As we near the end of National Poetry Month, we have a revision exercise brought to us by the poet Jon Holland.

Step 1: Find 4-6 of your unfinished poems that are centered around the same subject. Define “unfinished” however you wish. Sometimes I feel like “finished” means roughly the same thing as “published” but I often wonder if anything is ever really done. Alexander Pope and Walt Whitman focused themselves on overhauling and tinkering with revisions and republishing their larger works in The Dunciad and Leaves of Grass for huge chunks of their careers, which suggests that “published” and “finished” aren’t synonymous at all. Obviously it was a different time and Google and first publisher rights were slightly different in the 18th and 19th centuries. Robert Frost published “In White” in 1912 and a better version titled “Design” in 1936 which has always fascinated me. Only you know when something’s finished, so go with your gut. You just want several poems based around the same figure or content or theme or emotion or imagery or…you get it. Group them however you want, but make sure you are getting stuff that you feel like you aren’t done with for whatever reason.

Step 2: Peruse these types of closet organizations as potential for formal innovations (here is a top nine list and here is a Goodhousekeeping Tips list for DIY closet organization). To poeticize the closet space, you’ll probably have to fix a set number of lines as well as a maximum line length before you start (because closets don’t get any bigger as much as you want them to), then you’ll figure out a way to shove everything you’ve dredged up about this theme into the closet. You’ll want a lot of your stuff to be accessible after you’re done, but you’ll bury and hide some things (or maybe you’ll shove so much into the closet that if someone pulls one item out, everything else spills out). Each potential closet organization uses the same amount of space, but each arranges the clutter of items differently from left to right; each uses vertical space in a specific way, each designs drawers and cabinets with completely different functionality in mind. It could all apply to a poetry if we look at the purpose of the object, the way it navigates constrictions and its ergonomic/practical features, then try to set up stanza structures and line constraints that mimic the object (but, like, in a poetic way). For instance, what’s the poetic equivalent of a hanging space for jeans as opposed to the drawer for them? What is the formal comparison of cubbies vs. shelves in poetry?

Step 3: Contrive at least THREE formal constraints. The number three merely comes from this being step three. Feel free to come up with only two formal constraints or several more if you want. But get at least three (or two, I guess since I said that was an optional, but definitely more than one since this is a revision prompt and you already have the fodder).

Step 4: Compose one poem of these 4-6. Be ruthless in your deletions, but don’t cut any emotion or significant moments in the poems. Your goal is to pack every bit of meaning, every bit of significant exposition, every memory/association/anecdote into the CLOSET that you’ve designed for this content. Your reader doesn’t have to be able to decipher everything, but you should know why you kept that random, unmarked DVD or letter or picture and why you stuffed it in the back of the closet and under that box.

Step 1: What’s your first memory—or what do you, now, consider to be the oldest memory that’s still surviving in your brain. Describe that first memory in as much sensory detail as possible.

Step 2: What’s your most recent memory besides doing that freewrite? (Having a cup of coffee or talking to a friend on the phone or folding some laundry or taking a shower?) Describe that, in as much sensory detail as possible.

Step 3: You can shape a poem from this by braiding the two memories together, or simply by placing them in an interesting order and letting their juxtaposition be the bookends of your whole life up until now.

This prompt comes to us from the poet Sarah Messer.

Names of Woody Plants: Love Letter to a Tree

Pick the name of one of these trees as the title. Write a love letter to a tree. Halfway through, turn the love letter into a confession of a recent act. You cannot use any botanical words in the letter. 

Yesterday you invented a dessert. Now, you will invent a Beast.Yesterday you chose the ‘subtext’ of your dessert before you invented the dessert. Now, you will first invent the Beast and then you’ll decide: what does my Beast say about myself, about a human experience, about an abstraction? Answer some questions about your beast: How many legs does it have—long short etc.? How big is it? Does it have fur or skin or feathers or scales or all of those or something else? Hooves? Claws? Toes? Teeth? Lips? Describe your beast, and then give your beast a name, which will be the title of your poem. 

