OctPoWriMo Day 14

 

Sometimes truth is the hardest thing to face, especially when you take a moment to examine YOUR truth. What you see or believe may be very different from what that means to another person, but that's the beauty of it all. Your truth makes you unique. It can give you strength or challenge you to face situations or beliefs which may be painful or filled with sorrow. It can bring great joy or supreme satisfaction. 

Poetry Prompt

Take some time to think about your truth. Where do your thoughts lead? Are there particular images or memories this truth conjures? Was it something you felt the need to defend or was it that something that fortified you in times of need? Your truth is a part of your being. Introduce us to him/her.

Word Prompts

absolute                            bravado                           reckoning

freedom                            peace                               flexible

fortitude                            independent                    reason

Poetry Type

Villanelle

     or

Cascade

Remember, our prompts are only suggestions, you can find your inspiration wherever your muse leads you. Please visit the other participants, share the hashtag, #OctPoWriMo on social media, and share your link in the comments below. Let us know how this journey into poetry is going for you and if this is your first year or if you have been with us from the beginning.

Michele Vecchitto is a writer and a former middle school teacher.  Her poetry has been published in literary journals and anthologies as well as in four self-published volumes. Michele was invited to read her poems at the Austin International Poetry Festival and was honored to be included in When Time and Space Conspire.  In addition, she published a young adult fantasy novel, Tales from Blarnach: The Chosen One. She continues to hone her craft simply to breathe life into the stories living in the corners of her mind. Please visit her blog, Reading, Writing, and Reflections to see more of her work.

OctPoWriMo Day 7 - Growing Pains

"He who learns must suffer." -Aeschylus

Do you remember when you were a child and a growth spurt left you with aches and pains in your arms and legs? Sometimes we must endure pain in order to grow.

What are you going through right now? What can you learn from it? What have you endured in the past that taught you something about yourself?

Word Prompts:

Pain

Growth

Learning

Finding yourself

Suggested Poetry Type:

Triolet

or

Villonet

Dance and Movement:

Remember, our prompts are only suggestions, you can find your inspiration wherever your muse leads you. Please visit the other participants, share the hashtag, #OctPoWriMo on social media, and share your link in the comments below. Let us know how this journey into poetry is going for you and if this is your first year or if you have been with us from the beginning.

Esther Spurrill Jones has been writing since she was very young. She has written in many genres, but poetry is her first love. She has a few collections of poetry available on Kindle. Esther enjoys introducing people who have little or no experience to the joy of poetry. To this end, she has written several articles on Medium on how to write and enjoy poetry. Esther lives in the Frozen North (Saskatchewan, Canada) with the love of her life and four awesome terrible cats.

OctPoWriMo Day 12

“I see a red door and I want it painted black/No colors anymore; I want them to turn black.” -Rolling Stones, Paint it Black

Today’s Prompt: Black

Black is the darkest colour. But is black really a colour? 

Well, that depends on who you ask. In light, black is the absence of colour, but in pigments, black is a colour that absorbs all or most light.

Unfortunately, this is a colour that has some negative connotations and symbolism connected to it. Things like grief, black magic, and evil are often ascribed to the colour black. But black is also seen as the colour of intelligence and elegance. “Black tie” anyone?

Have you ever gone outside out in the country and looked up at the night sky? There are so many stars and the vast emptiness of space is overwhelming and humbling.

Remember you can't have a shadow without light to cast it.

Word Prompts: Shadow Darkness Night Elegant

Suggested Poetry Type: Shadow Sonnet

Remember, our prompts are only suggestions, and you can find your inspiration wherever your muse leads you. Please visit the other participants, share the hashtag, #OctPoWriMo on social media, and share your link in the comments below.

Esther Spurrill Jones has been writing since she was very young. She has written in many genres, but poetry is her first love. She has a few collections of poetry available on Kindle. Esther enjoys introducing people who have little or no experience to the joy of poetry. To this end, she has written several articles on Medium on how to write and enjoy poetry. Esther lives in the Frozen North (Saskatchewan, Canada) with the love of her life and three awesome terrible cats.

