“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
Tag: Poetry Prompt
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Temp-orality
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
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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Apocryphal Prompt
Is there a particular fairy tale stereotype you think could use a revision?
Or perhaps a mythical -ism that could do with a more contemporary perspective or retelling?
Write a poem that retells a fairy tale or myth in which a two-dimensional stereotyped character is fleshed out or rebels against their typecast.
Alternatively, write about a archetype you’ve encountered in real life.
Consider how the world of today would react to such a retelling.
Poems for Inspiration:
“The Parable of the Mustard Seed, the Chanteuse and Wild Rice” by Libby Bernardine
“In My Story” by Chella Courington
“My Stepmother, Having Returned to This Earth, Becomes Hannya” by Tara McDaniel
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Beginnings Prompt
There are several websites who post poems by well-regarded literary poets on a daily basis, including Poets.Org, Poetry Foundation, and Verse Daily.
For today’s prompt, read poems posted for today on one or all three of these websites.
Select a first line of your choice to begin a poem of your own.
Once your poem draft is more or less complete, remove the first line and give your poem a new and unique title.
If you decide to keep the first line, just credit the poem and poet from which the line is borrowed with an epigraph. Something like “after Emily Dickinson.”
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Journal Splunking
Welcome to day #1 of the 2025 Poem a Day challenge. Your interest, your support, and your encouragement for the project are deeply appreciated. Please enjoy and, as always, happy writing!
Skim entries from old journals and diaries from a year or more ago jotting down interesting words, lines, phrases, sentences or images as you do so.
Don’t overthink — if something jumps out to you, it’s meant to be captured. Resist reading for context and meandering down memory lane.
The goal is to compile a page (or more) of fragments that still resonate emotionally but resist nostalgia and thwart typical associations or your own predictable writing patterns.
After letting your page of fragments “cool,” return a day or so late and write a poem from your compilation.
Poem for Inspiration:
“How I Arrived Here” by Karen Neuberg
The Zingara Project 