Month: November 2018

Poetry Challenge #63

Do you have a pile of books? I always have a stack that I want to read. Sometimes it grows so large I’m afraid it will fall on me and hurt!

For this prompt, take a look at a stack of five books or five books on a shelf. Take the first word (not A or THE) and write it down. Use these words in a poem.

Here are the words from the first five books in my stack:

cool    miracle    spell    tamed    bird

And here’s the poem I wrote in my 7 minutes:

Watching the sun go down
was a cool miracle,
a study in pink and orange and red,
a mystical spell
that tamed the world.
And like the evening bird,
we sang one last word.

Set the timer for 7 minutes.

Start writing!

Don’t think about it too much; just do it.

*Kelly Bennett and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge over 950 days ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.

 

Poetry Challenge #62

Please Pass the PieCaken!

One layer of pumpkin, one spice cake, one pecan pie, frosted together with buttercream and topped with apple pie filling. Yum!

Take a moment to imagine your favorite Thanksgiving Feast. What foods are on your table? If you’re like me, that feast is going to include mashed sweet potatoes topped with melted marshmallows and PIE! Several kinds of pie. Maybe even this four-layer PieCaken my sis-in-law Valarie sent specially created for those of us who can’t decide which kind of pie to choose.

  One layer of pumpkin, one spice cake, one pecan pie, frosted together with buttercream and topped with apple pie filling. Yum!

However . . .

The characters in Ethan Long’s new picture book FANGSGIVING are definitely not traditional. The “Garlic mashed potatoes get eyeballs and earwax added, the turkey gets burned to a crisp and the pumpkin pie gets maggot meatballs thrown in.”

Now it’s your turn:
In the spirit of FANGSGIVING, imagine you are some other creature. An animal for instance, or an alien . . . or maybe even a monster! What would your favorite Thanksgiving Feast be then?

For the title, fill in the blank with whatever creature you are:

________________ Thanksgiving Feast

Set the timer for 7 minutes.

Start writing!

Don’t think about it too much; just do it.

*Kelly Bennett and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge over 950 days ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.

Poetry Challenge #61

Riffing off Queen

If you were of listening age in the seventies go directly to the theater to see Bohemian Rhapsody, the new biopic about Freddy Mercury and Queen. Not to give anything away (we all know Queen was a success) a high point in the movie comes when the band plays its first stadium concert. They look out over the crowd and realize everyone in the stadium is playing-singing-performing with them!

Freddy baby totally rocking it!

Freddy baby totally rocking it!

According to the movie, this prompts Brian Mays to create songs for the audience to perform. And thus, the blockbuster anthem We Will Rock You came to be. Regardless of whether we know (or can/could ever understand) the lyrics, everyone knows the rhythm:

stomp-stomp clap/

stomp-stomp clap/

baam-baam boom!

Write a rhythmic poem about something that rocks you. Or, about a rock…or a rolling stone (if you like Dylan or the Stones better).

First, set that classic We Will Rock You rhythm in your head by actually, physically, pounding out the beat: stomp-stomp clap/stomp-stomp clap/ baam-baam boom. Continue pounding out the beat as you compose each line of the poem.
Who knows, you may create another Mega-hit! At best, have fun trying. Rock on!

Set the timer for 7 minutes.

Start writing!

Don’t think about it too much; just do it.

*Kelly Bennett and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge over 900 days ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.

Poetry Challenge #60

A Puzzle

Choose a long vowel sound (sounds like its name). Now write a poem where the last word in every line ends with that sound but none of the lines can end with the same letter. Good luck! I hope you discover new things that are true!

Set the timer for 7 minutes.

Start writing!

Don’t think about it too much; just do it.

*Kelly Bennett and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge over 900 days ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.