Poetry Challenge #10-And To Think That I Saw It!
I spend a lot of time looking down…at my keyboard, a page…on walks, my feet.
All that is about to change, if only for a short while today. So plant your feet safely and then proceed—without caution!
Recently, in light of our collective efforts to be more culturally sensitive, this book (which was brought to mind by the title of this prompt) is being banned because a mural in the Dr. Suess Museum depicted a scene from this book has been deemed racist. The mural, or that section of the mural, is being replaced.
I am not sure where this leaves this first book by the beloved Dr. Seuss. To read or not to read it, is a question for you to decide. To ban it is shut the door on an important conversation.
(As Theo is long gone, he can't weigh in on the discussion.)
Here’s a more PC journey PB
* NY Time Bestseller
* Newbury Award Winner
* Caldecott Honor
* Coretta Scott King Honor
Now that you’ve been a bit of a flaneur (that’s Fancy Nancy for idle wanderer) on to the prompt!
Poetry Challenge #10
And To Think That I Saw it!
List 10 or more things you saw on the bus or in the car —through the window—on your way to work or school.
Or take a walk and list things you see.
Pick 5 of the things and put one on each line. Add detail, simile, or metaphor:
It ____________looks like a___________ .
It is as _________ as a ________.
It is a ______________.
Read the five lines. Try moving some lines around to get it in a better order or change some words to make it rhyme (or not rhyme) or sound better.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, Write It!
NOW! In the “oh so cool” words of Nancy Sinatra: COME ON BOOTS! START WALKING! Dah-dah-dah-DUH . . .
This photo of the grands on a walk is my screensaver. Imagine how that walk went!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2700+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #9-Time for a Cool Change
The Spring Clock is ticking! Blossoms are busting out all over North America! It’s almost time. This Sunday, March 10, Daylight Savings Time 2024 begins.
Saturday night tick-tock change your clocks! Spring Forward!
Once the clocks reach 2 a.m. CST, they will "spring" forward to 3 a.m.
(Or if you live in the few places in the US that don’t Spring Forward take note.)
If you wonder why these places don’t observe DST, here’s the reason. As for the rest of us . . .
Yes! Daylight Savings Time, Spring Forward does mean you’ll lose an hour of sleep…
. . . But you will also gain an hour to what???
Poetry Challenge #10
Time for a Cool Change
Spring is a time of change, regrowth, renewal.
When you think of spring changes that are coming…or changes you might make…what springs to mind?
Let’s celebrate by crafting a five-line pyramid poem.
A Pyramid Poem is a five-line poem, growing in line length, 1-2-3-4-5, so the finished poem is shaped like a pyramid. That’s it…
But not so fast! We’ve added some specific instructions for each line. (Note: by definition a Pyramid Poem doesn’t have to have these specifics, but we’re changing things up.)
Line 1: 1 word (a noun)
Line 2: 2 words (include a description)
Line 3: 3 words (include sensory)
Line 4: 4 words (include action)
Line 5: 5 words (surprise)
Set the timer for 7 minutes.
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it.
For inspiration here’s the Little River Band singing “Time for a Cool Change.”
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Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2700+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
Poetry Challenge #8-Moonlight in Vermont
Confession Time: Somedays--many days--I am not in "the mood" to be poetic.
Today's prompt is exactly perfect for one of those days.
(Can't take credit for it, this was Cindy's idea.)
Here goes:
Poetry Challenge #8
Moonlight in Vermont
Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry made up of 3 lines with 5/7/5 syllables on each line. Traditional haiku has something to do with nature, but you can write them about anything.
Whenever I groan “I can’t write a Haiku… it’s hard…”
Cindy reminds me how, rhythmically, syllabically, miraculously, the first three lines of the song “Moonlight in Vermont” make a perfect haiku. That gets me humming every time.
If you know the song (or at least the tune), you can write haiku very quickly by putting your own words to the tune. Here’s a link to Willie Nelson singing “Moonlight in Vermont”
How many haiku can you write in 7 minutes?
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, Write It!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2700+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #7-Mixing it UP!
In a recent “Chat” to her band of merry (and sometimes not) writers—of which I’m happy to be included—Book Doctor, Robyn Conley, wrote suggesting how, especially in difficult times, we could and should encourage kindness.
To that end, she asked us to share stories of times when we entered a situation or encountered a person with one belief and came away with another.
Has that ever happened to you?
It has me.
“Diversity: “The condition of having or being composed of differing elements :variety; especially: the inclusion of different types of people (such as people of different races or cultures) in a group or organization.”
