Day 18: Everyone Went on Eating

From what I've read, sounds like I really gave you guys a doozy with my last prompt! I've read some pretty amazing sestinas though! Don't worry, I'm going a little easier on you with a form challenge prompt today. 

Mirror mirror on the wall, this still isn't the easiest form of all. Let's talk about Palindrome Poetry also known as Mirror Poetry. The word "palindrome" comes from the Greek words "palin" and "dromos" which mean "again" and "running" so we're running back and forth on these words today. 

The rules are just about as simple as you can make them. Write words until the middle bridge words, then write those words backwards. Keeping running back and forth until they make sense. When you read the poem backwards, it should be the exact same poem. 

Want the easy button? The beginner level challenge would be to use as many single word or phrases that are palindromes as you can in any poem. Words such as "racecar" or "taco cat" 

Now for the other prompt that isn't a mind-bending form! 

"Everyone went on eating" is the phrase of the day. We're taking a slightly darker turn here. What is something that has happened that you felt should've changed things, but in the end didn't cause a reaction? Did you make a big announcement to friends and family only for them to continue about their day? Did you have a surprise at a dinner table conversation? Maybe it was a happy thing, did the mood of the room change? 

Think about a time when everyone kept on eating. How did the room feel? How did the energy move? How did you and others react? 

What did you eat? Did that affect the feel of the moment? 

Halloween picture prompt for you: 

Cheers & Sunshine! 

-Beverly 

When Asian-American poet Beverly Tan was 7 years old she decided she wanted to be a filmmaker. In 2015 she became an internationally award-winning screenwriter, producer, and director. Along with her films, Beverly was fueled by a passion for writing and proving that her childhood dreams really can come true. 
She currently splits time between Raleigh, NC and Denver, CO, though her cat lives in Raleigh full time.

Follower on IG/Twitter @BeverlyTanFilm 

You can buy her book Water in a Wineglass on Amazon

Day 15: Fighting the Urge to Vomit

Today's prompt sits uncomfortably in my throat. One of my least favorite feelings in this world is this one. If I'm fighting back the urge to vomit, then something in my world is skewed. The dinner didn't set well. The presentation went horribly. Someone has passed on a virus that I now have to fight off. The news was too awful and too real. The baby apparently hates it when I eat broccoli now.

Generally speaking, there's a trigger for that urge to vomit. Today I challenge you to key into one of those triggers and describe that scenario that preludes fighting back the sick. It's not always a negative that makes us feel this way. Take it where you want it to go and tell us a story.

The suggested type of poem for this prompt is a narrative or storytelling poem. This poem has one main character, a beginning, middle, and an end. You can use devices like rhyme and repetition to tell the story (or not, it's entirely up to you). There's no set structure for modern narrative poems. Use your senses and help us to explore your story. You don't have to take a lot of time to set up the story, you can dive right in. And there's no definitive length for the narrative poem. It can be as long or as short as you want.

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 12: Imagination Stands in the Road

Our imagination is a powerful thing, it's what fuels us as children and hopefully continues to fuel us as adults. As I'm writing this, I have the Disney-Pixar movie "Inside Out" playing in the background. If you haven't seen it, it's a fun watch with some important life lessons that anyone can gather from it. 

One of the supporting characters is Bing Bong, the main character Riley's imaginary friend who she might have forgotten. He's mostly cotton candy, part cat, part elephant, and part dolphin as he describes himself. They went on adventures on their imaginary rocket, usually trips to the moon!

 Did you have an imaginary friend as a kid? Do you have one now? What about your kids if you have them? What are some adventures you went on? 

On a sadder note, when did you stop playing with your imaginary friend? What was the moment where you grew past that? 

​

For those prompt lovers that commented nice things about my prompts last time, I have another for you! You'll either love me or hate me for it. Let's go around the world to France, for a 39 line poem called the sestina

Today I challenge you to try your hand at a sestina. Back in college when I was getting my poetry degree, I had to write several of these and hated most of those minutes. However, once I found my beat, I really found it and that was a pretty awesome feeling. 

