We found it dead in our daughter's bed
It was light as a feather
And we wondered whether there were any words
To say, with which to pay our respects
To this creature, on that would barely feature
In our day to day lives
One which only ever arrives
With the sun down, light switched on
A true fly by night on paper wings
This airborne goth
Sleep well, little moth
The website was all back to normal today. So here's the prompt:
Our prompt today (optional, as always), is to write a poem that poses a series of questions. The questions could be a mix of the serious (“What is the meaning of life?”) and humorous (“What’s the deal with cats knocking things off tables?”), the interruptive (“Could you repeat that?”) and the conversational (“Are those peanuts? Can I have some?”). You can choose to answer them – or just let the questions keep building up, creating a poem that asks the reader to come up with their own answer(s).
As a parent of young children it was easy to come up with some questions for this poem, as the whole day seems to be an exercise in fielding questions. Especially one's related to food:
Today's prompt:
And now for our (optional) prompt. Have you ever heard or read the nursery rhyme, “There was a man of double deed?” It’s quite creepy! A lot of its effectiveness can be traced back to how, after the first couplet, the lines all begin with the same two phrases (either “When the . . .” or “Twas like,”). The way that these phrases resolve gets more and more bizarre over the course of the poem, giving it a headlong, inevitable feeling.
Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like this one, uses lines that have a repetitive set-up.
This prompt very much appealed to me. The combination of pattern and rhythm is quite playful and I enjoyed having a think about it. I've been inspired by the difficulties of getting kids to sleep:
Here's the prompt:
Our (optional) prompt for the day is to write a sijo. This is a traditional Korean poetic form. Like the haiku, it has three lines, but the lines are much longer. Typically, they are 14-16 syllables, and optimally each line will consist of two parts – like two sentences, or a sentence of two clauses divided by a comma. In terms of overall structure, a sijo functions like an abbreviated sonnet, in that the first line sets up an inquiry or discussion, the second line continues the discussion, and the third line resolves it with a “twist” or surprise. For more on the sijo, check out the primer here and a long list of examples in English, here.
I had never heard of this poem form before so it took a little thinking to get my head around it. Thankfully I've been able to have that today as the kids have gone back to school after the Easter Holidays, so there's been some peace and some thinking space. It inspired my poem:
Today's prompt:
Our (optional) prompt for the day is to write a poem in the form of a “to-do list.” The fun of this prompt is to make it the “to-do list” of an unusual person or character. For example, what’s on the Tooth Fairy’s to-do list? Or on the to-do list of Genghis Khan? Of a housefly? Your list can be a mix of extremely boring things and wild things. For example, maybe Santa Claus needs to order his elves to make 7 million animatronic Baby Yoda dolls, to have his hat dry-cleaned to get off all the soot it picked up last December, and to get his head electrician to change out the sparkplugs on Rudolph’s nose.
Well, as I sit at my desk to work I see my 1 year old constantly walking up and down and getting into mischief. So that had to be my inspiration to go with today's prompt. I quite enjoyed this one, and it made me think a lot about how much toddler's repeat their actions during the day and how they flit from one thing to another. Here's the poem:
Today's prompt:
And now, for our (optional) prompt! There are many different poetic forms. Some have specific line counts, syllable counts, stresses, rhymes, or a mix-and-match of the above. Of the poetic forms that are based on syllable counts, probably the most well-known – to English speakers, at least – is the Japanese form called the haiku. But there are many other syllable-based forms. Today, I’d like to challenge you to pick from two of them – the shadorma, and the Fib.
The shadorma is a six-line, 26-syllable poem (or a stanza – you can write a poem that is made of multiple shadorma stanzas). The syllable count by line is 3/5/3/3/7/5. So, like the haiku, the lines are relatively short. Rather poetically, the origin of the shadorma is mysterious. I’ve seen multiple online sources call it Spanish – but “shadorma” isn’t a Spanish word (Spanish doesn’t have “sh” as a letter pairing), and neither is “xadorma,” or “jadorma,” which would approximate “shadorma” in sound. But even if this form is simply the brainchild of an internet trickster who gave it an imaginary backstory, that’s no reason why you shouldn’t try your hand at it. Every form was made up by someone, sometime.
Our second syllabic form is much more forthright about its recent origins. Like the shadorma, the Fib is a six-line form. But now, the syllable count is based off the Fibonacci sequence of 1/1/2/3/5/8. You can link multiple Fibs together into a multi-stanza poem, or even start going backwards after your first six lines, with syllable counts of 8/5/3/2/1/1. Perhaps you remember the Fibonacci sequence from math or science class – or even from nature walks. Lots of things in the natural world hew to the sequence – like pinecones and flower petals. And now your poems can, too.
I have tried Fibanacci poems before and enjoyed them, so I decided on a Shadorma today as I hadn't heard of them before. I enjoyed the form, probably more than a Haiku as there is more for you to work with, so I may do some more of these in the future. The poem probably speaks for itself, so here it is:
Hand drawn map
An Easter egg hunt
Excitement
Brimming kids
Overflowing emotions
House turned upside down
Joy; Delight
At uncovered eggs
Wrapping ripped
Melting bite
Faced smudged with chocolate
A brief calm descends
Today's prompt:
Finally, here’s our daily (optional) prompt. Our prompt yesterday asked you to take inspiration from another poem, and today’s continues in the same vein. This prompt, which comes from Holly Lyn Walrath, is pretty simple. As she explains it here:
Go to a book you love. Find a short line that strikes you. Make that line the title of your poem. Write a poem inspired by the line. Then, after you’ve finished, change the title completely.
I have to say that this was a bit of a tricky prompt. We don't have a huge amount of books at home, as we tend to borrow from the library. We have far more children's books than adult books and so I chose one of those, one of the favourites in the house, "Superworm", but I won't tell you the line that I chose as I think it somewhat defeats the object. Anyway, here's the poem:
