Posts Tagged ‘ prompts ’

This week’s prompt(s)

Friday is April 1, and some of you will be starting the madness that is writing-a-poem-a-day in April for National Poetry Month. And some of you will be saying, “Um, no.” To keep all our circus-goers happy and well-fed on cotton candy (inspiration) and peanuts (prompts), here is a list of seven prompts:

1. Write about standing on a balcony with someone you’ve read about in the paper.
2. Write about getting undressed somewhere besides the bedroom or bathroom.
3. Write about making a phone call.
4. Write about something that happened 15 years ago.
5. Write about feathers and stilettos (but no person can be wearing them).
6. Write about being afraid of an animal.
7. Write about when you don’t feel like yourself.

If you want to stick to the normal plan, simply pick one prompt and write a poem. If you will be doing a poem-a-day, they are here for you once you get started. Either way, come back starting Friday and through the weekend to post your poems! If you’ve written one, as usual, post that one. If you’ve written more than one, give us your favorite!

Special notes for April

Some people will be writing a poem-a-day in April in celebration of National Poetry Month, and some people won’t. Whatever you intend to do, we will be right here on our regular Monday-prompt / Friday-poems schedule. If you want to write a poem-a-day using Big Tent prompts, our weekly prompts from March 28 through April 25 will include seven choices. Write to them, one each day, if you like. But if you prefer to ignore all the poem-a-day madness and just want to keep doing what you’re doing, simply pick one from the list and go with it!

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

Poets need to mix things up a bit, don’t we? Sometimes we do this by simply writing an altogether new & fresh poem. (What a wonderful gift from the muse that is!) But sometimes we have to take matters in our own hands (as when that silly muse has missed a writing date), by finding (digging up, wrangling) bits of words someplace — in our journals or on the street — and bending them about to create new meaning.

This week we are going to try bending, maybe even breaking & re-stitching words together. And we’ll use Big Tent Poetry’s latest resource page: Poetry Toys!

Your prompt this week is to take a piece of your writing, or some other bit of written text, and try out one of the toys or tricks (on our new Poetry Toys page)  to generate (reformulate) new work. Some ideas:

Translate a phrase or stanza back & forth in Babelfish — let the new words that show up change the emotion in your words & rewrite to match the new feel. Aha: a new poem!
Use the cut-up feature at Language is a Virus. Leave what is generated as is, or add new words or lines as inspiration strikes. Aha: a new poem!
Go to Erasures and try it. Or find a text (Project Gutenberg is a great source) and make your own. Aha: a new poem!
Replace a bunch of old words with new ones you found at Visuwords or the dictionary. Again, expand the poem as you wish. Aha: a new poem!

Come back starting next Friday and, in addition to your links to brand new poems, let us know what you liked about the bending/breaking process, and what you thought of the work it produced!

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 mentioned once or twice (or 500 times!) that I was stranded in Chicago last month. A 2-hour layover turned into an overnight stay. Fortunately, I used the time to write up some prompts for Big Tent Poetry. (I also did a fair amount of whining and fretting, which I know surprises you.)

For this week’s Carolee-is-talking-AGAIN-about-being-stranded-in-the-airport prompt, write a poem about being stuck somewhere. You may remember a time when you, too, were a my-flight’s-been-canceled zombie. Where do you need to go? Where are you coming from? What will you do with all of your newly-found “free” time?

Never been physically stuck at an airport? Imagine being trapped in an elevator or with a flat tire on the side of the road. Imagine yourself anywhere you don’t want to be. Imagine trying to get somewhere else. Oh, the futility! Imagine someone stopping you from getting there. Oh, the madness!

You may also consider writing about being stuck in a metaphoric rut. Maybe you have lost your muse (check the lint trap, next to those lost socks). Maybe you are stuck with old habits. Maybe you are stuck in a relationship (or without one). Wherever you are stuck — in your mind or in the world — write about being there or trying to get out.

Caution: Don’t get so stuck you forget to come back starting Friday and bring us your poems!

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.