Day 17 - Madness Reigns

English is a funny language. When we were first considering prompts for this month’s challenge, a typo in the original list led me to question the intent of this one. That small slip of the fingers on the keyboard was enough to spark an idea. Is it “Madness Reigns”? Or should it be “Madness Rains”? Or even “Madness Reins”? The homophones (words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings) offer us a unique opportunity for poetry.

Does madness rule over me/you/us/them?

Does madness fall from the sky in misty dampness, occasional showers, and torrential flooding downpours?

Do I/you/we/they hold the reins, controlling the madness?

Explore which spelling resonates with your view of madness in a 10 minute free write. Use your brainstorming to create a poem that expresses your thoughts/feelings around “madness”.

BONUS: For an extra challenge, use all 3 variants in a single poem.

WORD PROMPTS:

madness
craziness
insanity
reigns
rains
reins


Remember that our prompts are only suggestions - go wherever the muse takes you.
In the meantime, read other participants' poems, share the #OctPoWriMo hashtag on social media, and add a link to your own poem in the comments below.

Amy McGrath is a poet, fiction/non-fiction writer, and visual artist. She is a volunteer at The Muse Writer’s Center in Norfolk, VA and a co-facilitator of the Poets on the Page blog and Facebook group. When she’s not writing or painting, she has been known to appear in local community theater musicals and occasionally shows up for karaoke nights. She is currently painting a series of portraits of her ancestors, both biological and adopted, and she is working on her outline for this year’s NaNoWriMo project. She is the mother of two teenage boys and lives with her husband in Virginia Beach.