A sestina is 39 lines, 6 stanzas with 6 lines each plus a tag. 

First, start with 6 words of your choice. Make sure you like them because you'll be using them over and over again. Take those words and rotate them at the ends of your stanzas. They rotate in a round with the last word of the last line being the last word of the first line in the next stanza.  Your lines can be any length, though it just looks nicer if they're quite regular. 

Example of how that will look with the words imagine(A), joy(B), coffee(C), clouds(D), rocket(E), music(F)

Stanza 1
Line 1-imagine (A)
Line 2-joy (B)
Line 3-coffee (C)
Line 4-clouds (D)
Line 5-rocket (E)
Line 6-music (F)

Stanza 2
Line 7-music(F)
Line 8-Imagine(A)
Line 9-rocket(E)
Line 10-joy(B)
Line 11-clouds (D)
Line 12-coffee(C)

Stanza 3
Line 13-coffee(C)
Line 14-music (F)
Line 15-clouds (D)
Line 16-imagine (A)
Line 17-joy (B)
Line 18-rocket(E)

Stanza 4
Line 19-rocket (E)
Line 20-coffee (C)
Line 21-joy (B)
Line 22-music (F)
Line 23-imagine (A)
Line 24-clouds (D)

Stanza 5
Line 25-clouds (D)
Line 26-rocket (E)
Line 27-imagine (A)
Line 28-coffee (C)
Line 29-music (F)
Line 30-joy (B)

Stanza 6
Line 31-joy(B)
Line 32-clouds(D)
Line 33-music (F)
Line 34-rocket(E)
Line 35-coffee (C)
Line 36-imagine (A)

Stanza 7
Line 37-imagine(A), joy (B)
Line 38-coffee (C), clouds (D)
Line 39-rocket (E), music (F)

There is a modification for an envoi for Stanza 7 

Line 37- imagine (A), joy (B), coffee (C)

Line 38- clouds (D), rocket (E), music (F) 

1. ABCDEF
2. FAEBDC
3. CFDABE
4. ECBFAD
5. DEACFB
6. BDFECA
7. (envoi) ECA or ACE or AB, CD, EF 

Do you love or hate me now? 

For those that hate me, maybe I can redeem myself with more normal prompts: 

Imagine yourself on a mountain: 

Word prompts: 

Joy, clouds, music, rocket, coffee, imagine. 

Cheers and sunshine, 

-Beverly Tan

OctPoWriMo Day 21: Poetry Prompt: "I was here...."

Where are your fingerprints?

I spent last weekend at Morro Bay along the Central California Coast. On both Saturday and Sunday morning I could be found nestled in the dunes along the beach, waiting to greet the new day.

On Sunday, I noticed I left a distinctive hand print in the sand.

As a creative person, you are aware how such a thing sparks the imagination. It got me to thinking where my fingerprints and handprints and footprints live on in places, with other people, in memory.

It birthed the image you see here (feel free to also use the image for inspiration and on your blogs) as well as this prompt.

Question Prompt:

Where are your fingerprints?

Where are your handprints?

Where are your footprints?

Sentence Starters

My fingerprints are...

My handprints are...

My footprints are...

I remember the fingerprints of...

I remember the handprints of...

I remember the footprints of....

Words for Inspiration

Hand

Foot

Sand

Impression

Memory

Beach

Ocean

Fingers

Share your poetry with us by linking up. Make sure you visit your neighbors one or two before and after. If you are last on the list go back to the beginning of the list. If you are the first few on the list please go back to the day before and visit the last on the list if you haven't already. Have fun!

-- Julie Jordan Scott 

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming Fall and Winter, 2014 and beyond. 

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

Follow on Instagram

And naturally, on Pinterest, too!
© 2014

How Do You Do That?

In just FOUR days, we will begin OctPoWriMo 2014! The team here will be posting daily prompts (completely optional, of course!) to help spark ideas. So what do you do once you read the daily prompt? Some of the questions I've been asked are: "How do you start a poem?" "How do you write a poem?" "Does it have to rhyme?" 