Step 1: Consider an abstraction (fear, love, friendship, despair, etc.) Don’t think too hard about it. Any abstraction will work. Just choose one and stick with it.

Step 2: Consider a weather event or condition (thunderstorm, hurricane, blizzard, etc.)

Step 3: Free write for a few minutes on the abstraction, and then free write for a few minutes on the weather event before you look at Step 4.

Step 4: Look at what you have written in each free write and create a dessert out of it. You can write a recipe, or a list of ingredients, and/or describe this dessert—eating it, where one would eat it, all the sensory details, any hint of narrative. If you didn’t make it, who did? Does it tell a story? Does it cure a disease? Would you serve it to your friend or to your enemy, etc.?

Step 5: The name of the dessert is the title of the poem.
 

Step 1: Think of an object you own that’s larger than, say, a toaster. It can be as big as a couch or it can be smaller. A stuffed animal. A pillow. Etc. This can’t be an outdoor-friendly thing (no bikes, for instance). After you choose an object, stick with it whether you wish you’d chosen something else or not. (You may do this exercise repeatedly if you so desire!) Now, imagine your object outdoors, in the street or in a park or on a lawn or on a roof. It’s raining. Your object is being soaked with rain. Describe the object and the rain and the state of the object in the rain in as much sensory detail as possible.

Step 2: Now, use EVERY detail from this freewrite in a description of either your best friend or a favorite family member. If your description has soggy cardboard or rust in it, you still need to use that in a description of your best friend or favorite family member. You aren’t describing the appearance or physicality of the person. You’re describing something intangible about the person, and what this person means to you.
 

This prompt comes to us from the poet Jonathan Holland.

Step 1: Pick a bug any bug. Don't think too much about it other than you have to have experience with it. List 8 to 10 memories that contain that bug.

Step 2: Describe the bug in vivid detail. List any notable pop culture references, poetry references, musical references, common allusions, clichés or tales or sayings about the bug. Try to get to 8 or 10. The last ones, the ones you really have to claw for, will probably be the best.

Step 3: Research that bug. Where did its name/nickname come from? Is it a symbol for anything? What are its mating habits and infestation habits? What environment or season does it prefer? Are there any interesting applied uses for it (i.e. use in medicine or science or apothecary or folklore, etc.)? For instance, maggots were used to remove dead gangrene flesh according to an episode of House that I saw. List any interesting factoids you can find about the bug.

Step 4: Now, from a third-person narrator (pick any distance you want, omniscient, limited, objective), rewrite two or three memories in vivid detail, using information from your research to inform the narration.

Step 5: Use these notes as the basis of a poem. If you haven’t already latched onto something, maybe try to write from the bug’s perspective. Or, write a poem to that bug (or from the bug to you), or change the P.O.V. of step four, and allow that first-person narrator—who now has research fueling the elucidation of the moment—back into the memory. Or, you can write a poem without a bug, allowing images, scene, and sound to give us that buggy feeling, but you never actually have to mention the bug. Or, hopefully, in the process of doing any of these steps, you latch onto something I couldn’t conceive until I read yours and think, I wish I had that idea!
 

FLYING HUMANOID WITH WINGS CAUGHT ON FILM OVER PHOENIX ARIZONA

The internet and the newspapers are full of important news, which is being missed by the general population. Find one of the strangest or inspiring of these and use the newspaper or internet headline/clickbait as the title of your poem. Don't read beyond whatever opening text caught your eye. Describe (beginning by freewriting for 10 minutes) the events or story suggested by that title in as much sensory detail as possible. (If you can't find anything, you can use the above!)

This prompt comes to us from the poet Keith Taylor.

