Happy twenty-first day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo, everybody.

Today’s featured participant is Catrin Mari, who brings us a neatly rhymed appreciation of a little-known historical figure, Dr. William Price of Lllantrisant, Wales. (With apologies for the late posting!)

Our resource for the day is the website of the Oxford Professor of Poetry, where you’ll find audio files of the nine lectures given by Alice Oswald across the four years of her appointed term.

And now for our (optional) prompt! Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that repeats or focuses on a single color. Some examples for you – Diane Wakoski’s “Blue Monday,” Walter de la Mare’s “Silver,” and Dorothea Lasky’s “Red Rum.”

Happy writing!

Hello, everyone. Today we’re 2/3 of the way through Na/GloPoWriMo. We hope that by the end of the day, you have 20 shiny poems under your belt and are ready to write ten more.

Our featured participant for the day is The Four Swans, where you’ll find a mysterious and somewhat discomfiting poem in response to Day 19’s haunt/hunt prompt.

Today’s resource is the Instagram account poetry is not a luxury, which serves up new poems every day.

Our optional prompt for the day challenges you to write a poem that recounts a historical event. In writing your poem, you could draw on your memory, encyclopedias, history books, or primary documents. If you’re interested in a little research, you might find interesting this collection of letters written during the American Civil War, or this collection of primary documents concerning South Sea voyages. Or perhaps you might find something of interest in digging through Europeana, an online clearinghouse of digitized materials from cultural institutions across Europe.

Happy writing!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Our featured participant for the day is Gloria D. Gonsalves, who brings us not one, but two, poems in response to Day 18’s “other selves” prompt:

Today’s resource is the website of “selfish” poet Trish Hopkinson, where you’ll find calls for submissions, blog posts, and oodles of tips and other resources on submitting poetry for publication.

Finally, here’s our prompt – optional, as always! This one comes to us from Moist Poetry Journal, which posted this prompt by K-Ming Chang a while back:

What are you haunted by, or what haunts you? Write a poem responding to this question. Then change the word haunt to hunt.

Happy (and potentially spooky) writing!

Welcome back, all, for the 18^th day of our 30-day challenge.

Today’s featured participant is Cutting Hail, who brings us a dreamy, gentle poem in response to Day 17’s musical prompt.

Our resource for the day is the Best American Poetry blog, where you’ll find new and old poems, close readings, and essays/reviews not just of poetry, but dance, art, and more.

And now for our (optional) prompt! Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which the speaker expresses the desire to be someone or something else, and explains why. Two possible models for you: Natasha Rao’s “In my next life let me be a tomato,” and Randall Jarrell’s “The Woman at the Washington Zoo.”

Happy writing!

Happy Wednesday, everyone, and here’s hoping that poetry helps you get over the “hump” of the week.

Our featured participant today is Karen Morris, who brings us a heartfelt poem in response to Day 16’s “suprise’ prompt.

Today’s daily resource is My Poetic Side, a website where you’ll find poems and biographies, a blog, poetry news (mostly UK-focused), and the ability to sign up and share poems.

Last but not least, here’s our optional prompt for the day. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that is inspired by a piece of music, and that shares its title with that piece of music. Need an example? Here’s A. Van Jordan’s “Que Sera Sera” and Adrian Matejka’s “Soave Sia Il Vento.”

Happy writing!

Welcome to the back half of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo 2024, all!

Our featured participant today is Sarah Zimam, who brings us a riddle in response to Day 15’s stamp-based prompt.

Today, our daily resource is PoemShape, a blog where you’ll find poems, close readings, art, and interviews.

Finally, here’s today’s (optional) prompt, taken from our 2016 archives. Today, we challenge you to write a poem in which you closely describe an object or place, and then end with a much more abstract line that doesn’t seemingly have anything to do with that object or place, but which, of course, really does. The “surprise” ending to this James Wright poem is a good illustration of the effect we’re hoping you’ll achieve. An abstract, philosophical kind of statement closing out a poem that is otherwise intensely focused on physical, sensory details.

Happy writing!

Keep those poems coming, folks! We’re halfway through the challenge as of today.

