2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 20
For the 2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge, poets write a poem a day in the month of November. Day 20 is to write an explanation poem.
For today’s prompt, write an explanation poem. Let me explain, or actually, you should explain...in your poem. Your explanation poem could be interpreted as an excuse poem, perhaps, but it may also be like a set of instructions or directions. Maybe reasonings. Just please try to avoid mansplaining, or maybe play with that actually. I don't know; I can't seem to explain.
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.
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(Note: This is completely separate of the November PAD Chapbook Challenge.)
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Here’s my attempt at an Explanation Poem:
“Where to Start”
Maybe New York or Malibu
or somewhere in the middle
and really when might make
more sense than where, or well,
what, why, or who, and then,
it could turn into how, which
may be going too far for just
starting, and honestly, I'm not
ready to commence, so hence
forth, let's just keep it real
and loose and tight or what
ever the phraseology is now-
a-days, because we need to
start somewhere, but where?
