OctPoWriMo - Poetry Prompt Day 21: Short, Sweet and Simple

Yesterday Morgan gave you a more “labor” intensive prompt, so I am going to be on the opposite end of the spectrum and give you what I think may be perceived as an easier prompt.

Before I get to the prompt though, I need to confess my latest dead-poet crush. I have developed quite a thing for that sexy beat poet who I always think of as looking like James Dean with glasses. Hot.

Anyway, I have been gaining momentum in my crush on him for a while now, but since visiting his grave in Lowell, Massachusetts. He was also a lover of Zen – and he deeply loved haiku and koan.

He wanted to try something different, though, and purely American, so he created the American Sentence Poem. It is like a haiku in that it is seventeen syllables, but the sound units are spread over a sentence rather than a three line poem.

Today, your challenge is to write a micropoem.

In other words, very short.Very sweet. Very simple.

Seventeen syllables or less.

Word Prompt: Micro

Quotes for inspiration:

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”
― Jack Kerouac

“Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry.”
― Jack Kerouac

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

- Jack Kerouac

OctPoWriMo loves - I am neither at home nor on my computer. I attempted to hand copy the coding for the linky. It didn't work. It looks fine from here, but if there is no linky here yet, please know I know and will fix it when I get home in the morning.

AAnna Stewart gave me permission to do so. I love you, Anna!

What is OctPoWriMo - Meet the Team

OctPoWriMo is a poetry month in October for poets all over the world to write 31 poems in 31 days. This blog and all of its volunteers are here to inspire, motivate, support, and cheer you on during this poetry adventure.

Starting today, the rest of September we will have daily posts filled with tips and resources to learn from while getting ready for the main event. Starting the first of October we will have daily prompts that you can choose to use or not. Either way you are free to link up your poems daily.

OctPoWriMo Poetry Prompt 31 - Infinity

It has been an interesting journey and I am very happy to announce that quite a few of you diligently wrote a poem every day. There has been a wide range of types as well as where you chose to display your poems. We have several participants that have tweeted micro poetry on Twitter, there are those that chose to display it on Facebook, and there have been those that blogged their poetry. Whether large or small, on the computer or off, all of us have traveled together diving into poetry, playing with words and hopefully we are all the better for it.

Poetry Prompt Day 30 - Final Days of OctPoWriMo

I am still behind in writing poetry this month but I am hanging in there. I wrote two poems today and I can see possibly writing two poems a day until I get caught up before November 7th. If you have lagged behind you still have time. I hope you meander through the prompts and let them inspire you to pour your words onto the page.

Poetry Prompt Day 29 - Who Are You REALLY

As I thought about this poetry prompt and all that has come before, I wondered how much of yourself you have put onto the page and if you know yourself better than when we began.

Has your poetry taken you to unexpected places?

Have the words that flowed through you surprised you in some way?

I found this video of Sarah Jones performing her eight characters for TED and it had me thinking about who you are, who I am, and who we are really-really deep inside.

Poetry Prompt Day 25 - Love Story

Unless I am mistaken we haven't discussed one of the main topics of many poets, Love. Every great poet has a love story. Rumi is considered to be one of the great love poets. Many of his works were words of love to his one great love.

Love is a madman, working his wild schemes, tearing off his clothes, running through the mountains.... ~Rumi

Poetry Prompt: What is your love story? It could be your first love, your parents love story, the love between you and your mate/life partner/husband/wife. Tell us of a great love in your life, maybe it is of another in your life, a child, a parent, grandparent. If you don't have a great love tell us of the love story in your future.

Word Prompt: Love

Sentence Starters:

It was an ordinary day...

I opened the door and bumped into...

Please visit the other participants and share word love in their comments. May you have a wonderful week.

Peace,
Morgan

Thank you for sharing and recommending before you leave.

