Poetry Prompts

24 IDEAS FOR DOWNRIGHT BAD-ASS POEMS

Here are some basic (but not necessarily easy) exercises to get the ball rolling. In many cases, these exercises prohibit you from using certain words in certain poems. This is not to say that a love poem can’t contain the word “love,” for example; this is just an exercise designed to force you to work harder on your descriptions and pack more punch into your lines.

1) Write a love poem in which the following words do NOT appear: love, heart, soul, moon, eyes, clouds, rain, blessing, dream.

2) Write an ode to a body part or a physical activity not normally praised or discussed. For inspiration, listen to “Ode to the Tampon” and “Ode to a Composting Toilet” by Sharon Olds, “Ode to My Socks” by Pablo Neruda.

3) Eavesdrop on someone’s conversation and/or jot down the actual phrasing of a piece of conversation that struck you as bizarre, wise, stupid, or funny. Write a poem in which that exact phrase appears. Put italics around it if you’re writing a narrative poem that contains a quote or conversation.

4) Pretend you have deeply wronged someone you love (or draw on actual experiences of such an event). Be as specific and detailed as possible, and try to make it clear to the reader that you’re contrite, WITHOUT using the following words: forgive, forgiveness, mercy, please, plead, beg, mistake, sorry.

5) Write a poem narrating your day. The events described can be dramatic or mundane, serious or comical; but include as many images and sensory details as possible. Be specific. Avoid heavy-handed philosophical musings and no “moral of the story!”

6) Write a poem in which all the action revolves around one central image or metaphor. Examples: “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman, “The Lanyard” by Billy Collins.

7) Write a poem in the voice of someone who is dying, or about someone who is dying, without ever actually telling the reader that the poem is about death.

8) Write an erotic poem that isn’t sexual. In other words, write a poem that contains vivid physical descriptions and details about some kind of physical activity WITHOUT deliberately or accidentally using sexual connotations.

9) Write a poem about a physical event that is in no way sexual, but use words that have a sexual connotation, in order to give the poem extra energy and sensuality. Push the envelope; make sure it’s obvious to your reader that you meant to do this and didn’t just mess up.

10) Write a poem either about or from the perspective of a villain. Try to make them sympathetic to the audience WITHOUT making it too obvious what his/her crime was.

11) Write a poem in which you greatly vary your sentence length. For instance, maybe some sentences are just one line (i.e. they incorporate end stops) whereas other sentences are enjambed and continue for several lines. Don’t just do this randomly; try to create some kind of dramatic or narrative effect. Remember, longer sentences with lots of enjambment tend to sound a bit more narrative, reflective, descriptive, pastoral, relaxing, etc. Short sentences, on the other hand, tend to build tension by sounding more frantic clipped (for the same reason that “obscene: words are often one or two syllables, and we yell “Fire!” instead of “My friends, note the combustion event taking place all around us!”).

12) Write a Prose-Poem. In other words, write a poem that looks like a short paragraph, in which you don’t care about line breaks, but in which you still try to make the language of each and every sentence as poetic and descriptive as possible.

13) Write about something that literally or figuratively scares you. Note: if you don’t feel uncomfortable while you’re writing it and/or you don’t feel uncomfortable showing it to others, then you haven’t done the exercise properly.

14) Write a poem that seems to be poking fun at a serious topic, but has some serious lines throughout, then ends on a serious note. Example: “Suicide Song” by Tony Hoagland.

15) Write a poem that uses form in an unconventional manner. Examples: “Read This Poem from the Bottom Up” by Ruth Porritt, “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond” and “Buffalo Bill’s” by e.e. cummings.

16) Write a poem making frequent use of anaphora—that is, a poem that exactly or more or less exactly repeats a given phrase or structure. Examples: “The Matter” by Kim Addonizio, “Library” by Albert Goldbarth.

17) Choose a topic you know very little about, do a small amount of research (thank you, Wikipedia!) and write a poem about it. Examples: “Petroglyphs” by George Bilgere, “First Motor Vehicle Fatality in America” by Ron Egatz, “The Five Stages of Grief” by Linda Pastan, “In Praise of the Potato” by David Williams.

18) Write a poem in which the drama or message hinges almost entirely on the last one or two lines. Examples: “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” by James Wright, “The Surgeon” by Alicia Suskin Ostriker, “The Cobweb” and “Rain” by Raymond Carver.

19) Take the first one or two lines of a poem by an established poet, use them as the first two lines of your own poem, and write the rest of the poem. When you’re done, go back and change (or even cut) those borrowed lines. For more on this, listen to “Litany” by Billy Collins.

