Hi Everyone,
Sometimes the muse goes on holiday. Here are a few prompts to try when you are really stuck. I hope they help!
Cheers,
Kelly
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Starting Points: Let’s just generate some fodder for your poem:
I am holding open the door. What do you imagine is on the other side?
What musical instrument do you like the sound of?
What other sounds do you love?
What superpower would you want—to be invisible? To walk through walls?
Tell me a word or phrase you love.
What color do you love?
What’s the first image that comes into your mind?
If I say the word “Joy,” what image comes into your head?
If I say the word “Sorrow,” what do you see?
What did you love as a child?
Would you rather fly like a bird or swim like a fish?
If you had another ability or job, anything at all, what would it be?
Do you prefer early morning or late night?
One thing about the world you’d change
What’s a small corner of the Earth you’d like to explore?
Name three things that make you happy.
If you were in the film business, would you rather be an actor or a director?
What’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen?
Would you go into outer space if you could? Where would you go?
Now:
Generate some lines using the prompts below:
1. Write a line about your mother/father/brother…whoever comes to mind first.
2. Write a line where the line breaks in the middle of the thought.
3. Write a line double the length of the line before it.
4. Write a line with an image from your childhood.
5. Write a line equating your mother/father/brother/etc to that image.
6. Now take it all back.
7. Write the smallest line you can.
8. Break your stanza and end the poem in a couplet.
9. Close the poem with a vivid image that reminds us of an earlier image you used.
You have a lot of material now. You might be ready to write a poem, and, if so, go for it!
If you are still struggling, use the poem below as a jumping-off point:
After My Husband Died, I Did Not
by Tim Neal
After my husband died, I did not
eat anything for two days.
Hunger felt familiar after years
of marriage to an echo.
On the third day, I just wanted
to make a simple meal.
I had no pasta, no fine bread,
just American cheese, a garlic clove,
and one fucking egg. He had left it
for me, along with his yolk-crusted
pan soaking in the sink. The last argument.
In his dictionary, underneath the word
“consideration,” he saw one pale egg
nestled neatly in the cardboard carton,
like a piece of fallen moon in a desert crater.
I pocketed the egg with care, and left
our cramped cottage.
I drove past the grocery store and football fields,
until I reached his new bed of silence.
If he were alive under the dirt,
his snores would wake the neighbors.
The crows in the distance made jokes
about me. They thought I was another clinging
widow. I cracked the shell on his tombstone,
watched the yellow dot the sod.
Prompt: Write a poem starting “After my xxx died/left/disappeared, I did not….”
Bio: Tim Neil is a recent graduate of Towson University, where he received a BFA in Acting. He lives in Baltimore, MD. The poem was first published here: https://wp.towson.edu/grubstreetlitmag/category/online-poetry/page/5/