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  • Markets for Writing Moms

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    Literary Markets

    Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers–Brain, Child treats motherhood as a subject worthy of literature. And in the best tradition of literature, it celebrates the diversity of mothers and their styles. Our essays and features address readers as thinking individuals, not just medicine- dispensing, food-fixing, boo-boo-kissing mommies. We think of it this way: When our mothers wanted to hash over the important stuff with their girlfriends, they’d say to us, “Honey, the grown-ups are talking.” Brain, Child is like that: the place where grown-ups are talking.

    Literary Mama: Writing about the many faces of motherhood–We celebrate an inclusive understanding of motherhood as experienced through diverse lenses and bodies and welcome perspectives that challenge readers’ assumptions and values about motherhood. We’re excited to publish work that crosses boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, culture, religion, age, disability, and/or economic status and encourage contributions that build community.

    Mom Egg Review publishes literary work on mothers, mothering, and motherhood, in an annual print and quarterly online issues of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art. We also present craft notes, interviews, features, and book reviews online at http://merliterary.com. We publish established and new writers whose work reflects diverse experiences and perspectives on motherhood, literature, and art.  MER supports and promotes the work of mother writers and artists through publications, performances, workshops, and educational programs. MER is about being a mother, in its many varieties. It is also about being a daughter, worker, partner, artist, a member of cultures and communities, and explores how these identities can collide and coexist.

    Mutha: We’re interested in reading nonfiction about all aspects of the journey to becoming a parent (or determining a different path). Trying to conceive, LGBTQ parenting, birth stories of all variety, experiencing loss, early days and later struggles, joy and tough times and hope and forgiveness, funny stuff and sexy stuff and stuff you didn’t think you could say out loud but just wrote it down. Politics and rants and sob stories and what you wish you had heard before you thought of it. Send it to us.

    Raising Mothers: Since 2015, Raising Mothers has served as a digital literary platform that amplifies and provides a supportive and inclusive space for Black, Asian, Latine(x), Indigenous and other marginalized identities from the global majority to share their experiences and creative works, while also advocating for social justice and equity.
    Raising Mothers publishes experimental and traditional fiction, micro and flash, creative nonfiction, interviews, book reviews, photo essays, and comic/graphic narratives.

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  • Dénouement

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    Here is a recap of prompts and poems from the last half of April. Hoping they were, and continue to be, a source of creative inspiration.

    Watch for weekly revision exercises through the month of May beginning Monday, May 5

    Submissions for poems written as a result of following any posted prompt or revision exercise opens on June 1.

