Poetry Challenge #124-Alphabet Riddlers
Remember the Jackson Five song ABC*? “A-B-C/1-2-3/Baby, You and Me . . . keep tapping those tootsie’s as we wind up for a real riddler of a prompt:
Poetry Challenge #124
Alphabet Riddle Poems Easy as ABC
Many forms of poetry are like puzzles—you try to fit the right words into a certain order or have the right number of beats/syllables on each line. Here are four poetry puzzles. Choose one to solve today and come back to this when you’re stuck for a topic some other day.
Can you use every letter of the alphabet in a poem? The letter can appear anywhere in the word and can be in any order.
For the next puzzle, you need to use a word starting with each letter of the alphabet in order. You can add other words between your words to help your poem make sense.
How about starting each line with a letter of the alphabet? How long a poem can you make that makes some sense?
Pick one letter. Can you write a poem using twenty words that begin with that letter?
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
Start writing!
Alphabet Riddlers Playlist:
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge over 1350 consecutive days—120 weekly shared 7-Minute Challenges ago. We now take turns creating our own prompts to share with you. (This one is Cindy’s.) If you join us by writing a poem, 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 #115-Knit Wits
Think “knitting” and an image of the “quiet old lady whispering ‘hush’” springs to many a mind. But that’s bunk. At last week’s VCFA Writing for Children and Young Adults Alumni workshop flashing, clicking needles were everywhere. Co 7-Minute Challenge creator, Cindy, is a big knitter. So am I, in my fashion. And in the same way, so are you.
Knitting is such a useful word. In the same way yarn becomes sweaters, wounds knit back together. Families are closely knit. Brows knit in consternation or contemplation. Thoughts knit together become ideas, just as words knit together can be poetry.
Poetry Challenge #115
Knit Wits
In Merriam-Webster speak, knitting is “a series of connected loops,” so that’s where we’ll begin.
Close your eyes and write down the first word that pops into your mind. One word. That word will be the title of your poem.
Next, quickly list words that you associate with your word. From that list, choose the best five.
Take a moment to reorder those five words into a sort of pattern that makes sense to you.
Classic Knit-One, Purl-Two pattern
Let’s use our wits to knit those words together to create a poem. For our first effort, we’ll use a simple knit one, purl two pattern. Consider those five words to be your “knit” stitches. The “purl” part of our poem will be modifiers. Let’s get knitting!
Write your first “knit” word. Below it “purl” two modifiers. Below that purl, write your next “knit” word, then “purl” two; continue in this knit one-purl two pattern until you come to the end of your word list. Just like that you’ve knitted a 10-line poem.
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 more than Thirteen Hundred (1300, yes I am celebrating) 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 #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 1280++ 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 #111-One Dark and Stormy Night…Yikes!
Back in my sleep-over camp-out nights, with the campfire crackling and tossing spooky shadows, the wind howling and tree branches scraping on the tent, we used to make scary spookier still with a game called Yikes!
Things that go bump in the night. . . Scary, right? Scary how a simple bump sound—in the right setting at the right time—sends tingles, quivers, hair-raising heebie-jeebies shivers chasing up our spines.
Oooooohhhhh CREAK
SCRATCH EEK
EEK YOWL
HOWL
Mwahaha
SCREECH SCRITCH
WHAT’S THAT NOISE . . .
Thump THWACK
thwaaaaaaaaaa
It is said that everyone fears the same thing—the Unknown. Thus, the secret to writing scary is not what you write—but what you leave out. “Readers will imagine the rest, filling in the gaps with whatever scares them most,” noted Nocturium in a recent post**. Which takes me right back to those spine-tingling sounds. Let’s give it a Go—ghost!
Poetry Challenge #111
One Dark and Storm . . . YIKES!
iT’S Hallow’s eve, let’s get our Yikes! on. Whoever creates the spookiest poem, wins! First, write a Scary poem. And then . . . make it even scarier still by replacing specifics with sounds words.
See if you can scare yourself silly!
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Don’t think about it too much;
Start writing!
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 1280++ 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.
**How to Write a Scary Story post on the Nocturim
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Poetry Challenge: Hope Lives
Today marks the 18th Anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States. “The attacks killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. Additional people died of 9/11-related cancer and respiratory diseases in the months and years following the attacks.” The site of the World Trade Center “Twin Towers” is now the September 11 Memorial and Museum.
Poetry Challenge #104
Hope Lives
To mark this day let’s create prayer poems with hopes and wishes for children of today living in the post 9-11 world.
With sympathy and strength to all who lost loved ones in this and other senseless acts of violence. Sending love love, light and strength for a brighter, understanding, compassionate world.
Poetry Challenge #103-Back to School
Bennett’s 1st Day of 1st Grade (Jack, too)
School bells are ringing, schedules are made, new pens and pencils and notebooks full of blank pages fill bright, new backpacks.
Poetry Challenge #103
Back to School
Write a poem about the beginning of the school year—or the beginning of any school year you remember. Are you excited/scared/worried? Does anything surprise you? What do you like best? Least?
Ready for School!
Try writing your poem in couplets—two lines that rhyme. See what happens if you take two couplets and use the first lines from each and then the second lines from each so every other line rhymes.
Which poem do you like better?
*Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge more than 1200 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 #102-Worker's Holiday
Labor Day, called by some the “Worker’s Holiday,” is celebrated the first Monday in September in the U.S. and was signed into law on June 28, 1894, by President Grover Cleveland.
Up until that time workers in America (including children as young as five) toiled twelve hours a day, seven days a week to eke out a living.
Child Labor laws in other places???
Nowadays, thanks to the efforts of those early labor movement organizers, we Americans take fairer work conditions for granted.
Poetry Challenge #102
Workers Unite for Worker’s Rights
For the sake of this prompt, let’s pretend we are one of those early labor organizers, making up a chant for the Labor Day Rally.
According to Merriam-Webster, “a chant is a repeated rhythmic phrase, typically one shouted or sung in unison by a crowd.” Chants are short. (One or two lines at most), set to a definite march beat. Often they rhyme.
Hint: It might be easiest to find rhymes first. To that end list words that rhyme with labor, day, work, or others that come to mind when you think of Labor Day.
Ready, Set, March!
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 1200 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 #101-End of Summer
Sun Setting on Summer in WHB
It’s hard to believe summer is coming to an end. Long, sunny days are growing shorter. Nights are cooler. Trips to the beach or pool are less frequent (or maybe more…)
What signs tell you that summer is almost over? Back to school sales? The one branch of red leaves? Geese flying overhead?
What do you do to celebrate the end of summer? Take one last swim or hike? Bake (or eat) one more pie? Have one more campfire and roasted marshmallow?
One last swim…