Day 18-Once Upon A Time

Castles, fairy godmothers, glass slippers, and enchanted roses. When you hear the words "once upon a time" these items might be what it brings to mind. Say those four words aloud and it might make you anticipate something magical, something ethereal, something beyond the ordinary. When was the last time you experienced a once upon a time moment?

Today's prompt sends us into the land of enchantment. Explore fairy tales and magic, Prince Charmings and fairy princesses. Write your own fairy tale and have some fun!

Word Prompts:

magic

enchantment

spell

fascination

prestidigitation

hocus pocus

conjure

Suggested Form:

In poetry a fable is a poetic story composed in verse or prose with a moral summed up at the end. Usually using animals as characters to teach a valuable lesson. Try writing your fairy tale as a fable and for an extra challenge begin it with Once Upon a Time.

Remember this is only a suggestion and you are free to write in whatever way is comfortable to you. Also make sure to visit at least three other participant sites and leave some positive comments. 

Poetry Prompts Day 12-Tortured

What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word “tortured” in connection with love? At first, we might be inclined to think of those intense feelings we associate with loving someone so much it hurts. Young love is fraught with the feeling but as we age and mature does it grow in a different way? And if so, how?

Torture is defined as “the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain. “ But how often are we the ones inflicting pain upon ourselves in the course of growing or maintaining our relationships? Have you ever deliberately hurt someone you love and thereby tortured them, whether through passive aggression or a more vocal/physical action? Have you ever reacted in anger without thought how it would hurt someone else, especially yourself? And did you apologize or make amends?

Prompt:

Love doesn’t always go well. There are bumps and holes and even chasms we have to figure out how to get across or around lest we fall, or else stay where we are. The hard and painful parts of love are necessary for the relationship to grow. Explore the feeling of being “tortured” and how it is a necessary part of love.

Word Prompts:

Afflict

Excruciating

Torment

Agonizing

Distress

Alternately

Appease

Aid

Comfort

Heal

Soothe

Relieve

Suggested Form:

A Senryu is basically a haiku but it deals with human nature and emotions rather than only the natural world. For those of you wanting more of a challenge try the Terza Rima.

Song Prompt:

Merril Bainbridge-State of Mind

Make sure to leave a link to your poem in the comments here so we can all visit and leave constructive/positive comments. Try to visit and comment on at least three different participants if you can. Thank you.

Remember, our prompts are only suggestions, you can find your inspiration wherever your muse leads you. Please visit the other participants, share the hashtag, #OctPoWriMo on social media, and share your link in the comments below. Let us know how this journey into poetry is going for you. 

The scent of a flower

When I moved to Hawaii six years ago, I remember the first time the air touched my skin. After being in a tin can floating over the ocean for what felt like days, the air felt like a warm blanket. It was so heavy and damp in a way that was totally different from the mountains of West Virginia where I'm originally from. And the smell. It was a confusing mixture of flowers that I couldn't pick out. I had no idea what they were or even where the smells came from. I couldn't see any flowers, but there they were. It was a disorienting experience that I hadn't had when I'd traveled to other places on the mainland.

It's amazing how flowers can impact a moment. Do you have a memory attached to a flower? Maybe a little daisy crushed in your toddler's sweaty hand? Did your grandmother's house always smell like roses? Give yourself a few minutes and let your memory find that flower memory. And let's write about it.

A neighborhood flower. Photo by: Tamara Woods

Word Prompts:
Memories
Petals
Sweet
Springtime
Yesterday
Scents
Nature
Love


Possible poetry form: The Haiku:
The haiku is one that is generally about nature.
It's a three lined poem that has a  5-7-5 form (five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables)
A classic haiku also has a seasonal reference and has focuses on two different, but related image or ideas.

From my story above:

Heavy air weighs down
Sweet flowers confuse senses
A long way from home

Have fun with this and share your memories with us. Happy writing!

