“Because it’s a Saturday, I thought I’d try a prompt that asks you to write in a specific form – the nonet! A nonet has nine lines. The first line has nine syllables, the second has eight, and so on until you get to the last line, which has just one syllable.”

NaPoWriMo

In my palm lay pink dipped dainty pods
Plucked from the redbud tree above
We are told to eat handfuls
Tasting of peas and spring
Palm is heavy with 
Magnolia 
Violets, too
Littered  
Sweet 

“Today’s prompt comes to us from this list of “all-time favorite writing prompts.” It asks you to name your alter-ego, and then describe him/her in detail. Then write in your alter-ego’s voice. Maybe your alter-ego is a streetwise detective, or a superhero, or a very small goldfinch. Whoever or whatever your alternate self may be, I hope this prompt lets you stretch both your writing skills and your self-knowledge.”

NaPoWriMo

Watch your feet 
For I thrive in hidden places
You’ve probably heard - 
I own my own kingdom
Consuming the remains of my domain
Their waste becoming my feast
I decompose, absorb, and give back
Embedded among the roots of my community
I create interconnecting webs of forest gossip 
My myriad disguises  
Seduce when I please
And kill when finders are heedless 
Butter me up, let me color your brain
Watch your feet
Watch your head 
Know I don’t need to be your master
To enchant you 

“I’d like to challenge you to write a variation of an acrostic poem. But rather than spelling out a word with the first letters of each line, I’d like you to write a poem that reproduces a phrase with the first words of each line. Perhaps you could write a poem in which the first words of each line, read together, reproduce a treasured line of poetry? You could even try using a newspaper headline or something from a magazine article. Whatever you choose, I hope you enjoy this prompt”

NaPoWriMo

If your heart beats fast
It means you’re alive, it
Doesn’t make you unique to 
Serve yourself blackened thoughts
You can rise up high as skyscraping trees
Wash them away like dirt for
It won’t be long before it’s
All stardust and dreams

Away we go 

“Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about a mythical person or creature doing something unusual – or at least something that seems unusual in relation to that person/creature. For example, what does Hercules do when he loses a sock in the dryer? If a mermaid wants to pick up rock-climbing as a hobby, how does she do that? What happens when a mountain troll makes pancakes?”

NaPoWriMo

Do not laugh
For I, too, have
Aesthetic needs
Someone to braid
My serpentine darlings
Bathe them with beauty 
Weave them with warmth
Someone to apply golden gloss
To my untouched lips 
Someone to bear the burden
Of turning their gaze
Not out of fear
But because desire calls
From deep within
In hopes that one day
Someone - anyone - will
Soften to milk
Upon looking into 
My glossy eyes 

“Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem . . . in the form of a poetry prompt. If that sounds silly, well, maybe it is! But it’s not without precedent. The poet Mathias Svalina has been writing surrealist prompt-poems for quite a while, posting them to Instagram”

NaPoWriMo

1. Take your mind off the future and fold the laundry
2. Stand and feel your back arch over the bed as you reach for pink socks
3. Mismatch if you please, but don’t hesitate. This is your life
4. Feel surprise and delight as you smooth out wrinkles in your favorite sweater
5. Take a seat and watch your wrists flip like pancakes over old t-shirts
6. Create satisfying piles of folded fabric 
7. Bury your face in something soft, inhale like your life depends on it 

“And now for our (optional) prompt. This one is a bit complex, so I saved it for a Sunday. It’s a Spanish form called a “glosa” – literally a poem that glosses, or explains, or in some way responds to another poem. The idea is to take a quatrain from a poem that you like, and then write a four-stanza poem that explains or responds to each line of the quatrain, with each of the quatrain’s four lines in turn forming the last line of each stanza. Traditionally, each stanza has ten lines, but don’t feel obligated to hold yourself to that!”

NaPoWriMo

“The witchery of living

is my whole conversation

with you my darlings.

All I can tell you is what I know.”