    April 17

    Seventeen Syllables

    Poems to Inspire

    “January haiku” by Frank Higgins

    “A Modern Sonnet” by Cleopatra Lim

    Haiku Contest Winners

    April 18

    Elemental

    April 19

    Chance It

    April 20

    Poems to Inspire

    Temp-orality

    “Years Go By” by Haley Sui

    “spring is a time of death” by J.C. Mari

    “Plans” by Jen Schneider

    April 21

    Focus Prompt

    Poem for Inspiration

    “Emily Dickinson May Be Weary” by Rikki Santer

    April 22

    Intangible Inheritance

    April 23

    By Any Other Name

    Poems to Inspire

    “AppleSong” by Terry Savoie

    “My Brother Julian’s Apple Core” by Alejandro Lucero

    “Take the Apple” by Michelle Holland

    April 24

    Hands On

    Poems to Inspire

    “How to Baptize a Child in Philadelphia, PA” by Mike Zimmerman

    “How My Father Learned English” by Juan Morales

    “Woodworking Lessons” by Mike Zimmerman

    April 25

    In Tune

    Poems to Inspire

    “Living in Opryland” by Javy Awan

    “Let it go on and on” by Kenneth Pobo

    “Reverend Billy’s Boogie Woogie and Mom’s Gulbranson by Gianna Russo

    April 26

    Not the Kind You Flip

    Poems to Inspire

    “Blackbird” by Yvette R. Murray

    “The Lark Ascended” by Wayne Lee

    “Seringo” by Charles Weld

    “Bird, Tired Bird” by Sue Blaustein

    April 27

    Top of the Morning

    Poems to Inspire

    Like Her by by J.D. Isip

    Predictable Patterns by Laurinda Lind

    Legacy by Terry Severhill

    April 28

    Child’s Play

    Poems to Inspire

    “Directions Back to Childhood” by Judith Waller Carroll

    “Elegy with Ice Cream” by Kathy Nelson

    “When I Got My Ears Pierced” by Sophie Cohen

    “Gleeful” by Christina M. Rau

    “On the Eve of Roberto Clemente’s Third Miracle” by Michael Brockley

    April 29

    Endings that Shape Us

    Poems to Inspire

    “Seas of Change” by Marc Janssen

    “Manumission: A Codependent Romance” by KJ Hannah Greenberg

    April 30

    Course and Method

    Poems to Inspire

    “In Step With Desire” by Margaret Randall

    “A Better Poem” by Thomas Zimmerman

    “Eyes Fastened with Poems” by Lois Marie Harrod

    “On the Occasion of 50 Years of Poems” by Alan Perry

    “Listening To Poetry That I Don’t Understand” by John F. McMullen

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  • Course and Method

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    “To write about poetry is to believe that there are answers to some of the questions poets ask of their art, or at least that there are reasons for writing it.”

    ~Michael Weigers

    For today’s prompt, write an ars poetica that explores your relationship with your writing process. Be as liberal as you like with your use of metaphor and poetic license.

    Poems for Inspiration from Zingara Poetry Review

    “In Step With Desire” by Margaret Randall

    “A Better Poem” by Thomas Zimmerman

    “Eyes Fastened with Poems” by Lois Marie Harrod

    “On the Occasion of 50 Years of Poems” by Alan Perry

    “Listening To Poetry That I Don’t Understand” by John F. McMullen

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  • Endings that Shape Us

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    Poetry Prompts

    As we near April 30th and the imminent conclusion to this year’s poem-a-day prompt, I can’t help but to think about endings.

    For today’s prompt, make a list of endings from your life.

    Your list could include things like the end of a day, or of the night, the end of a job, the end of a movie, the end of a pet’s tail, or any other creative interpretation you have for the concept of “endings.”

    Chose an ending from your list that speaks to you right now—one that you feel would be fruitful for writing.

    Poems for Inspiration:

    “Seas of Change” by Marc Janssen

    “Manumission: A Codependent Romance” by KJ Hannah Greenberg

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  • Child’s Play

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    What would your inner young person rather be doing today?

    • skipping rope
    • fishing
    • playing games
    • coloring, painting, drawing
    • playing tag
    • swimming at the pool, in a lake, on the beach
    • hopscotch
    • playing ball (basket, base, tennis, kick, dodge tether…)
    • roller skate or skate board
    • billiards
    • eating ice cream from the ice cream truck or local ice cream store
    • cruising down central avenue
    • suntanning
    • hanging out
    • doing your nails
    • lifting weights at the gym
    • _____________________

    Gosh. The choices are endless as they are individual.

    For today’s poem, create a world for your inner child or teen to inhabit. What does it look like? Include sights, sounds, scents, texture, even taste in your descriptive treatment.

    Feel free to use flashbacks, and language typical for the age group.

    Here are a few poems to inspire:

    “Directions Back to Childhood” by Judith Waller Carroll

    “Elegy with Ice Cream” by Kathy Nelson

    “When I Got My Ears Pierced” by Sophie Cohen

    “Gleeful” by Christina M. Rau

    “On the Eve of Roberto Clemente’s Third Miracle” by Michael Brockley

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  • Top of the Morning

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    Attics in dreams often represent the subconscious. Specifically, they are where memories, emotions, and experiences hang around, a little lost perhaps, but not entirely forgotten.