Remember, our prompts are only suggestions, you can find your inspiration wherever your muse leads you. Please visit the other participants, share the hashtag, #OctPoWriMo, on social media, and share your link in the comments below. Let us know how this journey into poetry is going for you.  

Tamara Woods was raised (fairly happily) in West Virginia, where she began writing poetry at the age of 12. She published her first poetry collection, The Shaping of an “Angry” Black Woman in 2014 and is working on her first fiction novel due out in winter 2016. She is the Editor of The Reverie Journal, a poetry publication. She also moderates #writestuff a weekly writing Twitter chat. You can find her on Twitter here. She works as a full-time freelance writer and doesn’t post nearly enough her blog PenPaperPad. She creates videos about books and writing on her YouTube channel. She is a hillbilly hermit in Honolulu living with her Mathemagician.

Day 21 – Nothing Remains the Same

Some changes we plan and await with eagerness. Others are unexpected, unknown, and unfold as the days and months progress. Whatever comes, we either get to delight in it, or we may have to tolerate and deal with it. But we always learn and grow. And one change may lead to several others.

There’s power in choice. When we get to choose life’s changes and turns, we feel as if we have a measure of control. But sometimes changes that come along are because of someone else’s decisions and choices.  In retrospect, changes that at first seemed intolerable are often described as “the best thing that ever happened to me.” There’s life in change.

From a perspective different than personal change, other types of change affect us: environmental, political, social, global. Some we can influence, and others we cannot. 

Sometimes we yearn for the comfort of sameness. We return to our hometown, our school, or a special spot from our past.

For today’s poem, try an abecedarian, a twenty-six line poem, each line beginning with a successive letter of the alphabet, A-Z. It’s sometimes called simply an alphabet poem.

Word Bank Prompt:

Change

Transformation

Balance

Stagnation

Adapt

Comfort zone

Complacency

Nostalgia


Quote Prompt:

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power."

                                             --Alan Cohen

Visual Prompt:

(Note: If you use this or any other image with your poem, please give credit to the photographer and source of the image. It is a violation of copyright law to use an image that's not yours without crediting the source.)

Mykonos Man - Photo by Judy McDole (c)

Remember, our prompts are only suggestions, you can find your inspiration wherever your muse leads you. Please visit the other participants, share the hashtag, #OctPoWriMo, on social media, and share your link in the comments below. Let us know how this journey into poetry is going for you.

Day 14 - Movement and Words

Today's theme plays out daily on my arm. Too many stationary moments at my computer, and my exercise tracker buzzes and vibrates. Words appear on the screen on my wrist “Time for steps!” or “Let’s move!” or the guilt-inducing “Only 10 minutes left…” (I’m usually up before the rest of the admonition scrolls by.) Sure, I can turn off these friendly notifications if I choose. But, the truth is, I need the reminders. It’s too easy for me to become immersed and forget to move.

Two dictionary definitions of “movement” are:

 1.   1. an act of changing physical location or position or of having this changed. "a slight movement of the upper body"

2.    a group of people working together to advance their shared political, social, or artistic ideas.

Words can be catalysts for movement or some kind of shift. Once words literally got me up off the couch and out for a walk.

Movement is often a forerunner to words or thoughts. Big decisions are sometimes made after movement, or moving, or being involved in a movement of some kind.

And, some words have the ability to make us plant ourselves and refuse to move.

When did words affect your movement? Or stop you in your tracks? What words surfaced when (or after) you experienced movement?

Word Bank Prompt:

Stir                        Console                          Encourage             Incite

Protect                  Remind                           Remember            Ignite

Create                   Swirl                               Cajole                  Resist          

         

 Visual Prompt:

Remember, our prompts are only suggestions, you can find your inspiration wherever your muse leads you. Please visit the other participants, share the hashtag, #OctPoWriMo, on social media, and share your link in the comments below. Let us know how this journey into poetry is going for you.  

Both photos today from the Internet.