Note: Apologies for late and/or absent postings of these prompts. With the summer weather, I’m more inclined to spend my time out and about than at my computer.
Think of something big. It can be physical, like the state of Alaska or Texas. It can be an event, like World War II. Anything you could consider large-scale. Now, write a poem on the subject, limiting yourself to 15 lines.
Go to a restaurant or coffee shop that’s has a decent crowd in it. Ideally, it will be busy enough that there will be multiple conversations going on around you at once. Sit down, open your notebook or laptop, and listen. (And don’t forget to order something to support the establishment!) See what snippets of conversation you can pick out. Write things down. You don’t have to follow just one conversation. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. Pick out sentences, phrases, and words. Write them down as they happen. Let everything be fragmented and disjointed. I recommend listening for at least 30 minutes.
Once you’ve gotten a solid amount of material, you can go one of two ways. First, you can find a phrase or sentence that really resonates with you, and build a story or poem using that as your inspiration. Alternately, you can take your hodgepodge of sentences and create a poem using only what you’ve transcribed.
Write a persona poem from the perspective of a city that has mistaken itself for another. How has it changed its weather, its climate, its flora and fauna. What are the buildings like? Do we know why the city is experiencing this confusion? Can it be resolved?
(Inspired by Saundra Goldman, who posted earlier this week that Austin had apparently mistaken itself for Seattle.)
Back in 2013, I participated in the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project, an ongoing fundraiser for the press in which volunteer poets commit to writing a poem a day for 30 days, and those who are inspired by their work can make donations in their honor.
I had so much fun in 2013 that I knew I wanted to participate again. I’m writing alongside a slew of amazing poets, and having fun. My initial poems have come from The Daily Poet prompts and politics. The title of my Day 4 poem popped into my head while I was washing dishes.
You can check out the May 30/30 poems here. If you’re interested in donating, you can do so here.
Keeping it simple this week. A line and a photo:
A happy dog transcends language.
I love getting to collaborate with other poets, and I love the way technology facilitates collaboration over great distances. This week, I’ve been working with my friend Jason Crane (who lives in Pennsylvania) on a collaborative exercise from the first volume of Wingbeats: Exercises and Practice in Poetry.
I don’t post my own poems all that often, but here’s our first iteration of the exercise (Jason gets credit for all the final formatting):
Image via theeverygirl.com
As a product loaded with gendered norms, makeup can cause a lot of unnecessary grief. Women who don’t wear it get criticized. Women who wear too much get criticized. The internet is full of tutorials for how to wear makeup without looking like wearing any. Some women reject makeup, and others feel like they need it.
And if you’re a man who wants to wear makeup, you might encounter your own set of criticisms. Rock stars can get away with it. But an average guy can’t necessarily just wear some eyeliner and blush because he likes it without facing criticism (and that’s putting it mildly).
Think about our cultural standards surrounding makeup, and then consider your own associations with it. Do you like it? Hate it? See it as wasteful and unnecessary? Want to try it but don’t want to face people’s judgement? Do you yourself judge people for their makeup habits?
Use this reflection as the jumping-off point for a piece of writing. It can be personal, political, or both.
Pinterest Fail is a site where you can see photos of Pinterest tutorials gone horribly awry. Browse through the site to see all the ways in which the projects can go horribly wrong. Then find a Pinterest tutorial that looks fairly complex. Write an alternate version of the tutorial describing how to fail at whatever it is the tutorial is telling you to do.
Spend an entire day (or if you’re brave, an entire week) writing in a style or genre outside of your usual. Try romance if you write literary fiction. Try writing only sonnets if you’re normally a free-verse poet. See what develops when you’re in unfamiliar territory.
Get a random number generator. Random.org is a good one, and they also have a great app for your mobile device.
First, decide what you want your first pass with the generator to determine:
If you went with option 1, set your range between 5 and 500. If you went with option 2, set your range between 1 and 50. (You can go higher if you like writing long poems.) Generate a number. You now have the required total required number of syllables or lines for your poem, depending which option you chose.
Continue using the random number generator as you write. If you went with option 1, use the random number generator for each new line. Use it to determine the number of syllables for the new line, adding lines until you reach the number of total syllables.
If you went with option 2, use the generator to determine the number of words per line, writing until you reach the maximum number of require lines.