Writing Poetry Day 23 - Double Challenge

I have a double poetry challenge for you today. You have possibly been writing poetry for the last 22 days, maybe longer. The first challenge is, I want you to take your favorite, absolute favorite poem that you have written, and record yourself reading it. If you have the capability I challenge you to video record it. And then take that recording and post it on your page. Hopefully we will all be able to figure out how to do that.

Yes the thought may be scary for some. It is a little scary for me that is why I am challenging you because I am challenging myself in the process. I am pushing myself to actually have this done before you read this. I have recorded my voice reading a poem recently but I haven't really shared it except with one person. I know Julie has. I know she performs her poems. This won't be new for her. But for some of the rest of us, this could be quite a challenge. Are you up for it?

Below you will find TED talks Rives Mockingbird 2006. I love how he performs and he is the one that inspired this prompt and challenge. I hope he inspires you as well.

Poetry Prompt: I believe challenge is going to be the word for the day. How does your body feel when you challenge yourself to do something new and/or different? Write for five to ten minutes about your physical reactions to being challenged, to challenging yourself to take a risk. Do your palms begin to sweat? Dive in and come up with new ways of saying what your body and mind are going through before, during and after a challenge.

Word Prompt: Challenge

Sentence Starters:

When I see a challenge before me...

The moment has arrived...

We have eight days left in this wild ride of 31 Poems in 31 Days. Be kind to yourself if you haven't written everyday, I am. Tell us, Julie and I, what you have learned so far on this poetry journey in the comments below.

Come back after you have recorded your poem and created your next post to link up and share with us. Visit the link before and after yours to share word love of encouragement and support for the other poets in their comments.

Peace to you,
Morgan

Thank you for sharing and recommending before you leave.

Poetry Prompt Day 21 - Weaving and Flowing

Sometimes things just don't work out the way you think they are going to. Often life seems to go a lot smoother when you can give up expectations and go with the flow. It is a difficult lesson for me to learn but one I truly need to learn in this life. I have control issues. What, you say... Yes I do.

Writing Poetry Day 20 - Playing With Words

As most of you probably know I've been a bit stuck with my words the last week. Well, actually, I've been a bit stuck in the in-between that I can do on occasion. Today I was determined to become unstuck and decided to hop on over to the Shadow Poetry page of different types of poetry. I love this page but I still don't visit it often.

Writing Poetry Prompt Day 18 - Time

Time, you never seem to have enough unless you are doing something you don't want to do and then it seems to stretch on forever. You are now into the downhill side of writing poetry daily for the month of October. Have you found the time to write poetry everyday this month?

Poetry Prompt Day 16 - Which Side Are You On

I am having a rough couple of days and I came across this video that I immediately wanted to use for this poetry prompt. The video itself is a song by Natalie Merchant, Which Side Are You On which I believe is about coal miners.  I hope it stirs your imagination the way that it did mine and has you writing pages of poetry.

Poetry Prompt Day 14 - Reflection in Your Eyes

With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves.  For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.  ~Eric Hoffer 

It is once again Short and Sweet Sunday. I thought I would shake things up a little and do things a little differently. 

Poetry Prompt Day 12 - Where Passion Resides

All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. ~William Wordsworth 

"Powerful feelings..." as William Wordsworth writes I believe is the basis for poetry whether it is joy, sadness, anger, or any powerful emotion that often has you vibrating with the energy of it.

OctPoWriMo Poetry Prompt #11 - Write What You Must Write.....

"Writing a poem is discovering." Robert Frost

It’s been a rough couple days for me.

You know, those days when you say, “Nothing worse can happen, right?”

I sang “Heartbreaker” by Pat Benatar at karaoke and even that didn’t help my demeanor. I did nail the song, though, or so I was told.

It got ugly, especially ugly, after I had a meeting with a man who is putting together a group of local writers who are creating five minute monologues to mirror the style of The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros which is the current selection for One Book, One Bakersfield.

