MONDAY PROMPT / January 17

This week’s prompt

When I was teaching an elementary poetry class a few years ago, the topic was food. I brought in all kinds of food for the kids to try and write about. We wrote poems about fruit, mostly, because I knew it was something they would like. Lovely, inspired poems about oranges, bananas, apples, strawberries were writ by all. But the poem that has stayed with me all these years is “Coconut,” which began “It slides down my throat like spiders… .”

What food do you love? What food do you hate? Have you ever tried ugly fruit? Mango? How do you eat your mango? Walk the aisles of your local grocery store. Ignore the stares of the curious and whip out your notebook. Write down the names of foods that interest you. Line your pockets with the mini recipes they sometimes provide. Right now, in my purse, are recipes on tiny little cards for

• mango tango salsa
• kumquat salad
• simple sugar snaps
• Brussels sprouts skillet
• pomegranate shrimp

Food tastes can run to the eclectic. Remember the book “How to Eat Fried Worms”? How about writing your own “How to…” poem. How to eat, how to cook, how to grow…Use your senses. You don’t just have to taste something. Feel it. Smell it. Look at it. Listen to it.

Maybe you have a food memory. Favorite Thanksgiving feast? Elementary school breakfast? First date meal?

Your food memories, your senses, your love of words, even your local market can provide you with the ingredients. All you need to do is cook up a poem!

And then come back and tell us about it, of course. Starting Friday when we hang the placard for the Come One, Come All post!

How prompts work under the Big Tent

We post prompts on Mondays, and you have all week to write your poems, based on our fabulous prompt or any other inspiration. Come back on Friday when you will find a “Come One, Come All” post where you can use the comments section to 1) leave a link to your poem or 2) leave the poem in its entirety.

You’ll have all day Friday (and all weekend!) to post your work and read each others’ work. Take your time. Enjoy all the poems that are new to the world.

Some hints

Hint: We’ve set Big Tent Poetry to Central Time.

Hint: An easy way to check on new post comments is with RSS reader, if you use one. Here’s the address: http://bigtentpoetry.org/comments/feed.

Hint: If you are new to our site, your comment(s) will be held for moderation for your first few posts. If you put more than one link in your comment, your comment(s) will be held for moderation. We’re checking the filters often, so don’t despair! That said, if it takes more than a half a day to see it come live on the site, do email us at info (at) bigtentpoetry.org. (But be patient, okay?)

Circus etiquette

We figure you know how to play in the poetry community, but here are the basics:

Be nice. Have fun. Remember we aren’t a critique forum. We want to support each other as we bring more poetry into our lives. Only provide critique if someone specifically asks for it.

Although we love seeing our badge in the sidebar of your blog, we would appreciate it if you would also link back to the site in each of your poem posts. Linking within your post helps people travel back and forth from your site to the Big Tent Poetry site, and it helps perpetuate Big Tent Poetry “findability” in Google searches — and that helps us all.

Tags: jill crammond, poetry, prompts