“…try writing your own ghazal that takes the form of a love song – however you want to define that. Observe the conventions of the repeated word, including your own name (or a reference to yourself) and having the stanzas present independent thoughts along a single theme – a meditation, not a story.” 

8,000 miles away from each other was once our reality 

We forgot what we were made of us, nothing felt like reality 

Masala, turmeric, okra, and guava fed me deeply 

In my dreams the tastes remained, but not in reality 

Our limbs forgot warmth, embraces didn’t make sense

What does one do when the body has no reality 

You’re with me now, our lives enmeshing, unclear

Where, how, or what we’ll make of this new reality 

Together we are whole, we find ways to mingle our

Differences, so that in when we ache, our dreams form reality 

Don’t be afraid, Rosy, you’ll capture the joy wherever it lands

Let it land somewhere close, within reach of bittersweet reality 

Today, we challenge you to write a similar kind of self-portrait poem, in which you explain why you are not a particular piece of art (a symphony, a figurine, a ballet, a sonnet), use at least one outlandish comparison, and a strange (and maybe not actually real) fact.

Fruitless, restless 

Ever-moving thoughts

Limbs branching towards

Sky and Earth in synaptic cries

Unwilling to be encased 

Catching moments 

Trying to consume stars like

Potato chips 

Moving gushing rushing

Loving lusting crushing crashing 

Catch me catch me if you can 

Feet made of fire

Wings bursting through scapulae 

Flying towards that burning sun

Soon falling falling never crashing

Wind holding floating floating

Apples aren’t meant to sit on tables

Poised, they must rot they must

Fall off, gravity must reconsume 

“Today’s prompt (optional, as always) veers slightly away from our ekphrastic theme. To get started, pick a number between 1 and 10. Got your number? Okay! Now scroll down until you come to a chart. Find the row with your number. Then, write a poem describing the taste of the item in Column A, using the words that appear in that row in Column B and C. For bonus points, give your poem the title of the word that appears in Column A for your row, but don’t use that word in the poem itself.”

Chlorinated Anxiety

Is the way you taste in

My gums 

Your seed enters my stomach

And grows red and plump

Mocking the summer days passing

Silverfish haunt our toes

Like a splash of angst 

Sticky juices fall down our jaws

Forever staining the sidewalk 

With our youth 

“Today’s (optional) prompt is inspired by musical notation, and particularly those little italicized –and often Italian – instructions you’ll find over the staves in sheet music, like con allegro or andante. First, pick a notation from the first column below. Then, pick a musical genre from the second column. Finally, pick at least one word from the third column. Now write a poem that takes inspiration from your musical genre and notation, and uses the word or words you picked from the third column.”

Every aisle bleeds with possibility

The palate begs to expand

The taste buds ask to be destroyed

Vampire butterflies simmer in

The boy’s gut

His vanilla bones keep him unsteady

Always on the precipice of demonic 

Delight 

He sways in the cereal aisle 

Clawing his way through boxes of

Cinnamon poison and cornflake hell 

Entering the scene is pooled whole milk fat 

Shining like an oil spill under fluorescent 

Light

Eat me Eat me they all scream at him

And he does, he does, he does 

“Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem about living with a piece of art.”

My mother tells me she had to 

Fight to keep it in the divorce 

My father has his own version of it

They tell the same story on the surface. 

When he sees the door within the door

Beckoning

I imagine he feels 

The floating shapes as extensions of himself

The seemingly solid floor that drops into 

Night sky as an invitation 

It’s perhaps his dream world 

The place he wishes he could be always

Instead of this one 

My mother, I imagine, sees the mountains

In the distance

The leaves palming the sides of the canvas

Like a caress 

The softness of the colors.

It hangs now in my home

Taunting me with questions of worlds

Within worlds

Of whether I should look for the

Door, find the drink-me bottle 

Contract into something geometrical 

Outside of time and space

Or maybe it’s just nice to look at

From time to time

In space or not 

To remember who gifted it 

Where life was on the day

How it is different now

But the painting, 

The very same 

“Today we challenge you to write a poem that obliquely explains why you are a poet and not some other kind of artist”

Words tease me

They sit on my shoulder 

Tap Tap Tapping

Asking for space 

To be explored in a story

Of childhood loneliness 

Begging for melancholic 

And serpentine to weave

Their way into poems about

An apple, a couch, a day at the beach 

Images elude me

Why would I draw or paint the 

Goddess of Love when I could

Write an ode to Her that I sing

Over and over again

A spell that becomes stronger

With time?

I’ll let a friend paint me

As a mountain, hair flowing into valleys 

Let another friend watercolor 

The quotidian joy of young, queer rural life 

They’ll gift or sell their work to lucky souls

While I’ll catch a poem midday 

Poeting on-the-go

Getting distracted by the thought of pleasure

Instead of scarcity 

In every inch of a life 

I pen it in my mind’s eye

Smiling as the moment passes, 

The words evaporate into the air 

With my breath 

“We challenge you to write a poem that directly addresses someone, and that includes a made-up word, an odd/unusual simile, a statement of “fact,” and something that seems out of place in time” 

The absence of you is like a stranger’s dream

Told in colorful exposés but ultimately 

Out of reach 

Gull island vole from New York islands, herbivore 

Sea wolf from the Caribbean, last seen 1952 

Halarachne americana, the sea wolf’s nasal mite. 

You are gone because of human violence. 

Two of you existed together

Without the host, the parasite perished too. 

What might it be like to be a mite, 

Living among the nasal passages of a docile

Seal?

What of this ironically named wolf of the sea?

Does she feel her body victim to the parasites

Internal and external, human and non-human?

Did the sand dune voles feel rage when naval

Forts destroyed their homes? Did they have 

Time to grieve before extinction became their category?  

Is it in dreams alone that I may find you?

My animeras leads me to a pleistocenic parking lot

Glacials surrounding us in vibrant violets

We are all the hosts of a game show

No losers

Only islands of freedom and seas of play

“Today, we challenge you to take inspiration from this glossary of musical terms, or this glossary of art terminology, and write a poem that uses a new-to-you word”

From the beginning, there was air 
Through the body, out of the body 
Madness followed, a song gifted to the skies as an aria 
Operatic geometry filled a cloudless imagination
Gestural lunacy overtook the stage of life in swaths of blue
Sharp edged denouements were unsatisfactory
To the rhythmic narrative of a human life 
Here, now 
Let summer shed our skins so that autumn may 
Deaden the leaves that no longer serve us 
Spring will tell a story that even winter
Cannot bury 

Ghouls and ghosts
Lost boys and girls
Follow this way to 
The queen of golden
Presence 
Allow her to remove your
Material abundance 
Shower you instead with 
Serpentine confidence 
Slithering at your heels
Out of reach if you grab 
With greedy hands 
Present with you always 
If you flow with its essence 
Here, you are a follower
Be grateful for this 
Your responsibility is to listen 
Fear is not welcome 
She rids you off your heavy cloak 
Naked you arrived in this world
Naked you shall remain 

There is an intimacy in not knowing
How deep the ocean goes
How to repeat patterns of pleasure
Why bodies behave they way they do 

When we ask where our water comes from
How the trees communicate
Why we are alive here, now, at all 
We swim in a soupy teal mystery 
Ears perked, hearts aflutter  
Tricking us into humility 
Fooling us into awe 
Listening
Listening