It took a lot to write those monologues. The funny one was easier than the serious one, but neither topics are ones I regularly speak about. The serious one I have never, ever spoken about aloud to anyone. And now, in yet another brilliant, pushing my own envelope move, I will be performing these monologues aloud in only a few weeks.

Writing Poetry Day 10 - Morning Muse

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ~Anton Chekhov

This is something I aspire to, to expand my writing and poetry into all of the feeling, sensing realms as Julie Jordan Scott talks about in many of her hints, tips, and prompts to inspire yours and our poems. So very glad she joined us for this wonderful poetic adventure! 

The body is a wondrous place for our soul to reside. It feels on so many levels and it is a wealth of material for our poetry. Such as the experiences through the eyes of a child, what they feel, see, hear, and touch; to an aging adult, and all of their feeling experiences from their aching joints to their failing eyesight, how hard each movement becomes. How precious each moment is to each of them, whether realized or not.

Poetry Writing Prompt #9 - Music of Traffic & Whatever You Hear

Merriam Webster defines resonance like this: the intensification and enriching of a musical tone by supplementary vibration: a quality of evoking response.

Now add cadence to your writing voice and the result will be even deeper.

What is cadence?

It is the measure or beat of a rhythmical flow.  It is the snapping of fingers in time, the metronome back and forth or backandforth or baaaaaccccckkkkkk and fooorrrrthhhhhhh.

Resonance and cadence are heard in the silence of your reader's mind. It is your words blending
with their consciousness  that will create magic.

We craft our words and we hear ourselves better, we "get" ourselves better, we allow the richness  and wonder of the process to bubble over and through us.

We may be like World Music, we may be like jazz. We may be like country or rhythm and blues. We may sound like Lindsey Lohan or Boy George or  Aretha Franklin.

Lindsey Lohan is not Lindsey Buckingham.

Boy George is not George Strait.

Aretha Franklin is not Frank Sinatra.

Listen to the rhythm and sound of the poem below. Read it aloud to "hear" it better.

Poetry Prompt Day 7 - Poetic Friendship

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
~William Shakespeare

For Sunday I am going to keep it short and sweet. You could even keep it playful considering this week has seen some pretty intense, deep, and magical poetry.

Poetry Prompt: Tell us all about your best friend and what makes them your best friend. All the little things, all the big things, and everything in between.

Word Prompt: Friendship

Sentence Starter: When I met you...

Or

It was an ordinary day that turned extraordinary...

and one extra one, 

I laughed so hard... 



I hope you are having a great weekend!

Thank you for sharing and recommending before you leave.

OctPoWriMo Day 6 - I Remember Me

As you continue to write poetry day by day, you may discover some resistance to going deeper still. You may feel a wall erect in front of you and think you are just blocked. Most likely fear is rearing its head.

At a time like this the best thing you can do is write through it. Allow yourself to write whatever is coming up for you and know that what you are writing you don't have to post. You don't have to but after you are done, read it again, and maybe there will be something within it that you want to share. The important part is to give yourself permission to just write all the thoughts that are swirling in your head even if you never do share it with another living soul.

Poetry Prompt 3 - Connecting In

When I think of writing poetry and the times that I have been most prolific, it has been when I have felt most connected. There is something that happens when you allow yourself to go within that connects to the Divine Spark within you; a feeling of everything being right in the world no matter what the words you're putting onto the page.

It is in these times as I write I feel something else is guiding my hand, my thoughts, my words. Sometimes it doesn't take much to get there, other times if feels illusive.

OctPoWriMo Day 2/31 - Word-Love and Poetry, YES YOU CAN!

“Poets, if they're genuine, must keep repeating "I don't know."”

Wislawa Szymborska

“I have never written a book that was not born out of a question I needed to answer for myself.”

 May Sarton

Some people may have wanted to participate in OctPoWriMo, but they were overly concerned about two things: not being able to complete the 31 poems in 31 days because they don’t have time OR possibly not participating because they didn’t “have a plan” or “know what to write.”