2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 17

For today’s prompt, write a trope poem. For those who don't know what a trope is, a trope is basically a common literary device. For instance, the movie Scream lists all sorts of horror tropes including how people who say "I'll be right back" are about to be the next murder victims. Another common trope in romance fiction is the enemies-to-lovers trope in which two characters who can't stand each other in the beginning and/or middle fall in love by the end of the story. So get tropey with your poems today.

Also, in case it's helpful, here are 100+ tropes I've collected over the years:

Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them. If you have a wild idea, follow it.

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Writer's Digest is celebrating our 20th Annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards with new categories and prizes. We’re looking for your best poems of 32 lines or fewer or un-published chapbooks 25 pages or fewer. Any form of poetry is eligible including epic, free verse, odes, pantoums, sonnets, villanelles, and even haiku. This is the only Writer’s Digest competition exclusively for poets. Win cash and an article about you in the July/August issue of Writer’s Digest.

Click to continue.

(Note: This is completely separate of the November PAD Chapbook Challenge.)

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“Amateur Detective”

Of course, I was on my way home
from the library when I happened
upon a very dead body and as luck
would have it the detectives thought
I might be the murderer, so I had to
clear my name and bring the real
culprit to justice, and it was fortunate
that I had an overly developed ability
to both notice and categorize every
detail within one mile of me, and so,
it took very little time to deduce who
the killer was, but I then messed
around for a while making small talk
with my new sidekick/roommate and/or
love interest and let the police think
they were making some sort of progress
before finally arranging for everyone
to get locked up in the same room
as me so that I could explain every
possible motive and opportunity before
dropping the "who-really-did-it" bomb
on everyone and then everyone
(except the killer and the killed) lived
happily ever after until the next time
I stumbled across another corpse.