Day Eight
Well, we’ve officially passed the one-week mark! We hope your inspiration is holding up. But if you find it flagging, our daily optional prompts might just give you the lift you need to power through.
Today, we have two featured participants: (1) Behind Door Number 3 and (2) Orangepeel, where you’ll find very differnt, but compelling, takes on Day 7’s postcard prompt.
Our featured resource today is this animated video of a talk given by the poet Jane Hirshfield on the art of the metaphor.
Finally, our (optional) prompt for the day takes its inspiration from Laura Foley’s poem “Year End.” Today, we challenge you to write a poem that centers around an encounter or relationship between two people (or things) that shouldn’t really have ever met – whether due to time, space, age, the differences in their nature, or for any other reason.
Happy writing!
Day Seven
Happy first Sunday of Na/GloPoWriMo, all. Let’s give ourselves all a virtual round of applause for making it through the first week of the poem-a-day challenge!
Our featured participant today is Oregano Oranges, where you’ll find a response to Day 6’s “weird wisdom” prompt that places a unique spin on telling a lie.
Today’s featured resource is theheartofpoems, an Instagram account featuring both poetry and art.
And last but not least, we’re taking it easy with today’s (optional) prompt. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem titled “Wish You Were Here” that takes its inspiration from the idea of a postcard. Consistent with the abbreviated format of a postcard, your poem should be short, and should play with the idea of travel, distance, or sightseeing. If you’re having trouble getting started, perhaps you’ll find some inspiration in these images of vintage postcards.
Happy writing!
Day Six
Welcome back, everyone, for the sixth day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo.
Today, our featured participant is Skrol an Yeth, where you’ll find a response to Day 5’s prompt in not just English but Welsh Cornish! (Sorry for that very silly mistake!)
Our featured resource for the day is “A Poetry Channel” on YouTube, where you’ll find an eclectic array of poems being read with accompanying images and video.
And now for our (optional) prompt. Today’s we’d like to challenge you to write a poem rooted in “weird wisdom,” by which we mean something objectively odd that someone told you once, and that has stuck with you ever since. Need an example? Check out Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “Making a Fist.”
Happy writing!
Day Five
Friday is here, and so is the fifth day of Na/GloPoWriMo.
Today’s featured participant is Narrative Paralysis, which brings us a spooky, cosmic poem in response to Day 4’s “strange things” prompt.
Our resource for the day is not a social media account, but a podcast that we’ve featured in past years (and is good enough to bear repeating): The Slowdown. You’ll find a poem here every day — you can listen online and read the transcript with the daily poem as well.
Now, let’s get to our optional prompt! Today we’d like you to start by taking a look at Alicia Ostriker’s poem, “The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog.” Now try your hand at writing your own poem about how a pair or trio very different things would perceive of a blessing or, alternatively, how these very different things would think of something else (luck, grief, happiness, etc).
Happy writing!
Day Four
Happy fourth day of Na/GloPoWriMo, everyone!
Our featured participant today is Lizzy Burnham, who brings us an appropriately peculiar — and vinegary — poem in response to Day 3’s surrealist prose poem prompt.
Today’s resource is the Instagram account Read a Little Poetry, where you will in fact find a lot of poetry.
Our (optional) prompt for the day challenges you to write a poem in which you take your title or some language/ideas from The Strangest Things in the World. First published in 1958, the book gives shortish descriptions of odd natural phenomena, and is notable for both its author’s turn of phrase and intermittently dubious facts. Perhaps you will be inspired by the “The Self-Perpetuating Sponge” or “The World’s Biggest Sneeze.” Or maybe the quirky descriptions of luminous plants, monstrous bears, or the language of ravens will give you inspiration.
Happy writing!
Day Three
Hello, all! Let’s hope poetry helps us get over the “hump” of this Wednesday.
Today, our featured participant is Joy Wright, who brings us a wistful poem in response to yesterday’s platonic love poem prompt.
Our resource for the day is the twitter account Peege, where you’ll find lots of poetry, but also cool art and photos.
Last but not least, here’s our prompt for the day – optional, as always. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a surreal prose poem. For inspiration, check out Franz Kafka’s collection of short parables (my favorite is “The Green Dragon”).
Happy writing!
Day Two
Happy Tuesday, everybody, and welcome back for Day 2 of Na/GloPoWriMo. Hopefully, Day 1 whetted your appetite for verse, and now you’re ready for seconds.
Our featured participant for the day is A Rhyme a Day, where the response to Day 1’s prompt cleverly blends the memory of reading a book with the memory of what was going on in the poet’s life while reading it.
Today’s poetry resource is Secret Chords, an Instagram account where you will find a new poem every day.
Finally, here’s today’s optional prompt. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a platonic love poem. In other words, a poem not about a romantic partner, but some other kind of love – your love for your sister, or a friend, or even your love for a really good Chicago deep dish pizza. The poem should be written directly to the object of your affections (like a letter is written to “you”), and should describe at least three memories of you engaging with that person/thing.
Happy writing!
Here we go!
Hello, everyone. It’s the first day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo 2024, and we hope you’re eager to get writing. As usual, we’ll be featuring a participant each day, giving you a poetry resource, and – of course – an optional prompt to help you in case you’re having trouble with inspiration.
Today’s featured participant is Glenn Mitchell, whose response to our early-bird prompt brings us rhyme, wordplay, and a heartfelt theme.
This year, our poetry resources will focus on social media accounts (though we’ll have a few other things, too) that regularly post poems from books, magazines, and elsewhere, letting you discover new-to-you poets, and just get a quick fix of poetry from time to time. Today’s resource is the twitter account of the poet Tom Snarsky, where you will find a plethora of poems to peruse!
And now for our daily (and totally optional) prompt. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write – without consulting the book – a poem that recounts the plot, or some portion of the plot, of a novel that you remember having liked but that you haven’t read in a long time.
Happy writing!
Almost There – and an Early Bird Prompt
It’s so close to the start of Na/GloPoWriMo that we can practically read the poems already! Okay, maybe not exactly that, but we’re certainly starting to feel the bubbling sensation that portends imminent inspiration.
We’ll be back tomorrow with our first daily featured participant and resource, along with a prompt. But for now, and to help out all of you for whom April 1 comes a bit earlier than it does to Na/GloPoWriMo’s secret headquarters (yes, our lair is built into a volcano), here’s an early-bird prompt: Pick a word from the list below. Then write a poem titled either “A [your word]” or “The [your word]” in which you explore the meaning of the word, or some memory you have of it, as if you were writing an illustrative/alternative definition.
- Cage
- Ocean
- Time
- Cedar
- Window
- Sword
- Flute
Happy writing!
Na/GloPoWriMo Are Just Two Days Away
Happy 30th of March, everyone! April is just a hair’s breadth away from us (but not a hare’s breath, which is different). We hope you’re feeling excited about the prospect of writing 30 poems in 30 days.
Tomorrow, we’ll have an early-bird prompt for those of you whose position relative to the international date line means that April 1 arrives a few hours in advance. But in the meantime, why not check out the “Archive of the Now”? While it appears to have stopped updating a few years back – becoming more archive than now, if you get our drift – it remains a pleasingly organized clearinghouse of recordings of contemporary (well, as of ten years ago) British poets.
Archives
- April 2024
- March 2024
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013