— https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diversity
Poetry Challenge #7
Mixing it UP
For today’s challenge, look around your space and pick out two completely different objects (or people).
Write a poem that begins with the differences between the two, and end by exploring how they are the same.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, Write It!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2700+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #6-I Am The One Who ____
If you, like me, get songs stuck in your brain, please forgive me in advance.
The moment I read this prompt a Toby Keith song popped into my head (RIP Toby), I Wanna Talk About Me, the one about the guy who really likes to hear every-single-teeny-itsy-detail of his gal's life, but Occasionally...
So, here's your chance:
Poetry Challenge #6
I'm The One Who ___
Write a list poem.
What is it you do?
What makes you you?
(Or because it is Valentine’s Day, if you usually do most/all of the talking, write it about your sweetie!)
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, Write It!
And because, regardless of his politics, Toby Keith sang some great songs, in memory here’s the Link to I Want to Talk About Me.
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2700+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #5-What's that noise?
A poll of incredibly interested 2,3 & 4 year-olds revealed noteworthy data: Their favorite part of my picture book, Not Norman, A Goldfish Story, was:
—Not the spunky main character…
—Not the brilliant story…
—Not Noah Z. Jones delightful pictures…
—NOT . . . NORMAN ???
It was the dark page toward the end of the story when our tad-bit-scared boy says . . .
If your tots haven't read this book, they are missing out--and so are you! Buy It!
"What's that noise?"
Prompted by certain sounds, our minds take us places--interesting, provocative, visceral...scary places. Which leads me to this week's prompt. Let's use sounds to mess around with readers minds--and make our poetry...well...Sing!
Poetry Challenge #5
What's That Noise?
Take a walk—around your house, a store, the school, or your neighborhood.
Write a poem about it. But, rather than focusing on what you see, focus on what you hear.
Extra points for using an onomatopoeia—or a few. In case you forgot: that’s a words that sound like the sound of the object it’s describing.
For inspiration here’s a poem chock full of sounds: A Sound Collector by Roger McGough
“A Sound Collector
A stranger called this morning
Dressed all in black and grey
Put every sound into a bag
And carried them away
The whistling of the kettle
The turning of the lock
The purring of the kitten
The ticking of the clock
The popping of the toaster
The crunching of the flakes
When you spread the marmalade
The scraping noise it makes
The hissing of the frying pan
The ticking of the grill
The bubbling of the bathtub
As it starts to fill
The drumming of the raindrops
On the windowpane
When you do the washing-up
The gurgle of the drain
The crying of the baby
The squeaking of the chair
The swishing of the curtain
The creaking of the stair
A stranger called this morning
He didn’t leave his name
Left us only silence
Life will never be the same”
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 2700+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #4-Counting With Words
Channeling the Von Trapp Family Singers today, sort of. . .
Let's start at the very beginning. . .
but not with ABC or with Do-Re-Me . . .
with 1-2-3!
Sing it Franz!
One-two-three
One-two-three
One-two three
Poetry Challenge #4
Counting By Words
Today's prompt was created for the math side of your brain, because it's a counting poem.
Line 1 can have only 1 word.
Line 2 can have 2 words.
Line 3 can have 3 words, and so on.
Keep going in that pattern up to line 10. Extra credit if you can work back down from 10.
If you’re stuck for a topic, write about something you can see right now or your favorite color.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, Write It!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2700+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. 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.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #3-Party Time!
Hurrah! Happy to have you with me. You know the drill (and if you don't it's easy enough): Grab a pen, a paper, your timer, and--why not!--a party hat!
Poetry Challenge #3
PARTY TIME!
In honor of poet, singer-songwriter, cartoonist, screenwriter, and children's author Shel Silverstein's whose birthday isn’t for months (Sept 25, 1930) but we are celebrating now anyway, just because…
Write a silly-funny poem about a made-up animal--or the perfect birthday party.
For inspiration, read one of Shel Silverstein's Birthday poems:
Set the timer for 7 minutes
Start writing!
Don’t think about it too much; just do it!
Write a poem, paragraph, or story. If the prompt moves you, follow it. If it sparks something else, go with it! Our 7-Minute Poetry Challenge is not about writing great poetry; or writing what is expected; it’s not even about writing anything good. It’s about one thing, writing IT!
And, if you do join us in the 7-Minute Poetry Challenge be sure to let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole dang poem, in the comments!
And for a real treat, celebrate by reading one of Shel Silverstein's books!
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
