Poetry Challenge #133-Orange You Glad
Knock-Knock?
Who’s there?
Banana
Knock-Knock?
Who’s there?
Banana
Knock-Knock?
(Say it…)
Orange! Orange you glad I didn’t say “banana”!
There! Now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s get to prompting! Because it’s baseball season—including Women’s Pro Baseball!And my family has gone Baseball Crazy! this prompt was going to be about something that makes you crazy. But then I read this poem by Lauren Cook.*
Maybe because an orange is round like a baseball, and throws like a baseball, and I used to bring orange slices to my children’s baseball/softball games, I immediately changed my mind. Maybe…
Even writing that, I know I’m fibbing. I changed my mind because this poem touched me in the same way a favorite Billy Collins poem “Litany” does.
Poetry Challenge #133
Orange You Glad
Choose a fruit from the bowl below, or a vegetable (not pictured) and write a poem inspired in some way by that fruit.
What ever else you may do, make it juicy.
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
*Lauren’s poem flew into my inbox courtesy of Rattle Poetry. Rattle posts weekly prompts, a weekly poetry podcast (well worth your time), and contests. Check it out!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge MORE THAN 3600 days ago! We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #131-The Miner's Lot
Sometimes it’s time to mine your writing for gems. These gems can become a take-off point for a new poem or story. Or, to paraphrase The Byrds:
There is a time, time-time-time/
for every stage-stage-stage/
Of a poe-eeemmmmm/
a time to create/a time to write/
a time to revisit/a time to rhyme/
a time to delete/a time to combine . . .
Poetry Challenge #131
Working In a Poem Mine, Digging Down-Down-Down
Read through some of your older poems. Pick a line or phrase that you like from three different poems. Then put those lines in some sort of order and write a new poem. Add words or lines as needed.
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Start revising!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
And, if you, like Mary Poppins, think a song will help the job along. Here goes (and forgive me Lee Dorsey):
Working in a Poem Mine/Digging way down-down/Working in a Poem Mine/Digging way down-down/Working in a Poem Mine—Yeah! I wrote some words down/Working in a Poem Mine . . .
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 3600++ days ago (who’s counting?). We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #130-Let's Here it for Johnny Appleseed!
You know the adage: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away?”
Today, in honor of a guy who must have had a phobia about doctors, let’s spread the apple love!
Poetry Challenge #130
Ode to the Apple
In 1797, John Chapman traveled around sharing apple seeds, tending ailing orchards—spreading apple (and pear) love.
And maybe, thanks to him, the heirloom apple tree in my front yard is covered with teeny, tiny green apples.
Join me in writing an ode to the Apple:
Grab an apple, either an actual hold-it-in-your-hand-and-take-a-bite type, or tap into an apple memory to write a poem in praise of apples or Johnny Appleseed.
Choose a nice juicy apple
Set your timer for 7-Minutes
Ready! Set! Bite! . . . WRITE!
Don’t think about it too much—just do it! (If you share it #JohnnyAppleseedDay)
For more about Johnny Appleseed Day: click here.
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 3600 apples ago (If we ate an apple a day, that is.) We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #128-Bippity Boopity POEM!
Take out your wand! Your pixie dust! Magic beans! Spinning wheel! Dust off that big ole pumpkin! Why?
Because we all need a little magic!
And dang, who doesn’t want to be the star of their own fairy tale?
Poetry Challenge #128
Bippity Boopity POEM!
Do you remember the story of the Three Little Pigs? Goldilocks and the Three Bears? Hansel and Gretel? What’s your favorite story to tell?
Today, tell a fairy tale in the form of a poem with 7 syllables (or 7 words) on each line.
Can you tell a whole story in 7 lines? Can you do it in 7 minutes?
Set Your Timer for 7-minutes
Unsheathe Your Creativity Quill
Abra-kadabra!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge so many moons ago! We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #127.5-Happy 250th!
There are some things we only celebrate once!
(Birthdays, first teeth, last teeth…and all those firsts you are thinking right now.)
And the 250th Anniversary of the first Fourth of July.
When I was in school, a requirement for passing Government was being able to recite the Preamble to the Constitution. As we celebrate the Country’s 250th, it’s worth revisiting.
And now for the fireworks!
Why July 4th????
That’s the date in 1776, the Second Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, thus severing the 13 American colonies' political ties to Great Britain. In other words, declaring independence. It was a Thursday.
Poetry Challenge #127.5
Happy Birthday U.S.A
In honor, recognition, celebration of our country’s 250th Birthday, write a Fourth of July themed poem. It can be as patriotic or as hot dog and sparkler as you want. It can rhyme or not rhyme. It can be long, or not. The only thing your poem must do is include:
Red, White and Blue!
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 8 Fourth of Julys ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #113-One Must Ask Children and Birds
“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today . . . “
J. Wellington Whimpy, as any Popeye fan knows, would do just about anything for a hamburger. Parisians rioted over the lack of break, likewise so did Starbuck fans during a recent run on Pumpkin Latte (not really), but, I imagine they would. Cindy’s weakness is lobster. Mine (in case you’re gifting) is salted caramel. What’s your favorite food?
Poetry Challenge #113
One Must Ask Children and Birds
“One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste”— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Pick a food that begins with a consonant (not a, e, i, o, or u). Can you think of other foods that begin with the same letter? List 5-10 foods that begin with the same letter. Next, list 3-10 foods that end with that letter. Then, list 3-10 foods that have that letter in the middle. Finally, list 3 verbs and 3 adjectives that have to do with food and contain your letter.
The repetition of a consonant sound is called alliteration. Many times tongue twisters are made from these repeated sounds. Use words from all your lists to write an alliterative list poem. Read it aloud and see if it trips your tongue.
“I will not eat them here or there. I will not eat them anywhere.
I do not eat green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.”
Set your mind to channel FOOD
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
Start writing!
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge way too many meals ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #112-Bend it like Adolphe . . . Sax that is!
When we were about twelve, my friend Theresa and I closed ourselves in a music room at CSULB (where my mom was working on her Master’s Degree) and played over and over and over—her on sax, me on piano—the opening phrases of the song Ruthann Friedman song Windy. You know the one:
Whose peekin’ out from under a stairway/ callin’ a name that’s lighter than air?/ whose bending down to give me a rainbow? /everyone knows it’s Windy./ Whose trippin’ down the streets . . .
over and over . . . Theresa and I only stopped when the guy in the next room knocked.
Turned out, he too played a sax. We only wished we could. . .
Said to emote a sound reminiscent of “the echo of an echo” . . . a resonance “situated at the edge of silence,” the saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s (patented in 1846.) Sax only received a 15-year patent for the sax (immediately others began copying his design). Sax’s sax however was the first.
Poetry Challenge #112
Bend it like Adolphe . . . Sax that is!
In honor of Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone and several other sax-ish instruments (saxhorn, saxotromba, saxtuba). His saxophone is often described as being “the closest instrumental match to the human voice.” An instrument whose tone (and I write “whose” purposefully) can, in talented hands, mimic human voice inflection.
In preparation for this prompt, Listen to a Saxophone play. This post highlights “The 20 Greatest Saxophonists of All Times” with clippings of each playing.
Adolphe Sax
And now for the poem:
Let your mind wander as you listen. Where does the music take you? How does it make you feel? What does it make you feel?
Or, look at the saxophone itself, it’s shape. And ask yourself, if a saxophone were an animal, which animal would it be?
Draw on these saxophone images and feelings to write a Saxophonic poem.
Set your mind on “Cool”
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
FYI: The child of Belgian instrument makers, Adolphe Sax is credited with having, by the age of 14, invented at least invented about 9 instruments. For more on Adolphe Sax, including why he was nicknamed “Little Sax, the ghost,” read on:
“Sometimes serious, sometimes calm, sometimes impassioned, dreamy or melancholic, or vague, like the weakened echo of an echo, like the indistinct plaintiff moans of the breeze in the woods and, even better, like the mysterious vibrations of a bell, long after it has been struck; there does not exist another musical instrument that I know of that possesses this strange resonance, which is situated at the edge of silence.”
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge so many solos ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
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Poetry Challenge #109-Dictionary Roulette
I love dictionaries! It’s an excellent way to procrastinate . . . and expand one’s vocab—always a good thing. Best, words lead to ideas…and actions! So grab a dictionary and let’s GO!
Here’s mine…show me yours!
If you don’t have a physical dictionary (Borrow a library copy or Go buy one!!! You should have one!!!), you can use a website such as m-w.com or dictionary.com and look for a list of words of the day.
Poetry Challenge #109
Dictionary Roulette
Yes! You can borrow my dictionary.
One of my favorite prompts when I get stuck with any writing is to take a dictionary, open to a random page, and write down the first word I see. Sometimes I roll three dice and open to that page. Sometimes I have someone pick a number between 1 and 948 (the number of pages in my favorite dictionary) and then another number between 1 and 68 (the average number of words on the two pages) and I find my word that way.
Using the Close-Your-Eyes-and-Point method, Roll-the-Dice method, Pick-A-Number method, find 5 words. Write a 5-line poem using all 5 words.
Pick 5 Words
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it.
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge almost 8 days ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. (This one is Cindy’s.) If you join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.