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the poet's billow

~ a resource for moving poetry

Tag Archives: poetry challenge

Day 16 Poetry Challenge

17 Sunday Apr 2016

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april poetry challenge, form poems, poem, Poetry, poetry challenge, poetry prompts, writer, Writing

It’s not called a chalenge for nothing. Yesterday’s beautiful spring weather captured me and I spent the entire day outside in the yard and garden. As a result, our sixteenth prompt slipped down on my priority list which included cutting back an enormous holly bush on our property, clearing leaves from the base of plants, and weeding. Now that these chores are done, let’s write!

For some reason, maybe the spring weather and all the imaginings of what the new garden will look like, I’ve been wanting to invent a new poetry form. So, let’s do it. For this prompt, create a new poetry form. You can focus on rhyme as does the sonnet, repetition of words or lines as do the pantoum and sestina, or subject matter as does the elegy.

Invent the form and then write the poem.

Day 15 Poetry Challenge

15 Friday Apr 2016

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april poetry challenge, cliche, poem, Poetry, poetry challenge, poetry prompts, writer, Writing, writing prompts

We have arrived at the halfway point!

Today, let’s make a list of as many cliches as you can think of and at their halfway point, mix and match them.For example:

A penny for your thoughts.

Good day to be alive.

Hip to the scene.

Grass is always greener on the other side.

 

A penny to be alive.

Hip to the other side.

The grass is always greener for your thoughts.

Good day to the scene.

 

Once you have a new list, revise them into a poem paying attention to either sound or image, or both.

 

Write on!

Day 14 Poetry Challenge

14 Thursday Apr 2016

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april poetry challenge, poem, Poetry, poetry challenge, poetry prompts, writer, Writing, writing prompts

This is one of our favorite prompts and one Rob and I utilize often. Choose 4-5 books about varying things–a collection or two of poetry, an autobiography, a book about stones, a novel. Pick up a book, randomnly open to a page, glacne down. The phrase your eyes catch: write it down. Pick up another book and repeat the process 10 times. Then, see what you have and revise it into a poem. You will be amazed at the way the universe’s synchronicity manifests itself in such an approach.

Day 13 Poetry Challenge

13 Wednesday Apr 2016

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poem, Poetry, poetry challenge, poetry prompts, recipe, writers, Writing, writing prompts

Some of us write in the morning. Some of write at night. For you night owls, this prompt will come right on time ;)

Write on a poem in the form of a recipe. This poem doesn’t have to be about food. Perhaps, title the poem an abstraction–love, pride, wealth–and write the recipe for it.

Bon appetit!

Day 12 Poetry Challenge

12 Tuesday Apr 2016

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april poetry challenge, bijan stephen, flaneur, paris review, poem, Poetry, poetry challenge, poetry prompts, song of myself, walt whitman, Writing, writing prompts

Be a Flâneur! As Bijan Stephen writes on the Paris Review blog:

“The figure of the flâneur—the stroller, the passionate wanderer emblematic of nineteenth-century French literary culture—has always been essentially timeless; he removes himself from the world while he stands astride its heart…the flâneur heralded an incisive analysis of modernity, perhaps because of his connotations: “[the flâneur] was a figure of the modern artist-poet, a figure keenly aware of the bustle of modern life, an amateur detective and investigator of the city, but also a sign of the alienation of the city and of capitalism,” as a 2004 article in the American Historical Review put it. ”

Channel your Walt Whitman and hit the streets observing people and interactions, noting birds and animals, jotting it all down in a notebook to become a poem. If you’re feeling really inspired, truly engage your Whitman and skip out of work after your lunch break to engage your senses on the sidewalk. Here’s a section from “Song of Myself” for inspiration:

12
The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife at the stall in the market,
I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.

 

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,
Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in the fire.

 

From the cinder-strew’d threshold I follow their movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.

 

 

 

 

Day 11 Poetry Challenge

11 Monday Apr 2016

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Tags

april poetry challenge, Miroslav Holub, poem, Poetry, poetry challenge, Poetry International, poetry prompts, translation poems, Writing, writing prompts

Today’s prompt comes from my memory of an excercise used by the poet Christopher Howell in one of his classes. It is a twist on the translation poem. The twist: you shouldn’t know the language. The point is to read/listen to the poem in its original language and, by tone, sound, feel, mood–every way beside knowing what the words mean–translate the poem. As you guessed, this is not about who can translate from one language to another the best.

Poetry International Rotterdam has a smorgasborg of poets writing in a smorgasborg of languages. Some are recorded and you can listen as in these three poems by the Czech poet Miroslav Holub. Other poems appear only in English. Others, in their original language. Remember, the point is to not understand the words, but to feel them.

Napiš to!

Michelle

Day 10 Poetry Challenge

10 Sunday Apr 2016

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april poetry challenge, national sibling day, poem, Poetry, poetry challenge, poetry prompts, Writing, writing prompts

Today, apparently, is National Sibling Day, a holiday that was introduced into the Congressional record in 2005 (according to Wikipedia). So, happy sibling day, and happy 11th anniversary, sibling day!

For today’s prompt, guess what we’re going to do? …you know it! Let’s write a poem about our sibling/s. If you do not have any, write a poem in which the persona does. This perona can be you take or give, and you can invent a memory you and your imaginary sibling shared.

For those of you with a sibling, spark that sisterly/brotherly love engine by digging out an old photo. Begin writing a poem about that moment, that image. Decribe it. Give it context.Recreate your world like you used to when you were younger.

April Poetry Month

01 Friday Apr 2016

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Tags

April poetry, national poetry month, Poetry, poetry challenge, poetry prompts, Prompt, writing assignments, writing exercises, writing prompts

We at the Billow will be celebrating National Poetry Month by attempting to complete the April Poetry Challenge–write a poem a day for the month! For the next 30 days we will share prompts with you in the hope that maybe you, too, will find your way to the page.

Day 1: Write a poem about a thunderstorm without using the words rain, thunder, or lightning.

Write on!

Michelle & Rob

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