What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning?
What do you look forward to?
What energizes you?
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What energizes you? Prompt #531
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A Blues Poem . . . Prompt #530
A blues poem takes on themes of struggle, despair, bad weather, any suffering.
It can also be funny: Fruit Flies Everywhere.
Three-line Blues Poetry
A statement in the first line,
A variation in the second line,
an ironic alternative in the third line.
My baby walked out that door.
My baby walked out
and now my broken door won’t open up no more.
And
I had to walk back to Texas.
I had to get on my feet
cuz my baby she took my Lexus.
Four-line:
When a woman gets the blues
She hangs her head and cries
But when a man gets the blues
He hops on a freight train and rides
With both types, you can continue the pattern. You can also repeat lines.
You can write something in narration, then pull out lines to condense for a poem.
You can start with these lines:
When I woke up this morning . . .
I heard on the news . . .
Excerpted from Writer’s Digest magazine, “Writing Your Woes” by Miriam Sagan, August 2004
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Collage in Poetry . . . Prompt #529
I would like to share collage in writing with you, some things I learned from the poet Dave Seter.
His poem, “Fargo Airport, Waiting in a Bar” in The Write Spot: Writing as a Path to Healing is an example of using collage in poetry. The lines in italics in his poem are from signs on the wall and on the label on a bottle. He seamlessly incorporates “lines from others” into his poetry.
Look around you . . . what writing do you see that you can use in your writing?
Perhaps: A book title, a greeting card, writing on décor, writing on a tissue box, or a piece of mail.
Or: A note you have written, writing on a coffee mug, a sign on a wall.
A label on a jar, a can, or a bottle.
You can also use song lyrics as a jumping off point for your writing.
Writing Prompt: Today . . . or . . . Yesterday
Incorporate written words that you see into your writing.
A stanza from “Fargo Airport, Waiting in a Bar” by Dave Seter:
Waiting for a funeral, it seems the years collapse
into one moment. I want to find
the right thing to say to firemen and farmers,
who are kind, as they offer from
A Bucket of Beer Nine Dollars.
Dave Seter is the author of Night Duty, and Don’t Sing to Me of Electric Fences, a poetry collection due out from Cherry Grove Collections in 2021. A civil engineer and poet, he writes about social and environmental issues, including the intersection of the built world and the natural world.
Born in Chicago, he now lives in Sonoma County, California. He earned his undergraduate degree in civil engineering from Princeton University and his graduate degree in humanities from Dominican University of California, where he studied ecopoetics.
Dave wrote his master’s thesis, “Introducing Godzilla to Marianne Moore’s Octopus of Ice at the Intersection of Global Warming, Environmental Philosophy, and Poetry,” based on Marianne Moore’s collage poem, “An Octopus (of ice).”
“This paper explores the question: How can a poet write an ecologically aware poem about global warming?”
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When I was in 7th grade . . . Prompt #528
When I was in the seventh grade . . .
Fill in the rest . . . what happened when you were in seventh grade?
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When I was six years old . . . Prompt #527
When I was six years old . . .
Finish the sentence: When I was six years old . . .
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What have you been thinking about? Prompt #526
What have you been thinking about lately?
I’ve been thinking about hair.
The following is an excerpt from My Generation magazine, Sept-Oct 2001.
“You can’t say hair without muttering a bitter, Ha!
Hair is the Achilles’ heel atop our skulls: the curse of baldness, the pathos of the comb-over, the futility of the hairpiece.
The double cross of auburn, chestnut, raven locks—your crowning glory—suddenly blanching the color of steel wool.
Curly hair that won’t straighten, straight hair that won’t curl.
The heartbreak of the impermanent wave, the bungled dye jobs, split ends, dandruff.
Every head of hair in the civilized world is shackled to a monthly treadmill of maintenance, overhaul and gardening, hostage to the grooming industry and its literal clip joints.
You could buy a new Ferrari with the money you shell out over a lifetime for the upkeep of that mat of third-rate fur.”
Prompt: Hair
Or: What have you been thinking about?
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I liked to . . . Prompt #525
Be the kid you once were. What did you like to do when you were 4 or 5 years old?
Or 12 years old?
Remember that time of joy or angst.
Scroll back in your memory bank . . . . write about a memorable time from your childhood.
Or write about something you liked to do over and over again.
Prompt: I liked to . . .
Or: I remember . . .
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Mapping The Journey . . . Prompt #524
Stories are about characters desiring something and the things that prevent them from getting what they want.
This is true for both fiction and memoir.
Another word for desire is yearning, suggesting the deepest level of desire.
Characters have problems and yearnings.
Do they overcome them?
What obstacles get in the way?
Answering these questions results in story-telling.
Writing Prompts as a guide, or a map, leading the way to telling the narrator’s story:
Interview yourself or your fictional character, by answering these questions:
How did you get started in your line of work?
How did you become interested in your hobby?
What did you desire at age 18?
What did you desire at age 25?
What do you desire now?
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Last time . . . Prompt #523
Today’s Writing Prompt:
The last time . . .
Or:
This is the last time . . .
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Lights. Prompt #522
Green Light. Go!
Red Light. Stop!
Yellow Light. Caution!
Blue light . . .?
Purple light . . .?
Black light . . .?