-Mary Oliver, “To begin with, sweet grass”

I sit at 90 degree angles most of my days
Breathing in shallow patterns
Oxygen does not visit my whole body
Knots tighten like highway congestion
At my shoulder blades and hips
I ache for touch
As I peer out my window
The parking lot empty and loud 
But alas that is 
The witchery of living 

How will my weekly meals pan out?
Will my brain silence for a moment?
What if I embarrass myself?
Could you rest your eyes from the screen?
What if I am accused of laziness?
What if you took a rest?
How can I be sure of anything?
Why not embrace the wind?
What if I do not wake?
Is my whole conversation 

With myself 
Inside loops of nonstop thoughts
Endless feeds
Constant buzzing, beeping, ringing 
Familiar chaos
Nostalgic itchings 
Addictive scratching 
The lock and key of ancestral chemical reactions 
But
With you my darlings

I begin to see it 
Surgical masks littered at the roots of ancient trees 
Evidence of life here and now
Airplanes roaring, gunshots firing, birds singing 
Carpeted floor, untouchable kindness 
Cold water against teeth meant for joy 
Burning popcorn, daffodils
All I can tell you is what I see, hear, touch
All I can tell you is what I taste and smell 
All I can tell you is what I know

“Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on a word featured in a tweet from Haggard Hawks, an account devoted to obscure and interesting English words.”

NaPoWriMo

My chosen tweet from March 27: “Newborn babies’ birthmarks were once known as LONGING-MARKS, because they were said to take on the shape of something desired by the mother”

A brown spot on my knee
Marks me from birth 
Circular, it embodies wholeness, continuity 
My mother, like many mothers
Longed for endless love
Accustomed to familial disconnection
And a failed marriage
She releases this longing 
Across nine months
And like honey, it seeps
From her bones into mine
And she rests easy 
And leads a simple life knowing
A warm secret is tattooed deep
Into her daughter’s skin
Like a fresh kiss 
Where it will remain
For eternity 

“The prompt is based on Robert Hass’s remarkable prose poem, “A Story About the Body.” The idea is to write your own prose poem that, whatever title you choose to give it, is a story about the body. The poem should contain an encounter between two people, some spoken language, and at least one crisp visual image.”

NaPoWriMo

My body was disappointing me. I blamed it for misbehaving, issuing pain where others received pleasure. She taught me to breathe as I had never breathed before. She placed a plastic model of my insides in my hands and said, “This is what you look like.” The body is sectioned into parts, is it not? When she replied, “no, it is all connected,” I realized I was not broken. This whole time I had a bowl of muscles woven together inside, a supportive base for my deepest desires, waiting to be filled. Breathe down, breathe wide. Let your belly hang, let the air become your anchor. 

Over the past year, I’ve experimented with writing poems based on, or responding to, various lines from [Emily Dickinson’s] poems. Today, I’d like to challenge you to do the same! –

NaPoWri

My chosen inspiration is: “The absence of the Witch does not / Invalidate the spell”

Spring arrives 
cold and wet 
The green grass
pops like a vintage dream
against the gray backdrop
of a rainy week
Grape hyacinths hide
at my heels
masquerading as lavender 
in the sidewalk cracks 
I cannot see who cast
this spell
But I can sense Her in 
the soil that moistens
In the daredevil squirrels
who race in the empty parking lot
In the arch of white petaled trees:
a heavenly carpet for
a blooming consciousness  
and bewitching ideas 

And now for our final (still optional!) prompt. Today’s prompt is based on a prompt written by Jacqueline Saphra, and featured in this group of prompts published back in 2015 by The Poetry Society of the U.K. This prompt challenges you to write a poem in the form of a series of directions describing how a person should get to a particular place. It could be a real place, like your local park, or an imaginary or unreal place, like “the bottom of your heart,” or “where missing socks go.” Fill your poem with sensory details, and make them as wild or intimate as you like.

NaPoWriMo

Walk straight until you hit
The honeysuckle bush
Sip the nectar 
And teleport to a
Blue marbled surface
(If it fails, sip more)
Here you’ll find
Cold feelings
A girl too young to hurt so
Never enough sweaters to 
Keep her warm though
Walk backwards 6 steps
And you’ll drop like Alice
Into a spinning world of malice
Small rejections stick
Under your skin
Like ticks
Tick
Skip to the left and
Attempt to wash them away
In a fishtank of rocks
Tock 
You’ll get some
But not all --don’t worry
Keep moving, no hurry 
Your skip will turn to a run
Euphoric sweats and
Pinkening cheeks 
Will humble you weak
Drink the miniaturizing potion
And disappear for awhile
Unlock locked doors
Undress in front of no one
Undo yourself like a zipper
And relish in the delicious
Invisible  
Stay here awhile --
When you’re ready
A guiltless, delicate cake 
Awaits you 
Just around the corner