    Take time today to explore your attic, whether from a dream, your head, or the one over your home, and reconnect with distant parts of yourself.

    Seek to find clarity, self-understanding, and reconciliation.

    Consider incorporating a list, or use the ABCEDARIAN form to organize, catalog, or inventory items, both metaphysical and concrete. Each item may represent an aspect of your identity that wants acknowledgement and attention.

    Poems from Zingara Poetry Review for inspiration:

    Like Her by by J.D. Isip

    Predictable Patterns by Laurinda Lind

    Legacy by Terry Severhill

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  • Not the Kind You Flip

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    Birds, I mean.

    Yep. They show up in poems all the time.

    Sometimes they are even the sole focus of entire collections and anthologies. This truth makes it challenging to write about birds in a way that feels original and surprising.

    Doesn’t mean you can’t do it.

    Write a poem that uses birds as its subject or as its image and metaphor. And–you guessed it–make it original and surprising.

    This is a great opportunity to play with paradoxes and analogies.

    Here are poems from Zingara Poetry Review for inspiration:

    “Blackbird” by Yvette R. Murray

    “The Lark Ascended” by Wayne Lee

    “Seringo” by Charles Weld

    “Bird, Tired Bird” by Sue Blaustein

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  • In Tune

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    Use your memories, expertise, and personal knowledge around and about a specific musical artist, band, event, concert, or performance to create a vivid poem about the encounter.

    While words cannot actually recreate an event, your poem should aim to render an immersive experience for the reader.

    This is a great opportunity to incorporate onomatopoeia.

    Poems for inspiration:

    “Living in Opryland” by Javy Awan

    “Let it go on and on” by Kenneth Pobo

    “Reverend Billy’s Boogie Woogie and Mom’s Gulbranson by Gianna Russo

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  • Hands On

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    How do you…

    • ride a bike
    • bury a pet
    • plant a tree
    • plant your feet
    • recover from a broken heart
    • listen to the ocean
    • clear your memories
    • communicate with an enemy
    • explain your beliefs
    • spell the past

    Write a poem with a particular audience in mind using an instruction manual format and tone for guidance. Feel free to use any of the suggestions listed or invent one of your own, or explore a topic you have been mulling over recently.

    As an extra challenge, use the instruction manual form to provide direction on how to handle something abstract in a concrete way.

    Feel free to include a few imperative sentences and an oxymoron or two.

    Here are a couple of “How to” poems from Zingara Poetry Review for inspiration:

    “How to Baptize a Child in Philadelphia, PA” by Mike Zimmerman

    “How My Father Learned English” by Juan Morales

    “Woodworking Lessons” by Mike Zimmerman

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  • By Any Other Name

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    Apple, the round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin red or green skin and crisp flesh, is an image most people encounter on a regular basis, maybe even daily (as in one a day keeps the doctor away).

    Beyond the dictionary definition and familiar idioms that feature the apple as its main image are the many connotations, some as well-known as the garden of Eden, others more nuanced and personal.

    What are your associations with the apple?

    Today’s prompt asks you to write a poem using the apple in a surprising and unexpected way. Perhaps you begin with a cliche and turn it on its head or maybe your poem begins very far away from the apple image then finds its way back.

    Whether you “lean in” or obfuscate, here are a few poems for inspiration.

    “AppleSong” by Terry Savoie

    “My Brother Julian’s Apple Core” by Alejandro Lucero

    “Take the Apple” by Michelle Holland

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  • Intangible Inheritance

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    Consider character traits and habits you have inherited, genetic or modeled. As you do so, make two lists. One for “positive traits and habits” you have inherited and feel grateful for having, the second for “negative traits and habits” that you could live without. These lists will be the basis for a poem that explores both positive and negative personality traits and habits.

    When composing your poems, consider addressing family members by name or relationship who exhibit these traits or habits and passed them on to you; let them know how you feel about inheriting said traits.