20) Write a poem that risks offending a sensitive audience, but do NOT do so purely for shock value. In other words, have some sort of reason or point (other than just following the assignment) for what you’re doing. Examples: “By Their Works” by Bob Hicok, “Fixation” by Ron Padgett, “A Day in the Life” by Marge Piercy, “Suicide Song” (again) by Tony Hoagland.

21) Write a poem openly praising or condoning something that isn’t necessarily illegal, but also isn’t actually something you personally believe in.

22) Write a poem structured like a letter to your parents or some other important person in your life. Say whatever it is you’ve been dying to say. Be specific so an outside reader could tell what you’re getting at. More importantly, though, be as blunt as you like. Remember, the subject of your poem doesn’t ever have to see it if you don’t want them to.

23) In the first half of a poem, directly address a poet or writer that invokes a strong personal feeling (aka someone you like or someone you hate). In the second half of the poem, adapt that poet/writer’s voice and respond.

24) Write about a place you have never visited, something you always wanted to do but never did, or something that you wish had happened but didn’t actually happen. Start off by vividly describing this place or event, so the reader will think you know it firsthand. Do a small amount of research if necessary. Then, in the second half of the poem, pull the rug out from under us. Make it clear that you never actually saw this place and/or this thing never actually happened, but you wish you had. Option: add a third stanza rectifying the first two. Example: “Like Riding a Bicycle” by George Bilgere.

Poetic Terminology

SOME POETIC TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Quite a few terms get tossed around in writing workshops—some of which you might not be familiar with—so I typed up a handy cheat-sheet.

Lyric Poetry – In general, lyric poetry uses image, sound, and other poetic techniques to inspire a certain feeling in the reader, sometimes in a “non-traditional” or “experimental” way, WITHOUT putting forth a clear, story-type narrative. Examples of lyric poets: e.e. cummings, Bob Hicok, maybe Sylvia Plath and some of Kim Addonizio’s stuff, etc.

Narrative Poetry – Put simply, narrative poetry is poetry that tells a story. What distinguishes it from prose is the greater attention played to image, sound, line breaks (especially if they cause dramatic affect and/or create double meanings), etc. Put another way, in narrative poetry, the primary energy comes from the story (often told via elegant use of colloquial language), with the language backing that up, whereas in lyric poetry, the energy comes more or less entirely from word choice. Examples of narrative poets: Tony Hoagland, Marie Howe, Billy Collins, William Carlos Williams, Sharon Olds and Dorianne Laux.

Note: a poem could also be considered a “lyrical narrative” if it tells a story while maintaining hyper-awareness of sound and image to produce a strong “lyric” affect. In other words, “lyrical narrative” poetry is poetry that fires equally with both barrels. I think Anne Sexton’s poetry fits into this category, maybe George Bilgere as well. However, it’s tricky to try and assign writers to categories because, like we discussed, some poets change styles depending on what they’re writing.

Prose-Poetry – Basically, a prose-poem is the bastard offspring of poetry and prose, i.e. a poem told in paragraph form, or a piece of prose with atypical attention paid to language. Obviously, prose-poetry doesn’t utilize line breaks; it does, however, require a level of attention paid to sound and language that is more commonly seen in poetry than in prose.

Flash Fiction – This is where things get tricky. Think of flash fiction as a prose-poem that’s tipping a little more in the prose direction, i.e. a “prose-poem” that’s more than one paragraph, maybe a whole short story told in the space of just one or two or three pages. Another note: flash fiction and prose-poems are a great middle ground between poets and fiction writers. Often, it’s the best way for those who want to experiment with other genres to get their feet wet. Besides that, I think all poets should have a healthy respect for fiction, and vice versa, since it just puts more tools in the figurative toolbox.

Accessibility – This relates to how obvious or hidden you want the overall feeling or message of your writing to be. The more “accessible” a poem is, the “easier” it is for the reader to “get” at least some of it early on (maybe even on the first read). Important: even with very accessible poetry, though, the goal is that the more time you spend with the poem, the more you’ll get out of it.

On the other hand, some poets (like e.e. cummings) prefer to write poems that are more difficult to “get” the first time, the thought being that the harder you have to work, the more you’ll enjoy the prize. Compare e.e. cummings or even Emily Dickinson to, say, Billy Collins or Tony Hoagland and you can see they’re generally on opposing ends of the “accessibility” spectrum.

Aesthetic – As it pertains to us as writers, what you personally think constitutes “good” and “bad” writing—or, to phrase it a bit less judgmentally, the kind of stuff you want to write versus the kind of stuff you don’t, and why.

Diction – This refers to your word choice.

Syntax – This refers to the order of your written words. Compare, for example, the experimental syntax of e.e. cummings versus the more straightforward syntax of Billy Collins.

Denotation – This refers to the literal meaning of a word.

Connotation – This refers to the general implication of a word.  

