Poetry Challenge #82-Diamond in the Rough
“Square cut or pear shaped, these rocks don’t lose their shape”…take a listen; great lyrics!: https://youtu.be/KsRqhCWYfsQ?t=4
How are poems like diamonds?
Diamonds…gems/rocks/stones— come in many shapes, colors and sizes, and from there are cut, shaped and polished into heart’s desires. Poems begin as a jumble of words and from there are shaped to reflect heart’s desire.
Poetry Challenge #83
Diamond In the Rough
Write a diamond-shaped Diamante about something you value.
A Diamante is a diamond-shaped poem, simple as that.
Diamante poems begin with a one word or syllable line.
Each subsequent line grows longer by one than the previous line. The longest line is the mid-point of the poem.
From there, the lines decrease by one until reaching the last one word line.
The shortest Diamante has three lines of one syllable words.
Here’s a Diamante Frame if you prefer structure.
One
Two words
One
Once you have the words, polish your poem until it shines!
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 3200-ish days 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 #81-I’m Feeling List-Less
According to Psychology Today, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Let me count the ways”…wasn’t just pie-eyed, moonstruck rambling. It was good old-fashioned self care.
Make it stand out
According to Robert R. Kraft, PH.D in
“10 Benefits of Making a List”
Lists “help memory and focus our daily lives.”
HOW?????
“1. Lists document what we ordinarily forget.
2. Help us remember across context.
3. Act as a retrieval cue for other items.
4. The linear layout of a list is friendly to our serial processing.
...and the list goes on!”
List from Life Without Pants blog—add it to your list!
Poetry Challenge #81
Make a List
List making is not a new concept in organizing, in procrastinating, or in poetry.
Soooooo many poems are list poems: The Bill of Rights, Barrett’s “Sonnet 43,” Billy Collins’ “Bread and Knife,” Shel Silverstein’s “Eighteen Flavors” to name a few.
In a list poem, you can list things you like (animals, colors, kinds of cars, playground games), signs of a season, tasks you have to do, items in a category, or what you’re going to do today.
Today, try you pen at a list poem.
Begin with your plans for the day today. Or start with a list inspired by one of the ideas above.
Once you have your list, play with the order.
Choose better words that sound the same (maybe rhyme, or use alliteration).
Can you make the poem sound like it has an ending?
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 3200-ish days 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 #79-Fibonacci Awakening
Hurrah! Everything is in bloom! Take a close look at the way the leaves on a plant and petals on a flower grow. Notice how they often grow in a pattern: One in the center; next row 2; third row 3; fourth row 5; fifth row 8 and so on. This pattern, which allows each leaf/petal to have maximum exposure to light and moisture while maintaining a tidy spiral pattern, called is the Golden Ratio, is the Fibonacci Sequence in action! Pure poetry, right! Which leads naturally to today’s prompt:
Fibonacci Sequencing Succulent
Poetry Challenge #79
Fibonacci Awakening
Number sequences are fun ways to create a form for a poem in that they pose a puzzle without too many rules.
For this prompt let’s add some geeky science fun to our poetry with Fibonacci.
A Fibonacci sequence begins with 0 and 1. Each number is the sum of the two previous numbers. The third number would be 0+1=1. The fourth number is 1+1=2. And so on.
Write a poem matching the number of syllables or words on each line with the first six numbers in the Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8.
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it.
When you finish step outside and find the Fibonacci Busting out all over!
If the Fibonacci has you fired up for More MATH! Here’s a fab Math Challenge game!
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 8 years days 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 comments or on social @kellybennettbooks
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Poetry Challenge #77-Heave-Ho!
Sing-Alongs are always challenging—and sometimes embarrassing—even for me. (And those of you who know me, know I love to sing—badly.) The worst is when someone sticks a microphone in my face and I don’t know the words. That’s when I resort to the trusty mumble-mumble-murmer-murmer— la-di-dah-daaaaaaaa
My Best Friend’s Wedding Classic!
Songwriters who like audiences who sing-along— pirate ship captives & those wanting tips, for example—make singing along easier by writing song with repeated refrains—the more often repeated the better. Which brings me to today’s prompt.
Poetry Challenge #77
Heave-Ho! Chant-She-Blows!
“The chant poem is about as old as poetry itself,” writes Robert Lee Brewer in his Oct. 23, 2012 post. “Chant poems simply incorporate repetitive lines that form a sort of chant. Each line can repeat [as they do in Blues’ songs], or every other line [as in a Sea Shanty].” Sailors sang shanties as they rowed or heaved on ropes to keep everyone working at the same pace. It’s believed “Shanty” is a morphism of “chanty” meaning both the type of song and a name for the sailor who leads the singing. By way of an example, below is a Chant Poem Cindy created.
“Snow fell this morning, soft and white and cold,
I was thinking of our bench in Central Park today.
I liked it more before I got so old,
I was thinking of our bench in Central Park today.
I left the city a long time ago,
I was thinking of our bench in Central Park today.
Now I hear sounds of birds—the caws of crows,
I was thinking of our bench in Central Park today.”
Follow these three easy steps to create your own Chant Poem—Or “Shanty” if you will!
Find a headline in a newspaper or magazine that you like the sound of. That will be your chant.
Write a four line rhyming poem where the first 2 lines rhyme and the last 2. AABB
Insert the chant between each line of your rhyming poem and you have a chant poem.
“They know a song will help the job along…”
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 more than 3200 days 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 #75-Scramble Poetry
Have you played a game where you’re given some letters and you have to see how many words you can make out of them? Bananagrams and Scrabble are two family favorites. For today’s prompt, let’s start there and push it further.
Poetry Challenge #75
Anagram Poetry
For today’s poem, begin with a title. Create a poem from words you can make by rearranging the letters in the title.
You might want to spend a few minutes listing words ala an anagram game before you start writing.
Come up with your own title or use one of these:
A Walk in the Garden
Birds Fly over My House
The Bus is Late--Again
Snow Falls in Silent Forests
Here’s Cindy’s attempt:
“The Last Time I Went to Town
The last time
I went to town,
the lawn was mown.
I lost a shoe,
the steam was mean.
It went to
a test to see what the mist meant.
Now was the time to stow meat low.
In the lost mantle, I settle.”
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 3000 days 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 and be sure to tag @kellybennettwrites
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Poetry Challenge #72.5-Flip-Flop
Are you, by chance, wearing flip flops?
If you aren’t, you should be.
Why? Because the Wednesday after Memorial Day Weekend is officially National Flip-Flop day.
This glorious art is by Teri Virbickis. You can order prints!
Flip-flops are called “flip-flops” because of the sound they make when worn. They are also called “slip-slops” for the same reason, and also, my friend Shona explained, “because they look sloppy.”
Other names for this “inexpensive footwear consisting of a flat base, typically rubber, and a strap with three anchor points: between the big and second toes, then bifurcating to anchor on both sides of the foot” are slippers, thongs, pluggers and double-pluggers, jandals, plakkies, tsinelas, and chanclas.
Flip-flop is also means to change one's mind or opinions on something, or to be indecisive and wavering between different positions—in other words to wiggle-waggle over one’s opinion in the same manner a flip-flop does on one’s foot—especially when wet. (Which came first? You decide.)
Poetry Challenge #72.5
Flip-Flop
In keeping with the theme, rather than give one solid prompt, here are a few. Choose the one that suits your mood:
1. Put on a pair of flip-flops and let them take your poem wherever they want to go.
2. Write a poem that begins one way and ends another.
3. Write a poem from the point of view of a flip-flop
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 more than 8 years 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 at @kellybennettwrites
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Poetry Challenge #70-Noises On!
For the last poetry challenge we explored the Sound of Silence, this time, let’s crank up the volume by focusing on noise.
City Noises…
Country noises . . .
Kitchen noises: day or night the kitchen never really sleeps…
And my favorite critter noises…
Poetry Challenge #70
Noises On!
Visualize an event, a moment, an incident—either real or imagined. Now, close your eyes and listen to the sound of significant movements and/or actions happening in that moment. What sounds do you hear? Heart beats, water dripping, footsteps, maybe bells . . .
Write a poem using these sounds. Try establishing a rhythm by repeating the sound a few times in each line followed or preceded by what is making the sound. Some hugely successful songs use sounds in this way. For example, in The Trolley Song sung notably by Judy Garland in the movie Meet Me in St. Louis sounds are used to describe the first moment Ester meets John:
“Clang, clang, clang went the trolley
Ding, ding, ding went the bell
Zing, zing, zing went my heart strings
From the moment I saw him I fell
Chug, chug, chug went the motor
Bump, bump, bump went the brake
Thump, thump, thump went my heart strings
When he smiled I could feel the car shake”
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 more than 8 years 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 at @kellybennettwrites
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Poetry Challenge #68-Cup of Kindness
Nanny, my grandmother (born July 6, 1906), and her girlfriends gave each other tea or coffee cups as gifts. None of them had pockets deep enough to buy a whole set of china at one time. Nor did their ilk register for wedding gifts.
Nanny and her friends built their sets of “good dishes” piece by piece as budget allowed. (Nanny is on the right with glasses; one of her prized tea cups on the left.) On birthdays they would either give a cup in the recipient’s chosen pattern, or they would surprise each other with different cups. Nanny called hers “Friendship Cups.”
These cups are a few of Nanny’s remaining Friendship Cups. I display them front and center in my cabinet to remember her—and to remember my friends. You are welcome to use one anytime.
The cups in my cupboard seem empty, they are absolutely not. Each one, still today, is brimming with love and kindness.
This bulletin board kit is from Jannylovecolors.
It’s a bright spring day and “What the World Needs Now” was the last song on my local NPR station WLIW. That song!
What’s better way to germinate love than to fill a cup with kindness.
Poetry Challenge #68
Cup of Kindness
Think back over the past few months and recall a kindness someone gave to you.
What was that kindness? How did it make you feel to receive it?
With that in mind, fill a cup with a kindness of your own. To whom will you pass it?
Title your poem “Cup of Kindness”
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it.
Nanny’s Cup
This cup is one of few remaining pieces from Nanny’s “good dishes.” The 1989 earthquake sent the rest flying.
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 8 years 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.