2015 April PAD Challenge: Day 17
I’ve heard from a couple people about a problem with commenting on other poems. I’m forwarding to our tech team in the hopes of getting the issue resolved, because I…
I've heard from a couple people about a problem with commenting on other poems. I'm forwarding to our tech team in the hopes of getting the issue resolved, because I know everyone can use as much positive reinforcement as possible. Let me say this generally though; the poems I've been reading this year have been knocking my socks off. Keep rocking and writing it!
For today's prompt, write a swing poem. Sure, there are park swings and mood swings; there's swing music and swing dancing; and there are swingers. Some people swing one way; others swing another. In politics, there are swing votes and swing states. And many people have swung a bat, an ax, and/or a hammer in their lifetimes.
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Get the National Poetry Month Collection!
Celebrate National Poetry Month with a super poetic collection of poetry-related products with the National Poetry Month Collection!
This super-sized kit includes 4 e-books, 3 paperback books, 7 tutorials, and much more! In fact, this kit covers everything from prompts to poetic forms and from revising poems to getting them published.
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Here's my attempt at a Swing Poem:
"emotions"
i've been swinging my bat swinging my ax
& swinging my direction on these tracks
tired of going down when i should be up
so i'm going to call you on your bluff
give me your hand or better yet your wrist
we're going to dance we're going to twist
electric slide yourself over to me
we'll do the macarena & shimmy
we'll swing to the left we'll swing to the right
we'll keep on dancing under disco lights
because this is now & you know it's real
when my dancing feet show you how i feel
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Today's guest judge is...
Todd Boss
Todd Boss is a poet, public artist and film producer in Minneapolis. His poetry collections are Pitch and Yellowrocket (both W.W. Norton). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Poetry, and NPR.
He is the recipient of McKnight and Minnesota State Arts Board grants, the Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award, and the Emily Clark Balch Prize from Virginia Quarterly Review. He is the founding Executive and Artistic Director of Motionpoems, a non-profit initiative that partners with major publishers, literary organizations, and film companies to turn great contemporary poems into short films.
Learn more at ToddBossPoet.com.
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Poem Your Heart Out again!
The prompts from last year’s challenge along with the winning poem from each day ended up in an inspired little anthology titled Poem Your Heart Out. It was part prompt book, part poetry anthology, and part workbook, because each day includes a few pages for you to make your own contributions.
Anyway, the anthology worked out so well that we’re doing it again this year, and you can take advantage of a 20% discount from Words Dance by pre-ordering before May 1, 2015.
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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems.
Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
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More poetic posts here:
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.