Step Out onto the Planet and Find Some Poems
On May 23, 1971, the great Beat poet, Lew Welch, walked out into the forest that surrounds Gary Snyder’s isolated home in the High Sierras. He was never seen again. That has become the Legend of Lew, and it’s a strong one, so strong we often forget what he wrote. Early in Ring of Bone, his Collected Poems, he draws a beautiful circle with a calligraphic brush, and below it writes:
Now: step out onto the planet.
Draw a circle a hundred feet round.
Inside the circle are 300 things nobody understands, and, maybe nobody’s ever really seen.
How many can you find?
Step 1: Choose from these something that you know nothing about; that is surprisingly easy, even for folks who spend a lot of time outdoors. The thing you find works best if it’s organic, although the inorganic (rocks, stones, pebbles, sand) can do the job too.
Step 2: Study that thing, focusing on it, and writing down detailed descriptions of it. Yes, you can write your reactions to it, too, if you want to. But force yourself to keep looking, keep writing, for an hour. This is the hardest part of the whole process.
Step 3: You can do this while you’re still outside, but I give you permission to come back inside if the weather has turned nasty, if night is falling, or if the mosquitoes have gotten bad. But now try to shape those notes – either into lines, or sentences. You could even impose a little narrative on them if you want to.
Step 4: You could do this before Step 3 if you wanted to. That’s OK. You could even skip this entirely, although I think you’d be missing something if you did. NOW try to name the thing you looked at. Check out field guides, the internet; ask an expert or a knowledgeable local if one’s around. Try to figure out where the name came from and why. The scientific name often adds a whole new dimension. Then see if this information changes or adds to the piece you’ve begun to shape in Step 3.

Before you start your freewrite, read a poem (written by someone other than yourself) aloud to yourself.  Now, put the poem away. Now, set your timer. Now, use your memory of the poem—its sound, its sensory details, its emotional tone, its point of view, its line length, as well as whatever you felt was emotional or physical about it that’s still echoing around in your brain, and write that poem again. (This isn’t plagiarizing. This is inspiration. No poem has ever been written since the world’s first poem that didn’t take its essence from a previously existing poem. If you find your freewrite is too close to the poem your read, revise it when you revise it: you could make it the opposite of that poem by turning a love poem into a hate poem, or a poem about childhood into a poem about old age, or a poem about spring into a poem about winter. If it’s still too close for comfort, dedicate your poem to the poet whose poem inspired yours.)

This two-part (April 12 & 13) prompt comes to us from the poets Jennifer Metzger and Scott Beal.

Dancing by Myself: PART TWO

Look back at yesterday's prompt. Now do some research about the song--you can research the band, the history of the song, the words in the title, the lyrics, the instruments used in it, anything that has to do with the song. Maybe the song mentions a reindeer--you can research that. Maybe it uses a glockenspiel--you can research that. Just google around for a while until you find some interesting facts. Freewrite about these facts for at least 5-10 minutes.

Dance to the song again. This time with the freewrites in mind. See how these freewrites jumble around in your mind while you're dancing. As soon as you finish dancing, take some notes about how dancing was different this time around, with the research in mind.

Think of the time and place where you first heard the song. Who were you with and what were you doing? How did the song make you feel then? Turn your freewrites and notes into a poem, the title of which is the name of the place where you first heard the song. Don’t give away the name of the song or the artist anywhere in the poem.

This two-part (April 12 & 13) prompt comes to us from the poets Jennifer Metzger and Scott Beal.

Dancing by Myself: PART ONE

Step 1: Choose a piece of music that you like to dance to, and dance to it. If it’s a song, dance through the whole thing. (If it’s shorter than a couple minutes, dance to it twice.) If it’s an extended composition, like A Love Supreme or Shostakovich’s Symphony #5, dance continuously to at least 3-5 minutes of it. And don’t just sway and nod your head a little -- really get in there. Clear some furniture out of the way. Work up a minor sweat.

Step 2: Immediately freewrite for 5-10 minutes about the dancing experience. How do you feel right now, having finished dancing? How did you feel while you were doing it? Imagine yourself watching yourself dance: what would you have seen? What was the best part? What was the worst part? Describe all your dancing and/or post-dancing sensations in as much physical detail as possible.

Jot down the name of someone you haven’t seen or heard from in at least two years. 

Jot down the name of a place you’ve never been.

