Poets' Practice Pad

25. Write a poem using (or about) images of geometric shapes.

24. Write a poem giving some surreal advice. For example "erase the refrigerator, your mother's scoldings, your broken window, or the ghetto from your shirt." (This prompt was sent to me by someone a few months ago. It's a lot of fun.)

23. Write a poem about something you do each day, brushing your teeth, showering, cooking, driving etc.

22. Think of or search inside you for a painful memory and confront its persistence.

21. A. Compare a photograph, painting, or picture to one that was never taken, painted or drawn, but you wish it had.
And/OR
B. Write about a photo, painting, or picture you hope will be created in the future.

20. Write a poem about an image that keeps haunting you. (A member of the family watching TV on the couch, a child skipping, cat on a flagpole, first snow on the lake, hurricane force winds tearing down the street, etc.)

19. Write a poem about repetition, of things, events etc. repeating themselves. Pay attention to the idea that everything may repeat itself, but not in the same way.

18. Write a poem on love or the lack of it. If you'd like to, write from a positive or a negative angle.

17. Write a "Dear Reader" poem addressing your reader. You don't have to start with Dear Reader or address him as Reader.

16. "Imagine yourself a bird flying high in the sky viewing the world beneath." Suggested by essence of thought .

15. Write a poem for a flower (any flower or one particular flower) opening for the first time.

14. Write a poem about what you view from a window or what looking out from a window means to you.

13. Write a poem about a renewal or a beginning or about the New Year approaching.

12. Since we are in the holiday season, write a poem about a party where you experienced strong (positive or negative) feelings.

11. Write a poem showing a personal reaction--positive, negative, or in some way you can think of--to a city, any city anywhere.

10. Write a poem about pillows in general or any one specific pillow.

9. Write a poem about one of your internal organs. For example if you pick your brain, start from the idea of it being an object, with gray matter, ganglia etc., connecting to the nervous system.

8. Write a recipe poem. Find a recipe write about it, or make up a recipe, or write about writing recipes.

7. Write a poem about a thing or things in your possession with little or no monetary value and insignificant to others but mean a lot to you.

6. A Halloween Prompt: Write any ghostly, scary, or slanting-toward-occult/horror poem in any style or free verse, or tell a ghost/horror story in ballad form.
Ballad form: several narrative stanzas with each stanza's beats 4/3/4/3 and ABAB rhyme scheme. Stanzas can be four or six lines. If you are leery of counting stresses, just use any 8/6/8/6 syllable count.

5. Write a poem using road signs and/or traffic terminology. The poem can be about anything; it doesn’t have to be about road signs or the real traffic.

4. Write a poem about what you would consider a truly tiny thing: amoeba, a cell, things inside a cell, a certain plant’s cell, atom, things inside an atom, microbe, white or red corpuscle, etc.

3. Find a zen koan (riddle) or pick one from "A Few Koans for the Third Prompt". Write about your koan by reacting to it or answering it. Don’t worry if you don't fully understand the question and don't really know the answer. You don’t have to include the koan inside your poem. Just write it underneath or above the poem in quotations, so we know where you are coming from.
Examples for a koan: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”

2. Write a dream poem or a poem based on a dream or addressing a dream you had. (A few famous dream poems if you are interested: A Dream - William Blake; A Dream within a dream - Edgar Allan Poe; A Dream - C.Rossetti; Dream Variation - Langston Hughes)

1. Choose any one of the Simon and Garfunkel songs. (Their lyrics are online.) Use the song or any part of it as your starting point and write your poem. You don’t have to use the lines of the song inside your poem. Just tell us the name of the song somewhere in your post.