Author Archive

This week’s prompt

… is in two parts, but the first part is an easy free write, one that helps you create your unique springboard to write this week’s new poem.

Here’s the first part:

Ask your friend alliteration to help you write a word list. Pick one letter of the alphabet and set down a bunch of words (at least 8 or 9) that begin with your chosen letter. (Hint: When you pick your letter consider the energy in its sound. Do you want to work with a clipped and energetic c or k? How about a playful p? Is soothing or melodic on your mind, or would you like to point it in that direction? Try the singable consonants m or n. Do you want to howl or moan? O and a might be your friend this week.)

Look your list over. Does it feel a little safe or everyday? Try adding a word (or two or four) that creates a lot of energy for you – which might mean it has a negative* vibe or maybe silly. Sprinkle in some zingers. Add a vegetable or a mineral. Top it with dessert or a dress coat.

Sit back for a bit. Take a day off.

Here’s the second part:

Pick one of those words for this week’s title. Write your poem.

Come back starting next Friday and bring us your new poem. And your letter!

*I don’t want to make you unduly uncomfortable but sometimes being open to a “difficult” word is a great catalyst. (Last week I made a c-word list, and yes, THE c-word was top of my list. It helped energize my poetic thoughts.) You don’t have to marry your “tough word.” Just take it out for coffee and see how it influences you and the other words. Sometimes the things that push against us are the very things that can challenge us, and therefore open new creative inroads.

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: https://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.

This week’s prompt

I may have been the only person in the poetry universe who didn’t know Marvin Bell and his Dead Man Poetry. Until quite recently that is, when I was introduced to the form by a fellow poetry student. She work-shopped a marvelous version of her Dead Woman Poem and it inspired me to bring the form to you as a prompt.

Mr. Bell explains it in his own words:
The Dead Man poem is a form I created a few years ago and then couldn’t shake. Dead man poems come out of an old Zen admonition that says, “Live as if you were already dead.” But you needn’t feel remorse. The dead man is alive and dead at the same time. He lives it up, he has opinions, he makes bad jokes, he has sex. Is he me? No, but he knows a lot about me. Dead Man poems come in two parts. Each line of poetry in a dead man poem is a compete sentence, long or short.
The form is comprised of two sections. One is titled “The Dead Man and …” and the second “More About the Dead Man and … .” All lines are written as sentence lines and enjambment matters quite a bit. The first two lines generally turn back on each other. The two versions seem to discover or expose different things about the Dead Man, one more internal in nature, the other external.

To give you examples, there are four Dead Man poems on the Poetry.org site.

To read “About the Dead Man and Camouflage/ More About the Dead Man and Camouflage” go here (the Dead Man poem is the last selection).

To read “About the Dead Man’s Late Nights/ More About the Dead Man’s Late Nights” go here (the Dead Man poem is the second selection).

This week try to create your version of the Dead Person poem. And be as strict or as inventive with the form as you’d like to be.

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: https://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.

“Enough!”

It’s a simple prompt this week: write to enough, be it not enough, more that enough, just enough.

Say it with humor, perhaps like Mark Twain did: “Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.” Or Mae West: “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” Say it philosophically, as does Lao Tzu: “He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.”

Write to your own life. Write to society’s. Write with a vengeance. Write to console. Whatever sparks your version of “Enough!” Then come back starting Friday and share your original poem.

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: https://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.