2018 April PAD Challenge: Day 20

For today’s prompt, take a line from an earlier poem (preferably from this month) to begin your poem for today. For instance, I took the final few lines of my…

For today’s prompt, take a line from an earlier poem (preferably from this month) to begin your poem for today. For instance, I took the final few lines of my poem from day 12 to start my example poem below. So scan through your earlier stuff to figure out where to start today.

If you need to, try out Anders Bylund's poem-a-day search tool to scan poems from earlier in the month. Click to continue.

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Re-create Your Poetry!

Revision doesn’t have to be a chore–something that should be done after the excitement of composing the first draft. Rather, it’s an extension of the creation process!

In the 48-minute tutorial video Re-creating Poetry: How to Revise Poems, poets will be inspired with several ways to re-create their poems with the help of seven revision filters that they can turn to again and again.

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Here’s my attempt at an Earlier Line Poem:

“if we don't speak, there will be so much left unsaid”

if we don't speak, there will be so much left unsaid,
because i don't understand love, that dance & kiss
following me through sleepless nights pulling the thread
of memory reflecting what the others miss,
or do they? do i cling to things others release?
a dance? a kiss? there is so much we've left untold,
& i wonder if you wander the past with ease
or if you try to revive a love that's grown cold--
maybe it doesn't matter. & then, maybe it does
even if it's never resurrected, never
returned from the dead. ghosts, like excited bees, buzz
through time & space--a current that can't be severed--
& here i buzz; i hover. we may recover
again, lover, but for now, our song is over.

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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 (Press 53). He knew he'd get around to writing a sonnet eventually this month.

Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.

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Find 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.