inspired…

Where do you find your poetic inspiration?

Perhaps you stare at the blank page, the blank screen, and wait for a bolt from the blue. Perhaps you think there’s a “right way” to birth a poem.

If so, or if you’re curious about how other poets get started, the Poetry Foundation‘s blog, Harriet, offers up a four-part series called “When the Source of Poetry is not Poetry.” From the Marx Brothers to the stock market, from cookbooks to fabric catalogues, from wine labels to free pamphlets, these poets demonstrate that the right way is the way that works for you.

The first installment is here; a link at the bottom of the page leads to subsequent posts, all dated April 17.

poetry prompts…16

What are you going to write about next? If you’re searching for inspiration, here are a few places to look.

Rinn Ziegler, who blogs at Quill Shiv, offers a Wednesday prompt — an image, a suggestion — in a new section called The Haiku Bombers. (And if haiku is not your impulse, use the prompt to create another form.)

Writer and musician Roger Robinson offers a One Minute Lecture: On Generating Ideas for Poems, followed by a list of prompts.

If you search for a poem online, you may be directed to PoemHunter.com, a membership site where people post and discuss their favorite poems. It’s unlikely the site intended their Poem Topics page as a list of poetry prompts…but why not make use of the words that way?

If the visual inspires you, there’s a lot to see online. Christopher Jobson runs a site called Colossal, where he shares some of his favorite images, typically focusing on one artist per post. He has a good eye. The link takes you to the visual archive; click on an image for more…or subscribe for a daily dose. At the online pinboard, Pinterest.com, everyone gets to be a Christopher Jobson. You can ‘request an invite’ and join the ruckus, or just visit the front page for a look at what’s inspiring others…and what might inspire you.

Click to see other posts tagged poetry prompts.

Now go write a poem!

poetry prompts…15

Sometimes a person needs a little extra inspiration.

When that time comes, there are poetry prompts.

Here’s a small selection to get you going:

• Robert Lee Brewer posts a prompt each Wednesday at Writers Digest.
• Jeff Newberry offers a short list of prompts on his own site, here.
• Thom Gabrukiewicz (thomg) provides a weekly three-word prompt for poetry or prose at Three Word Wednesday.
• Each year, Smithsonian magazine holds a photo contest, with images posted in five categories: altered, Americana, the natural world, people and travel. These are outstanding photos, sure to inspire a poem or two. View this year’s selections (you can vote on your favorite through March 31 and see other years’ entries as well).

If those don’t inspire you, take a look at previous Boynton blog posts tagged poetry prompts.

Now go write a poem…and submit it to the Sue Boynton Poetry Contest!

poetry cubed…

It’s February 18 and the clock is running down on National Haiku Writing Month (NaHaiWriMo). Perhaps you’ve been gobbling up the prompts and feeling inspired. Maybe the haiku wing overhead and alight, weightless, bits of down. Or maybe not.

Haikubes, the invention of the fun folks at Forrest-Pruzan Creative of Seattle and published by Chronicle Books, might offer some solid help. A tidy little box with 63 well-made plastic cubes, Haikubes can be a source of individual inspiration or ‘played’ as a game. Each block has a blank side and several have suggested topics in case the words themselves are not sufficiently inspiring. While the product name suggests their usefulness in building haiku, the blocks are just as much fun for other poetic forms. Find Haikubes at your local independent bookstore.

Or make your own.

un-Valentine to-do list…

• Make a folder or notebook for your poetry (if you don’t already have one).
• Collect your wayward poems and put them in your notebook.
• If you keep your poems on your computer, do a back-up.
• Update your “poet’s bio.”
• Select two poems that you think are pretty good and make them better.
• Visit one of the following sites and start to identify publications that fit your writing style: Duotrope, New Pages, Poets & Writers; or have a look at the latest print edition of Poet’s Market.
• Visit publication websites, study the guidelines and read past issues to see if your work fits.
• Make a possible-submissions list: publications, themes (if any) and deadlines.
• Choose your five, three or one best poem(s) and polish, polish, polish.
• Submit your poem(s).
• Track your submissions, either on your own chart or with an online tracking system, such as that at Duotrope.
• Repeat.