Write to that person for ten minutes in a note from that place. Describe this place you've never been in as much sensory detail as possible. 

This prompt comes to us from the poet Jonathan Holland!

Draw a map of a communal space that you’ve been a part of, that existed before and/or after you (whether imaginary, like you could imagine it before or after, or literally, it existed before and after you). Either way, pick a space and draw an overhead layout with items you remember (like if it’s your high school locker room, draw the benches, the showers, the mold in the corner of the shower, the equipment room door with the lock that didn’t work, the shelves of never-to-be-used again cups, etc.). You could draw a park or an old job or the Christian camp bunkhouse that you went to in 6th grade. Just imagine and map the space.

Write 10-12 memories on that map in the approximate location of their occurrence. It doesn’t have to be pretty or have straight lines. Don't spend too long on the drawing aspect of this. Just use the map to help conjure memories for your freewrite!

Wherever you’re writing, assuming it’s indoors (if not, go indoors please or at least in a car or bus or public restroom): there’s the appearance suddenly of a wild animal in that space, something undomesticated. It’s not supposed to be in here. What is it? What is it doing? How are you going to deal with this? Is person above there with you now? Or remembered?In as much sensory detail as possible, describe this animal and what it’s doing, and what it’s presence is doing to you. You may need to describe the space, of course, to evoke this animal’s impact on it, and on you. (Are you sweating? Did it bite you? Where’s your phone? Are others seeing this wild thing or are you alone with it or are you in a crowd but the only one who sees it or is it pandemonium in the crowd? Is this a real animal or a supernatural animal? Extinct? Mythological? Or just a chipmunk?Okay! I suggest you write and set a timer for ten minutes and then return to it later. But, you got this.

It seems true that everyone has a moment in life when it’s suddenly clear that someone we thought had everything under control may not, at all, have everything under control. This could be a parent or another relative, a friend, a teacher, a coach, a doctor, spouse, etc. Think about a time like this, when you may have realized that someone you thought was capable, could be counted on, and was in charge, proved not to be.Thought of someone yet?Okay….In as much sensory detail as possible, while considering this person, freewrite for ten minutes on the contents and/or appearance of your messiest room or drawer or closet or shelf.  

This prompt comes to us from the poet Emily Pittinos, who was an undergraduate studying poetry at the University of Michigan not that long ago!
EKPHRASTIC GOOGLING PROMPT
Step 1: Begin by Google Image-searching a word or object or abstraction of interest to you. (i.e. “Venus” or "locusts" or “envy.”)
Step 2: Scroll around a bit and select the image that first leaps out at you. Free write about this image for five minutes or until you have nothing left to say. Anything is fair game—visual descriptions, surfacing memories, historical/scientific knowledge, word associations, etc.
Step 3: Go back to your image search and choose another image much farther down the page. Do five minutes or so of writing about this one.
Step 4: Go back to your image search and choose another image — or you can even do a new search and choose something from that, just don’t think about your choices too hard — and write for another few minutes about this next one. By this point, you may already have a poem brewing, and, if so, go for it.

At least once, as a child, you got lost at the grocery store, park, playground, movie theater, beach, friend’s house, abandoned factory...(okay, maybe not that, depending on what kind of childhood you had…). 

Pick up the closest thing to you that has a page of words in or on it. A book, or magazine, or pizza flyer. Scan just one page of it for concrete nouns—pizza is concrete (it’s tangible), dog, daffodil, blood, wig. You can take as much time as you like to find the best ten concrete nouns on that page. If there aren’t ten that you like, you still have to stay on that page. Fill out the list of ten with less exciting nouns.

Use those ten words in a freewrite about the last time you went for a walk or a drive or took a bus trip that lasted about ten minutes to get where you were going. Describe that ten-minute journey (time this freewrite for ten minutes, the length of your journey—beginning where you began and ending where you ended within ten minutes). Now, use each of the ten nouns you chose from your page in your description of the journey. (If possible, you could choose the words, and then go on a ten-minute journey, and THEN do your freewrite.)