2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 23
For the 2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge, poets write a poem a day in the month of November. Day 23 is to write a response poem.
Sorry for the late prompt this morning (to all my early bird poets)! I slept through two alarms this morning, so I guess my body was telling me to rest up a little. So let's jump into it.
For today’s prompt, write a response poem. Originally, I was going to call this a rebuttal poem, which is still an optional (because a rebuttal is a type of response), but I didn't want to limit the prompt too much. Other responses could be positive, negative, or neutral...to people or other living creatures...or even to works of art (yes, ekphrastic poems).
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.
(Note: This is completely separate of the November PAD Chapbook Challenge.)
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Here’s my attempt at a Response Poem:
"Social Media"
i open my feed & start to scroll
& feel compelled to like certain
images & posts by friends &
family before seeing stories
with links to disappear into &
consume & then i have feelings
i want to express one way or
another because i need to
respond to the world around me
or what am i doing here & what
is my meaning so i collect my
thoughts & hit send & get a few
likes & affirmations before the
debaters show up with their takes
& i get sucked into responding
to their responses & it blows up
into a whole thing with my blood
pressure rising until i delete it all
because i don't have the energy
to respond or the ability to not