    You can use such verbiage as “You are responsible” or “I hold you accountable for” for the traits you could live without and “I am thankful/grateful for” for the traits you’re rather glad you have.

    As an extra challenge, include and explore at least one trait for which you are both dismayed and glad to have.

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  • Focus Prompt

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    Poetry Prompts, Writing Exercises

    Use the Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope is the thing with feathers,” included below, as the main focus for a free writing exercise (writing without lifting your pencil or stopping to make corrections to grammar, spelling, capitalization, or punctuation, for a set period of time). Aim for 20 minute of continuous writing.

    If helpful, you can center your freewrite on a specific image or line from the poem or expand on the larger abstract idea of hope itself.

    Write quickly without overthinking, but keep your writing legible too (if handwriting).

    The goal is to capture your inspired ideas as they arise. If the first few minutes are awkward, that’s okay. The good stuff is usually buried underneath those initial, oftan banal thoughts and concerns. Write PAST the “crap.”

    After a day or so, return to your free-write and use it as basis for a new poem.

    Hope is the thing with feathers
    That perches in the soul
    And sings the tune without the words
    And never stops at all,

    And sweetest in the gale is heard;
    And sore must be the storm
    That could abash the little bird
    That kept so many warm.

    I’ve heard it in the chillest land
    And on the strangest sea;
    Yet, never, in extremity
    It asked a crumb of me.

    Poem for inspiration:

    “Emily Dickinson May Be Weary” by Rikki Santer, Zingara Poetry Review

     

     

     

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  • Temp-orality

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    For today’s prompt, write a poem inspired by one (or more) of these quotes about time. Feel free to use the quote as an epigraph for your poem.

    “The past is now part of my future. The present is well out hand” Ian Curtis

    “The timeless present is not merely a moment in time, but a quality of awareness that transcends time itself. It is the realization that the moment is, in fact, the only reality we directly experience.” ~Everyday Buddhism

    “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” ~William Faulkner

    “Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.” ~Nathaniel Hawthorn

    “Time does not pass, it continues.” ~Marty Rubin

    “Arboreal-time is cyclical, recurrent, perennial; the past and the future breathe within this moment, and the present does not necessarily flow in one direction; instead it draws circles within circles, like the rings you find when you cut us down.” ~Elif Shafak

    Poems about Time:

    “Years Go By” by Haley Sui

    “spring is a time of death” by J.C. Mari

    “Plans” by Jen Schneider

    “My Son’s Renaissance” by Melissa Zamites

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  • Chance It

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    Use the following nouns and verbs in a poem (you can use all or some, but aim for at least five words from each list:

    • salad
    • currency
    • assumption
    • affair
    • disaster
    • pie
    • drawer
    • physics
    • sir
    • professor
    • warm
    • ask
    • crush
    • saw
    • unpack
    • trouble
    • move
    • pedal
    • fence
    • tour

    If this particular group of words don’t spark your creativity, try one of several “random word” generators available on the internet to produce different set.

    Just search “random word generator” or even “random noun generator” or “random verb generator” to find one you’d like to try.

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  • Elemental

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    National Poetry Month, Poetry Prompts

    Each zodiac sign is ruled by an element: fire, earth, air, or water, and each element is characterized by an individual’s strengths and tendencies.

    But how each star sign is affected by its element is unique to that sign, and your horoscope describes or predicts what may happen to you based on the position of the stars and planets at the time of your birth.

    For today’s prompt, write a poem based on your horoscope for the day, week, month or year, or one based your zodiac sign’s personality traits.

    You can opt to use your sign according to the 12 month horoscope associated with Western traditions, or the lunar horoscope associated with the Eastern.

    To discover your Eastern sign, consult this (or another) Chinese Zodiac Calculator

    For profiles and horoscopes based on the 12-month zodiac, consult Horoscope.com for inspiration, but you should absolutely choose a horoscope source that you like best.

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