Wikihow has a simple approach that is similar to what I do when I write poetry. The article "write a free verse poem" gives four simple steps that can lead to an excellent free verse poem. Another guide that I found is "how to write a free verse poem". 

“No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job.” T. S. Eliot

If you crave structure in your poems, we will often offer suggested forms to try. As always, you can attempt our suggestion, or you can branch out on your own. If you're not familiar with Shadow Poetry, it's an excellent resource that, when combined with Rhyme Zone, can help you generate any form of poetry you've ever heard of (and a few that perhaps you haven't!)

I'm getting excited about writing prompts and taking part in the daily poetry writing challenge right along with you! 

By the way, there's a worldwide poetry event taking place tomorrow (Saturday, September 27) sponsored by 100 Thousand Poets for Change. Check them out and take part in the event in your area! 

~Amy McGrath

Poetry is.... a collaborative poem-in-the-works with five days to go until OctPoWriMo begins!

In yesterday’s blogpost here at OctPoWriMo, MorganDragonwillow wrote brilliantly about how to write 31 poems in 31 days. Pure. Simple. Direct and heartfelt, her wisdom flowed off the page.

Today, five days from the beginning of OctPoWriMo, I thought it would be fun to dabble in some collaborative curiosity and actually write a poem about what poetry is right here in the comments section.

I’ll kick it off and then you, beloved poet friends, take the podium starting with… 

Poetry is…

Poetry is a moment in time, held, for as long as you want to - and shared with the world when you hit publish or post or send it off to be bound or made into a greeting card or post it on a coffee shop bulletin board.

Poetry is not a competitive sport, a task on the to-do list, an assignment you forgot to finish for the class you need to graduate. 

Poetry is an opportunity to finish what you started.

Poetry is….

Your turn - in the comments tell us your take on what poetry is… starting with…

Poetry is.....

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Count Down: 5 Days until OctPoWriMo!

Time is going by quickly, are you ready for this poetry challenge, will you be sharing your poetry on your blog? Make sure if you are on Twitter that you share your poem posts with the hashtag #OctPoWriMo so that other participants can find you. You can also share and chat with us on Facebook in our Writing Poetry Group.

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How to Write Poetry Everyday - 31 Poems in 31 Days

Writing poetry everyday can be a challenge, which of course that is what OctPoWriMo is about. Well at least to some degree. It's about poetry and word awareness. It's about inspiring and sharing poetry with the world. It's about understanding that writing poetry really can be for everyone.

Poetry is emotions transferred to the page. We all have emotions, we all feel pain, love, loss, caring, and more.

Writing poetry can be a traditional form, a made up form, or free form. It can make sense, or not.

Gather your tools, your list of words, your magnets, your books, open to your senses, open to your feelings and give yourself permission to write a poem everyday.

Keep it simple.

What are you feeling?

What are you seeing?

To write poetry everyday, is to relax into the words, to not make it complicated, to allow yourself to write whatever comes up for you.

Come to the page at the same time everyday, or not.

Write in a notebook, on your blog, in Evernote, 750words.com, Yarny or even on Twitter as micropoetry in 140 characters or less.

There is no right or wrong way to participate in this challenge. You can write 31 poems in 31 days, we can do it together.

Count Down: 6 Days until OctPoWriMo!

Time is going by quickly, are you ready for this poetry challenge, will you be sharing your poetry on your blog? Make sure if you are on Twitter that you share your poem posts with the hashtag #OctPoWriMo so that other participants can find you. You can also share and chat with us on Facebook in our Writing Poetry Group.

Morgan Dragonwillow: Rebel dancing with words, intuitive cook, recovering perfectionist, poet & author that (mostly) doesn't let her fears get in the way of her passion for writing and creating. She is team leader at @StoryDam, creatrix of #OctPoWriMo, and you can find her at, A Poet's Kitchen, cooking up simply delicious meals. She lives in Marietta, Ga. with her loving and patient partner, their dog that thinks she's a princess, and the cat that reminds her that she isn't.
You can find her on Google+

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