Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 663

Every Wednesday, Robert Lee Brewer shares a prompt and an example poem to get things started for poets. This week, write a back to blank poem.

For this week's prompt, take the phrase "Back to (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: "Back to Basics," "Back to the Drawing Board," "Back to School," and/or "Back to Back."

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 Back to Blank Poem:

“back to doom scrolling,” by Robert Lee Brewer

it begins so innocently
with liking a nice post
clicking an interesting
link on an experiment

& then the comments
lead one direction &
then another until
the world is engulfed

in flames & spiraling
across the event horizon
of the soul into the
black hole of the heart

where my fingers stop
for nothing & no one

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.