WordParty Poetry Challenge - Writing Prompt #9

Day #9

Instant Poetry by Dan Brady

Objective:  The poet will create a poem in 10 to 60 minutes.

Materials needed:  A pad, writing implement, preferably a pencil, a radio, a watch or clock with a sweep second hand and a timer.

Procedure:  Tune the station to any talk station, though this is not a strict requirement.  You have the clock where you can see it easily and the writing materials, the pencil and paper conveniently handy.  You will set the timer for 5 minutes.  

When you press the timer to start its countdown you watch the clock and every ten seconds write down whatever word is being said on the radio.  As you can see talk radio may be easier than a music station.  This procedure will create a list of 30 words. When the timer goes off stop.

Now the variable instructions for creating a poem – from the most difficult to the easiest.
 

Variation One:  

You must use all the words, in the form spoken, in the order listed.  You may add twice as many “other words” so that the total word length of the poem is 90 words.  Extra special points or considerations if you can make it rhyme.  Oh, yes, it has to have narrative sense.

Variation Two:  You must use all the words, not in any particular order and you may change their form, from past to present, adding prefixes or suffixes and so forth.  It does not have to rhyme.  You are still limited to the 90 word length

Variation Three:  You must use the words in any order or form, you are not limited to the number of words you may add.

WordParty Poetry Challenge – Writing Prompt #7 and 8

It has been a busy weekend (it is my birthday AND Easter) so apologies that prompt  #7 is late! I hope you are keeping up with the challenge. If you’ve missed a day of writing, don’t worry just pick it  up again today!

I’ll be posting some stellar responses we’ve been getting tomorrow. If you’d like to share your responses to any of our prompts, please email them to wordparty@gmail.com

Cheers,

Ingrid

Prompt #7

by Ingrid

Sit in a public location (a park, the student center, the parking lot at the gym) for 30 minutes. What do you notice, smell, hear? What can you invent about overheard conversations? Some of the best writing can come from these moments colored by the imagination. For example, the dog walker with the tangled leashes of 15 different pups, the couple yelling obscenities at one another while playing tennis in the park.

Prompt #8

by Jennifer

Write a poem about a lover who got away, or who you never culminated your affection for. Write about about what may have happened to you if you did.

WordParty Poetry Challenge - Writing Prompt #6

Day #6
by Bear


Prompt:  This prompt is inspired by the work of Carol Ann Duffy.  She is a Scottish poet who writes in the voice of historic and fictional women, many whom often have famous husbands.  Write a poem from the point of view of a historical women who had a more famous husband or brother.  (i.e. Abigail Adams, Lil Armstrong, Marion Aldrin, Joséphine de Beauharnais, Constanze Mozart, Michelle Obama, Christopher Columbus' wife Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, Lauren Bacall etc)

Two of the poems below are by Duffy. The first example is a poem from Shakespeare's Wife's perspective.  The second is Miss Havisham from Great Expectations.

Anne Hathaway

by Carol Ann Duffy

The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -
I hold him in the casket of my widow's head
as he held me upon that next best bed.

Havisham

by Carol Ann Duffy 

Beloved sweetheart bastard.  Not a day since then
I haven't wished him dead.  Prayed for it
so hard I've dark green pebbles for eyes,

ropes on the backs of my hands I could strangle with.

Spinster. I stink and remember.  Whole days
in bed cawing Nooooo at the wall; the dress
yellowing, trembling if I open the wardrobe;
the slewed mirror, full-length, her, myself, who did this

to me?  Puce curses that are sounds not words.

Some nights better, the lost body over me,
my fluent tongue in its mouth in its ear
then down till  suddenly bite awake. Love's

hate behind a white veil; a red balloon bursting
in my face.  Bang.  I stabbed at a wedding cake.
Give me a male corpse for a long slow honeymoon.

Don't think it's only the heart that b-b-b-breaks.

WordParty Poetry Challenge – Writing Prompt #5

Day #5

Poetry-in-Translation

by Ingrid 

Translate a poem written in another language to English without using a dictionary. Yes, that means look at a poem in Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Arabic, or whatever language you choose and try to find your own meaning behind the words—perhaps they sound sensual, argumentative, sorrowful or perhaps you can’t even read them out loud but you can delve into how the language is written and looks on the page.

Suggested poets: Wisława Szymborska, Pablo Neruda, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Matsuo Bashō, Marjorie Agosin, and Hafiz.

Don’t forget to send us your poems if you are keeping up with the challenge:

wordparty@gmail.com

WordParty Poetry Challenge – Writing Prompt #4

Day #4

This one is courtesy of Jenn Barone:

Write about being a woman if you are a man, write about being a man if you are a woman, or write about what you would be like as a mixture of the sexes.

WordParty Poetry Challenge – Writing Prompt #3

Day #3

Write a “portrait” of a person you don’t know very well, but find intriguing. In your poem imagine their real or secret life. Remember to use detail, description and/or images.

Perhaps the tattooed barista at your local café, the man who runs by your apartment every morning in the neon vest and blinking headlamp, or the little boy at the bus stop who is always wearing a Spiderman costume.

Have fun with it!

WordParty Poetry Challenge - Writing Prompt #2

Day #2

This was prompt was created by Bear Toffoli, who often graces the stage of the WordParty with his poetry!

For National Poetry Month I thought we could all try the time honored tradition of writing a poem about poetry.   To help get the ball rolling, here is a selection of beginnings of poems all about poems/poetry I have gathered.   Take one of these and start your own poem about poetry with it.   Or for a real challenge you can try to end your poem with one of these lines.  Origins of the lines and their poets are listed below.

1.      I'm working on a poem that's so true, I can't show it to anyone

2.      Poetry is the supreme fiction, Madame.

3.      Writing poems about writing poems

         is like rolling bales of hay in Texas.

4.      There once was a love poem

5.      The plum without the snow isn’t very special

        The snow without the poem is simply commonplace

6.      The form of the poem subsided.  It enters another poem.

7.      The trouble with poetry, I realized

8.      In a poem, one line may hide another line.

9.      When a poem

        speaks by itself,

        it has a spark

10. In the old days a poet once said

11. The great poems

       of our elders in many

       tongues we struggled

12. “What mighty strong poems.” He said.


Credits:

1.       Lloyd Schwartz  from “A True Poem”

2.       Wallace Stevens  from “The High-Toned Old Christian Woman”

3.       Ruth Stone  from “Always On The Train”

4.       Jane Hirshfield from “There Once Was A Love Poem”

5.       Lu-Mei P’o  from “The Snow And The Plum –II”

6.       Barbara Guest  from “The Past”

7.       Billy Collins  from “The Trouble With Poetry: A Poem Of Explanation”

8.       Kenneth Koch  from “One Train May Hide Another”

9.       Elaine Equi  from “National Poetry Month”

10.     Ko Un  from “In The Old Days A Poet Once Said”

11.      Hayden Carruth  from “Endnote”

12.     Ellen Bass  from “Mighty Strong Poems”