Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 483
Every Wednesday, Robert Lee Brewer shares a prompt and an example poem to get things started on the Poetic Asides blog. This week, write a name poem.
For today’s prompt, write a name poem. Insert someone's name into the title of your poem. Or name drop someone in your poem. Of course, there are names of places, animals, and other things as well. Or maybe dive into the act of figuring out how to name something--a relationship, an event, or a child. Consider doing this and then NOT giving your poem a name. Have fun with it!
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Poem Your Days Away!
Online poetry prompts are great! But where can you get your poem fix when you unplug? The answer is the Smash Poetry Journal, by Robert Lee Brewer.
This book collects 125 poetry prompts from the Poetic Asides blog, gives poets plenty of room to write poems, and a lot of other great poetic information. Perfectly sized to carry in a backpack or purse, you can jot down ideas for poems as you’re waiting in line for a morning coffee or take it to the park for a breezy afternoon writing session (or on a bus, at a laundromat, or about anywhere else you can imagine–except under water, unless you’re in a submarine or a giant breathable plastic bubble).
Anyway, it’s great for prompting poems, and you should order a copy today. (Maybe order an extra one as a gift for a friend.)
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Here’s my attempt at a Name Poem:
“What is it?”
I ask, and you say, "Don't."
Instead, we walk these cernuous streets
filled with the ornamental retreats
of bouganvillea and pendeloques.
Women choose the men in uniforms--
attracted by their odylic aiguillettes--
and we yearn, but we also must forget,
lest we develop erysipelas
whilst discussing the palama
of our favorite water fowl.
And I ask again, and you say,
"Please, don't name it."
For giving one merely shames it.
So though obsessed, I do digress
and then I quietly acquiesce
into the fog of my own thought
from the beginning to the auslaut.
