Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 608
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 mom poem.
A few days ago, we celebrated Mother's Day in the Brewer household. So I used that as the inspiration for this week's prompt.
For today's prompt, write a mom poem. While not everyone gets (or even wants) to be a mom, everyone has a mom. On gift card holidays like this past Sunday, the mother is celebrated. That said, not everyone knows their mom, and some wish they did not. For many, whether they get along or not, the relationship can be very complicated. So explore that experience today.
Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.
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Write a poem every single day of the year with Robert Lee Brewer's Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming. After sharing more than a thousand prompts and prompting thousands of poems for more than a decade, Brewer picked 365 of his favorite poetry prompts here.
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Here’s my attempt at a Mom Poem:
“your mom,” by Robert Lee Brewer
a punchline to a joke
i never once thought
another one would
be better and never
dreamed what it'd be
like to have someone
else listen to my fears
and my dreams and
never once imagined
someone else's mom
could find the right
balance of saying
"you can do it" and
"you better not do it"
and i never argued
with friends who'd
complain about their
own moms and say
to me they wished
their moms were
somehow better
"like your mom"

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.