think of it as an automated prompt generator…

It’s called The Surrealist Compliment Generator, but click reload and you’ll get another surreal phrase that could launch your next poem. This amusing bit of quirkiness is brought to you by The MadSci Network, an interactive science teaching and community outreach tool, staffed and maintained by volunteer scientists and engineers from around the world.

Click here to try it. Have fun!

imagine the prompts…

Today, as Google reminds us, would be Howard Carter’s 138th birthday, so it seems only appropriate to honor him by noting that the exhibition known as Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs opens at Seattle’s Pacific Science Center in two weeks. It has been more than 30 years since the good king visited the Emerald City (July 15-November 15, 1978) and last time he made quite a splash (nearly 1.3 million visitors).

And poets, imagine the prompts! What an opportunity for persona poems, from Howard Carter to King Tut himself, from Osiris to Anubis. Plus grave robbers and goddesses, scarabs and mummies, scepters and chalices, unguents and effigies.

Learn more about the exhibit, tickets and fanfare here.

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.

when nothing is like nothing…

Need a prompt to launch your poem? Sometimes a good simile, or a quirky simile, or a downright strange simile will get you going, or at least shake things loose. The online literary magazine, High Coup Journal, which publishes mostly-monthly collections of high coup haiku, has just the solution: the fabulously amusing Simile-o-Matic. When your nothing is like nothing, just click.
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coin-o-matic

National Poetry Month…

April is National Poetry Month and there’s a LOT going on! For a look at what’s up this month (and the rest of the year, for that matter) in Washington state, click on NW Lit Events. The listings, updated almost daily, are brief, but include a link where you’ll find more information.

April is also National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo), when participating poets make a commitment to write a poem a day. Poems can be on any topic in any form. If you’re looking for prompts or curious about what other poets are doing for NaPoWriMo, check out these sites:

NaPoWriMo.net offers daily prompts and a place for participants (almost 575 at the moment) to upload their poem-a-day sites. Some poets already have blogs or websites; others start blogs just for NaPoWriMo.

Poet Kelli Russell Agodon shares two collections of prompts, one from 2008 and the other from 2010.

On Writer’s Digest, Robert Lee Brewer provides daily prompts in his 2012 Poem-A-Day (PAD) Challenge and invites participation. Read the guidelines here.

The 30/30 Prompt Blog offers detailed daily prompts.

Happy poem-ing!
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NPM poster by Chin-Yee Lai

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 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!

‘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!

alphabetically yours…

As the word suggests, abecedarian poems use the alphabet, in order, as a prompt. But how is another matter. Successive letters of the alphabet might begin (or end, or “middle” if the use of middle as a verb may be forgiven) each line, or each word. An entire stanza of words might begin with a single letter. The alphabetic sequence might be reversed. Here’s some information on abededarianism from poets.org.

Psalm 118 (119 in the King James version) is abecedarian, its 176 verses divided into 22 stanzas, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. La Priere de Nostre Dame by Geoffrey Chaucer is abecedarian, each stanza beginning with a successive letter of the alphabet.

Here you’ll find “An Abecedarian Elegy,” which is a poetic display of a then-new font, Elegy, in broadside form.

Here’s how some Kentucky third-graders handled the challenge.

The beauty of writing abecedarian poems is that the prompt is always right in front of you. Try it!
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Chaucer’s A.B.C.