2013 April PAD Challenge: Day 14
The April PAD (Poem-A-Day) Challenge is designed to help poets do one thing and one thing only: Write more poems! The process of revision may go on for weeks, months,…
The April PAD (Poem-A-Day) Challenge is designed to help poets do one thing and one thing only: Write more poems! The process of revision may go on for weeks, months, and years later, but this challenge is all about getting that first draft. Please poem along with us--either in the comments below or silently at home.
For today's prompt, write a sonnet. For those who are not familiar with the sonnet, it's a 14-line poem that rhymes. Some contemporary sonnet-eers even ditch the rhymes and just write a 14-line poem. Go with whatever feels right.
Here's my attempt at a sonnet:
"spring"
she enjoys the lightning less than thunder
and wonders why. lightning tears at the sky
but leaves too soon. a buffoon that blunders
across the earth, thunder rumbles good-bye
like an overzealous hug. on her rug,
she counts the heart beats between flash and crash
as if waiting for lovers to re-hash
the past. lightning is bright, but thunder's snug
and a little thuggish--in a good way,
she thinks. street lights slant in through the rain drops
collecting on the pane. maybe he's home,
she thinks, alone again. but he might say
he's more into lightning. quick sting and hop
away. thunder a thought that's free to roam.
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Writing poetry is exciting, but the hard work of poeming is working through the revision process. The best way to work through this process is to workshop the poems with other poets, and that can be done with the Writer's Digest 6-week course, Advanced Poetry Writing.
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Follow me on Twitter @robertleebrewer
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Quick note on commenting: Please always save a copy on your computer. There have been moments in the past in which comments have disappeared, and I don't want anyone to lose their work. Heck, I've lost some of my work here in the past, and it's not a great feeling. That said, commenting here is a lot of fun, especially in April. If you're completely new to the site, you'll be asked to register (don't worry, it's free), and your comments might not appear initially until I manually accept them. However, after that initial phase, your comments should appear without my help.
Want some more poeming fun? Check out these previous Poetic Asides posts:
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