Today, our featured participant is Karen Kendrick, whose anaphoristic poem for Day 14 revels in imagery from the natural world.

Today’s daily resource is The Shakespeare & Company Interview, a podcast recorded on-site at the renowned Paris bookstore. While not all do, many of the episodes feature poets/poetry.

And now for our prompt – optional, as always! Today, we’d like to encourage you to take a look at @StampsBot, and become inspired by the wide, wonderful, and sometimes wacky world of postage stamps. For example, while it certainly makes sense that China would issue a stamp featuring a panda, it’s less clear to us why the Isle of Man should feel the need to honor 2001: A Space Odyssey in stamp form. From Romanian mushrooms to Sudanese weavers to the Marshall Islands getting far too excited over personal computing, stamps are a quasi-lyrical, quasi-bizarre look into what different cultures (or at least their postal authorities) hold dear.

And if you’re not on or able to access the @StampsBot account, fear not! You may find an inspiring stamp or two by perusing the online “International Philately” (say that three times fast) exhibit from the National Postal Museum.

Happy writing!

Two weeks down, two weeks and two days to go!

Today’s featured participant is Enheduanna’s Daughter, where you’ll find a lovely poem filled with in-the moment sensory details in response to Day 13’s rhyming word-bank prompt,

Our daily resource is biographyof.red, another Instagram account that regularly posts poetry, fragments from interviews with poets, and other poetry-minded tidbits.

Today’s (optional) prompt asks you to write a poem of at least ten lines in which each line begins with the same word (e.g., “Because,” “Forget,” “Not,” “If”). This technique of beginning multiple lines with the same word or phrase is called anaphora, and has long been used to give poems a driving rhythm and/or a sense of puzzlebox mystery. To give you more context, here’s an essay by Rebecca Hazelton on her students’ “adventures in anaphora,” and a contemporary poem that uses anaphora to great effect: Layli Long Soldier’s “Whereas.”

Happy writing!

Welcome back for the second Saturday of this year’s National/Global Poetry Writing Month.

Our featured participant for the day is Poem Dive, where you’ll find a vertiginous and expansive eulogy for a mayfly in response to Day 12’s “tall tale” prompt.

Today’s resource is the twitter account of the Wild and Precious Life reading series, where you’ll find a prompt every day for this month (if our own prompts don’t inspire you, or in case you just want to collect oodles of prompts to keep you going after April’s over).

Finally, our optional prompt for the day asks you to play with rhyme. Start by creating a “word bank” of ten simple words. They should only have one or two syllables apiece. Five should correspond to each of the five senses (i.e., one word that is a thing you can see, one word that is a type of sound, one word that is a thing you can taste, etc). Three more should be concrete nouns of whatever character you choose (i.e., “bridge,” “sun,” “airplane,” “cat”), and the last two should be verbs. Now, come up with rhymes for each of your ten words. (If you’re having trouble coming up with rhymes, the wonderful Rhymezone is at your service). Use your expanded word-bank, with rhymes, as the seeds for your poem. Your effort doesn’t actually have to rhyme in the sense of having each line end with a rhymed word, but try to use as much soundplay in your poem as possible.

Happy writing!

Happy twelfth day of NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo, everyone! (Too bad it’s not like the twelve days of Christmas – maybe we could have twelve words a-rhyming, eleven stanzas singing, ten poets sighing, etc., etc.)

Today’s featured participant is salovie, where you’ll find a tender response to Day 11’s monostich prompt.

Our resource for the day is the Poetry Foundation’s Poem-of-the-Day podcast, where – as you may have already surmised – there’s a new audio recording of a poem daily.

And last but not least, our optional prompt. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that plays with the idea of a “tall tale.” American tall tales feature larger-than-life characters like Paul Bunyan (who is literally larger than life), Bulltop Stormalong (also gigantic), and Pecos Bill (apparently normal-sized, but he doesn’t let it slow him down). If you’d like to see a modern poetic take on the tall tale, try Jennifer L. Knox’s hilarious poem, “Burt Reynolds FAQ.” Your poem can revolve around a mythical character, one you make up entirely, or add fantastical elements into a real person’s biography.

Happy writing!