Need more info on submitting your poems for publication? Here’s some sage advice from Poets.org, from which we quote:

Is rejection a bad sign? It is important to be patient, yet tenacious, when trying to publish your work. Don’t be discouraged by rejection. A hand-written, personal rejection from a good publisher is far better than an acceptance from a bad one. Many writers who are now well-known earned nothing but rejections slips for years. When a poem or manuscript comes back from one publisher, submit a fresh copy to the next one on your list.

found poetry…8

In case you’ve forgotten how to write found poetry, here are instructions (“Difficulty: Moderate”) from the good folks at eHow.

And for kids (and kids at heart), writer Bruce Lansky offers suggestions for creating found poetry from signs and other on-the-road observations.

For further direction, we turn to Portland blogger PDXkaraokeguy (aka Justin), who offers some technical info on poetry and then a series of poems found verbatim in the news.

Interested in found poetry collage? Through Creative Workshops, Sara Naumann will offer an online Found Poetry Collage Workshop beginning January 23, 2012.

More posts tagged found poetry.
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found poem by j.i. kleinberg used with permission

poetry prompts…14

It’s been a while since we posted poetry prompts and January seems like a time when a little inspiration might be welcome.

The un-named host at Today’s Prompt may have stopped blogging altogether, but the existing posts on the site each include a thoughtful prompt.

The online community Figment is offering “carefully crafted writing prompts, delivered straight to your email inbox five days a week,” between January 2 and March 30 if you sign up. Figment was co-founded by Dana Goodyear, a staff writer at The New Yorker, and Jacob Lewis, the former managing editor at The New Yorker and Condé Nast Portfolio.

The site known as My Word Wizard provides a lengthy list of daily prompts, including starting lines and images.

Looking for more prompts? Here’s a link to other posts tagged poetry prompts on the Sue Boynton Poetry Contest blog.

Happy writing!

found poetry…7

Finding Poetry is a nice site with thoughtful poems found by Joanna Paterson in source texts including Agatha Christie, Hans Christian Andersen and Dostoyevsky. (Thanks to Susan Bourne of All Found Arts for pointing the way to this one.)

Have posted before about Brian Dettmer. Here’s another dazzling collection of his book sculptures.

In case these have escaped your view, Slate columnist Hart Seely compiled a collection of found poems taken directly from the words of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as recorded in the official transcripts of the Department of Defense. The Slate article is here. Seely also published his collection of Rumsfeld’s poetics as a book, Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Annie Dillard, author, perhaps most famously, of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, also has a book of found poems, Mornings Like This: Found Poems (Harper, 1996).

Inspired? The Found Poetry Review is accepting found poetry submissions through December 31, 2011, for its Winter 2012 issue. Guidelines here.

Find more found poetry posts here.

‘tis the season…

Perhaps it’s already begun: your mailbox has burped forth the first of the holiday letters. If not yet, surely soon: paper or electronic missives to catch us up with friends and family, achievements large and small.

In the spirit of the season, of wanting to mark the passing of another year, how might the impulse be transformed? A holiday letter poem? Eschew saccharine rhymes. Abandon the impulse to capture every one of the year’s maudlin moments. Instead, consider writing a poem about…

• the conversation in your head about getting a Christmas tree
• the faces, and the dishes, around the Thanksgiving table
• someone you miss
• the feeling of walking among friends and strangers at the first protest march you’ve ever attended
• something you’ve given up
• the first moment you held the new baby
• holiday lights on a neighbor’s house
• walking on the first snow of the season
• holiday letters
• a childhood holiday memory
• the gift you didn’t get
• the gift you received
• prayer
• being cold, or being warm enough, or not being warm enough
• being alone
• finding the right gifts
• feeling conflicted about gift-giving
• a sacred moment
• having enough, or not having enough
• something you lost
• something you found
• your favorite holiday food
• a winter vista
• something unfinished
• something just begun

The list of possibilities goes on. Happy writing. Please share!

at a loss for words?

If you’re facing a blank page and discover that your mind is empty of words, here’s a sort of surprising place to begin. Full Poster seems to be an advertising site, but buried within its profiles, reviews, posters, blogs and polls are several applications available without registration, including the Creative Writing and Creative Poetry: Cut-Up Interactive Tools.

While not a thing of beauty, this page allows you to select words — 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 150, 200 — from a variety of texts in English, Italian, Spanish, German, French and even Latin and Greek. Check one or more sources, indicate your preferred number of words, click GET WORDS! and voilà! You now have a copy and paste-able list of words, which you can shuffle, align, realign and de-align, as well as a blank composition window. To save, copy your work and paste it into your preferred writing program.

Enjoy!