For instance, compare the denotation and connotation of the word pleasure. The denotative meaning is simply a feeling of enjoyment, whereas the connotative meaning (i.e. how writers and speakers actually use it) refers more often than not to something sexual.

Ictus – When scanning lines, an ictus is a stressed syllable, represented by a / symbol.

Breve – When scanning lines, a breve is an unstressed syllable, represented by a U symbol.

This is important for poets and fiction writers alike. Most writers try to have more stressed than unstressed syllables in a line, the reason being that stressed syllables generally carry more energy (which is why the most emphatic-sounding swear words are just one or two syllables). The natural way to have more stressed than unstressed syllables is to use common or “colloquial” language, but do so in an elegant manner. Of course you can break this rule, i.e. use “bigger words,” but be aware that you’re doing it and ask if the payoff trumps the risk.

Stop for a moment and think about your college textbooks. Ever read one that struck you as unbelievably boring? I bet the reason was that it was written in an overly formal style that used too many unstressed syllables (“utilize” versus “use,” “consequently” versus “thus” or “therefore,” “erudite” versus “smart”, etc.). On the other hand, using unstressed syllables as a build up to a tone change (similar to the punch line of a joke) or using longer words in an usual or unexpected way, can have a big payoff if done well.

End-stop – A line of poetry that ends in punctuation. Example:

As if your cancer weren't enough,

the guinea pig is dying.

Enjambment – A line of poetry that runs over into the next line. Example:

The kids brought him to me

wrapped in a bath towel

In these examples (from Guinea Pig by Julie Cadwallader-Staub), the poet uses end-stops in the first two lines for dramatic effect, then enjambs the next two lines to give the poem momentum.

Stanza – A grouping of lines in a poem; basically, this is the poetry equivalent of a paragraph. Types of stanzas: a couplet has two lines; a tercet has three lines; a quatrain has four lines; a quintet has five lines; a sestet has six lines; a septet has seven lines; an octave has eight lines; after that, my friends, you’re on your own.

Alliteration – Generally, this means the repetition of consonant sounds. Technically, though, it means the repetition of the initial letter or sound, while consonance means the general repetition of consonant sounds. Usually, to keep things simple, I use them interchangeably.

Having some basic understanding of consonant sounds is important. For example, “S,” “L” and “M” sounds invoke a flowing, watery feeling (“smooth,” “slither,” “liquid”) whereas “B” and “K” sounds tend to have a harder, more staccato feel (“grate,” “cat,” “cacophony,” etc). Whenever possible, you choose your words and sounds based on the overall feeling you want the reader to have.

Assonance – The repetition of vowel sounds. Again, think about sound frequencies. Words that make use of lower vowel frequencies (“bone,” “gloom,” “brood,” etc) tend to create a deep, rumbling, ominous feeling, whereas words that make use of higher vowel frequencies (“light,” “might”) —can create a lofty or energetic feeling. Middle frequency words like “apple” and “braid” tend to be neutral. Note: obviously, the use and context of the word creates plenty of exceptions to these rules. This is just something to plant in the back of your mind and/or bear in mind while revising.

Personification – Giving human qualities to a non-human thing (an animal, a chair, a mirror, etc).

Meter and Form

I don’t do much with this since the past hundred years have trended towards free verse, but…

Iamb – (u/), or an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Adjective form: iambic.

Trochee – (/u), or a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Adjective: trochaic.

Anapest – (uu/), or two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. Adjective: anapestic.

Dactyl – (/uu), or a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. Adjective: dactylic.

Spondee – (//), or two stressed syllables in a row. Adjective: spondaic (//).

Pyrrhic – (uu), or two unstressed syllables in a row. Same word in both noun and adjective form.
 
Rhyme – If you don’t already know what this is, there’s no hope for you.

End rhyme – Rhyming the words at the end (duh!) of lines.

Internal rhyme – Rhyming other than the first or last words of lines.

Masculine rhyme – When one syllable or a word rhymes with another word (“hat” and “bat”, “grave” and “brave,” etc).
 
Feminine rhyme – Also known as “double rhyme,” this is a form of rhyme that matches two or more syllables (“fashion” and “passion,” “painted and “acquainted,” “lawful” and “awful,” etc).

Triple rhyme – Yup, you guessed it: rhyme that matches three syllables (“victorious” and “glorious,” “mystery” and “history,” etc).

Eye rhyme – This refers to words that don’t actually rhyme but look (hence, the name) like they should (ex. “love” and “move”).

Near rhyme (aka “slant rhyme,” “half rhyme”) – Words that somewhat rhyme, but not quite (“breath” and “deaf,” “ill” and “shell,” etc).

There are about a zillion other poetic and literary terms. As always, knowing what something is called isn’t nearly as important as using it "correctly."