Poetry Challenge #134-Zoo Lovers Testify!
It’s National Zoo Lover’s Day. Yep, in case you need an excuse, April 8th is a day set aside for visiting the Zoo. FYI: “The first modern zoo was established in the beauty of Vienna, Austria with the order of Emperor Francis I in 1752. It was created to viewing pleasure of the imperial family, but in 1765 it was extended to the public.”—via https://happydays365.org/zoo-lovers-day/national-zoo-lovers-day-april-8/.
Poetry Challenge #134
Access Your Inner Animal
Imagine you’re an animal at the zoo. How would you describe the people looking at you? What would you think they love based on the people they’re with or what they’re wearing or eating? How would you—the animal—know if you’re right?
Write a poem from the point-of-view of a zoo animal. What does it see, think, feel? Who are its friends/enemies? When is dinner?
Access your inner animal—be it tiger, cheetah, lion or goldfish
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 4 YEARS ago! (without a miss!!!) 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 #132-Little Red Wagons Get Rolling!
The last Wednesday each March is Little Red Wagon Day, a holiday established by Radio Flyer in honor of their Little Red Wagon’s 100th birthday “to encourage kids to get outside, get active and go wherever their imaginations take them.” Let’s give it a whirl—with words!
Poetry Challenge #132
Little Red Wagons Get Rolling!
Norman has a little red wagon—that’s how he rolls! Bennett & Jack have one, too. How about you?
Do you remember bumping along the street pulling a little red wagon? Or maybe, as my brother and his friends did, attaching the wagon to your dog’s leash and trying to get him/her to tow you?
If you had a Little Red Wagon who or what would you fill it with? Or, if you’re the passenger, who’d be pulling the wagon? And where would your adventuring take you? Imagine the rhythm of the wheels rolling along. What does it sound like? What does it feel like?
Create a rhythmic Little Red Wagon poem by first creating a refrain evoking the sound and feel of the ride. See if you can use the refrain three times in your poem. *
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
*Social Media inclined: use #LittleRedWagonDay and tag @RadioFlyer to share
**Watch Radio Flyer the Movie!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge MORE THAN 1400 days ago! (APPLAUSE!!!) 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 about 1400++ 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 #127 Feelings . . . Whoa Whoa Whoa . . .
Tell me all about it…
Relax, this is not an invitation to visit/revisit the analyst’s couch. But, yes, we are going to go all touchy feely, so get out one of your already written poems, and let’s get down to the nitty gritty:
Poetry Challenge #127
Tell Me How it Feels, How it Really Really Feels?
Poetry often deals with emotions: how we feel, what emotions an incident evokes, and too, how words—the placement of words, word choices/combinations—make us feel. But now, today, let’s go beyond those feeling and get really touchy feely.
Take out one of your already written poems. Don’t spend more than 30 seconds of your 7 minutes choosing—it’s not really about that poem, this challenge is about what feelings can do to/for that poem. When writing, we often focus on describing things through dialogue and action. We also often set the scene by describing what can be seen in a seen. However, we often overlook the physical, even though our tactile memories are strongest and reactions evoked shared. Try “chewing glass” for example.
Reread your poem, and ask yourself “What does it feel like?” And by “feel” think literally: What does each image actually feel like? Is it rough? Squishy? Smooth? Glassy or sandy? Does it slosh?
Try changing/adding feeling words to that image to conjure those tactile feelings.
If your poem doesn’t seem to have a tactile feeling to it, can you add one? Even more, try adding a tactile feeling to every line.
Now reread your poem. How does it feel, now?
Set your timer for 7 minutes
Don’t think about it too much; just feel it!
Start writing!
Whoa…Whoa…Whoa Take a listen: Feelings sung by Morris Albert
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge MORE THAN 1400 days ago! (APPLAUSE!!!) 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 #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.