2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 9
For the 2025 November PAD Chapbook Challenge, poets write a poem a day in the month of November. Day 9 is to write a where blank poem.
For today’s prompt, take the phrase "Where (blank)," replace the blank with a new word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: "Where Am I?," "Where They Know You By Name," "Wherever You Go," "Where Are You Headed?," and/or "Where There's Smoke, There's Fire."
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 "Where (Blank)" Poem:
“Where I Poem”
On a plane or a train or an empty
street in the evening beneath a full moon,
I wait for every line to come tempt me
with the sweet desire of a summer swoon—
each word absurd in poetic delight,
but still I feel I must honestly write,
whether in my bed or library nook,
on a stray napkin or inside a book—
I poem where I must and always there,
because to not poem, I could not bear.
