I tend not to like other people’s poetry prompts. They
remind me of the saccharine voices of meditation coaches urging me to go to my
happy place. To me, that always sounds like a euphemism for a body part
or two. If I want to feel relaxed I put on the right music, or take a long run.
If I want to write a poem, it has to be on a topic that I find downright
fascinating. I also thrive on having an assignment, a deadline, a thing that
needs doing today and not tomorrow.
If you’re the same way, maybe my poetic to-do list will be
of use to you. Some of these I have tried and need to
try again, some I’ve tried and are unprintable (see #3) and some I should be
doing right now instead of blogging. (Why do you think they call them prompts?
Because they should be done promptly, of course!) I hope you have fun with
them.
1. Write a poem from The Land of the Missing Letter, where
shade trees become shad trees and you find yourself with an extra moth to feed,
which would have made you bitter but now makes you a biter. For extra credit,
make the missing letter consistent. And not E.
2. Consult the online i-ching (all you need is an internet and three coins, wait, you don’t even need those!)
and write a poem about the fortune you receive. I like this one because you can do
it any day and come up with a different result, for even if you get a repeated
answer, it will likely mean something different for you one day to the next.
3. Write a sestina in honor of George Carlin, using, as end
lines, the seven words you can’t say on television.
As you probably know, sestinas usually require 6 line-ending words, but some of
George’s words are tricky enough to repeat too often, so give yourself some
flexibility. Yes, Virginia, you can substitute a cocksucker for a motherfucker.
On me.
4. Riff on an aspect of this wonderful website, taglines from movie posters. Tell a story using only those sentences.
Make it tragic. Make it funny. Use only sentences that start with a
particular word.
Use them for a hai-
ku that actually makes
some sense, I dare you.
5. Fall in love with a litany. I have spent many hours enamored
of glossaries of random things: names of American rivers. Translations of the
names of Native American tribes.
A list of fears.
Terms for pyrotechnics. Obscure words. Words are our only raw material,
and the more we have of them, the better.
6. Take a museum exhibit as an inspiration.
That canine/human skeletal embrace led me to this older article, and on to a poem.
7. Take a news story and muse upon it. Here’s one. Here's another. Or imagine a scene from one of these festivals.
There, that's a week's worth. Through the Fourth of July. Happy scribbling!