I’ve been starting my writing day off by writing to the Writer’s Digest November Poem A Day Chapbook Challenge daily prompt. I’ve found it’s a great way to jump-start the rest of my writing for the day.
As usual I don’t find writing the response very hard. But I’ve always written my poems rather quickly. That doesn’t mean I don’t go back to reread and edit them. I just put down the draft quickly. I also like trying to figure out how to respond to some very quirky prompts. Another thing I do before I begin my own writing is read the Writer’s Digest poetry editor, Robert Lee Brewer’s, poem to his own prompt. They are definitely worth taking a look at – some of his poems are a little quirky too. With him, almost anything goes.
And since you haven’t joined me in the challenge , I’ll bring a few prompts to you. Although I won’t publish my entire poem results from these prompts, I’ve share a few lines. That’s in case I want to submit them elsewhere that won’t consider a poem published even on a personal blog as unpublished.
Okay, here goes:
Write a once upon a time poem. The title of the poem could be “Once Upon a Time,” or the first words could be. Or you could do what I did in my attempt below: I pretended the words “once upon a time” preceded the first line of my poem.
Here’s a bit from my poem:
But these days the lives of children,
especially those separated
from their families at the border,
will never be able to emulate
those happy once upon a time days.
How could they?
While reeking in neglect,
Write an opening poem. Stories have openings. Caves have openings. Even conversations have openings. Pick an opening and use that as an opening to write your poem today.
Here’s my take:
Pretty soon we’ll be
opening holiday gifts
tearing off the beautiful
and expensive wrapping
And one more:
Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brody
Write a prime poem. Prime is one of those words I don’t often think about, even though it shows up frequently: prime numbers, prime location, prime rib, prime time, Optimus Prime, Amazon Prime, and prime meridian to name a few. So I hope you’re primed up to write a new poem focused on this prime word.
My latest attempt:
One of my favorite films
of all time is
The Prime of Miss Jean Brody
starring Dame Maggie Smith,
who well into her eighties,
and still in her prime,
Speak Your Mind