December Poetry Prompts

These prompts were given by collaborating poet Yvonne M. Estrada to Terry, who will engage in fevered writing with each of them.

• In very simple English they call it good luck. (Yogi Bhajan from NineTreasuresYoga.com)

• …an exploration of the absurdity of our own existence (Lenscratch.com)

• We were lucky that our water tanks were filled before the electricity failed (Indiadivine.org)

• Slow and patient centuries can grow to create structures hundreds of miles long (TED.com)

These prompts were given by Terry Wolverton to collaborating poet Yvonne M. Estrada, who will engage in fevered writing with each of them.

• Republicans are not the condom police

(http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/dec/01/ted-cruz-republicans-condom-police-hillary-clinton-2016-election-video)

• Written on beasts

(http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2015/11/25/parchment-beasts/)

• Of being engine red

(http://bluemesareview.org/issues/issue-no-31/of-being-engine-red/)

• When it’s dark out

(upcoming album title, G-Eazy)

 

Readers of this blog are invited, no, encouraged, to write your own poems inspired by these prompts and submit them in the comments box. The best Reader Poem we receive by December 31 will win a $25 prize.

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November Poetry Prompts

* “crisco fried funk” (http://m.pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20078-black-messiah/)

*”only a partial relationship to reality” (http://prospect.org/article/why-media-are-digging-jeb-bushs-grave)

*”vulgar yet weirdly graceful” (http://thedissolve.com/features/performance-review/254-kevin-kline-in-1988s-a-fish-called-wanda-couldnt-b/)

*”the infantilization of people of color and women” (http://jacket2.org/commentary/reproductions-reproductions)

 

Here are your prompts:

• Hard Day of the Dead Dances on (latimes.com)

• Why Latinos Love Horror Films (scpr.org)

• Montage of Heck (album title, Kurt Cobain)

• Robot doctors and lawyers (guardian.com)

October Poetry Prompts

Prompts are drawn from the media—print, broadcast or social.

Terry Wolverton offered these prompts to collaborating poet Ramón Garcia:

• Don’t say his name (Los Angeles Times)

• I never thought Michiko would come back
after she died. (“Alone” by Jack Gilbert, Poetry)

 • Einstein ring helps weigh a black hole (Earthsky.org)

• “Live from the Gutter” (song title, from What a Time to Be Alive, Drake and Future)

Collaborating poet Ramón Garcia offered these prompts to Terry Wolverton:

• …no one can be slain in absentia or in effigie. (Freud, “The Dynamics of Transference”)

• These first three Steps are the acceptance Steps. (Paths to Recovery: Al-Anon’s Steps, Traditions and Concepts).

• Narcissus, the solitary, is the very image of the adolescent. (Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude).

• Bloom is aware of conspicuous omissions…(Christopher Benfey, “The Wonder-Wounded Harold Bloom” in The New York Review of Books, October 8, 2015).

 

September Poetry Prompts

These prompts were each drawn from some printed text within Descanso Gardens — signage, brochures, books in the bookstore, even an interaction with another visitor who was carrying a Bible.

Terry Wolverton offered these prompts to collaborating poet Donna Frazier:

• Cowboy cologne (Descanso Gardens interpretive pamphlet)

• Deer are particularly fond of roses (Descanso Gardens signage)

• Garden Dancer Cha Cha (taxonomic sign – plant name: Cordyline)

• Extreme Snakes Tattoos (book title)

Collaborating poet Donna Frazier offered these prompts to Terry Wolverton:

• Babies may dangle temporarily (From interpretive exhibit on Descanso’s animals. The babies in question are opossums.)

• Reflected light, right-side up (From exhibit text on camera obscura)

• Hooker’s manzanita (arctostaphylus hooker, “wayside): Plant label

• “Not by works of law” (Text from a garden visitor’s Bible.)

(Walking near the Haaga Gallery, I spotted a man carrying something under his arm that might be a journal, might be a book.
Exchange:
“Excuse me, is that a book you’re carrying?”
“Yes, it’s the Bible?”
“Would you mind opening it and turning to a random page?
[Pulls book from under his arm and starts to open it.]
“Are you seeking guidance?”
“No, it’s for a project.”
“So could you pick a random passage?”
“How about a NOT random passage? [turns with some intent to the back of the Bible.]
I glance at the pages he’s opened to and let my eyes focus on something. “Not by works of law” is what comes to the surface.)

We invite readers to write poems in response to one or more prompts (or the fevered writing that results from these prompts) and submit  in the Comments section. The best Reader Poem we receive by September 30 will be awarded a $25 prize.

August Poetry Prompts

Prompts are drawn from the media—print, broadcast or social.

Terry Wolverton offered these prompts to collaborating poet Sesshu Foster:

• Hell’s Zip Code (capitalandmain.com)

• Dreams Worth More than Money (album title, Meek Mill)

• Slavery to Vegetables (rawstory.com)

• “I’m No Longer Afraid” (nymag.com/the cut)

Collaborating poet Sesshu Foster offered these prompts to Terry Wolverton:

• CA Conrad (Soma)tic Poetry prompt: Pick any (soma)tic poetry prompt by CA, this was one I could find at http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/confetti-allegiance-love-letter-jim-brodey:

Confetti Allegiance
Is there a deceased poet who was alive in your lifetime but you never met, and you wish you had met? A poet you would LOVE to correspond with, but it’s too late? Take notes about this missed opportunity. What is your favorite poem by this poet? Write it on unlined paper by hand (no typing). If we were gods we wouldn’t need to invent beautiful poems, and that’s why our lives are more interesting, and that’s why the gods are always meddling in our affairs out of boredom. It’s like the fascination the rich have with the poor, as Alice Notley says, “the poor are more interesting than others, almost uniformly.” This poem was written by a human poet, and we humans love our poets, if we have any sense. Does something strike flint in you from the process of engaging your body to write this poem you know and love? Notes, notes, take notes.
The poet for me in doing this exercise is Jim Brodey and his poem “Little Light,” which he wrote in the bathtub while listening to the music of Eric Dolphy, masturbating in the middle of the poem, “while the soot-tinted noise of too-full streets echoes / and I pick up the quietly diminishing soap & do / myself again.” Take your handwritten version of the poem and cut it into tiny confetti. Heat olive oil in a frying pan and toss the confetti poem in. Add garlic, onion, parsnip, whatever you want, pepper it, salt it, serve it over noodles or rice. Eat the delicious poem with a nice glass of red wine, pausing to read it out loud and toast the poet, “MANY APOLOGIES FOR NOT TOASTING YOU WHEN YOU WERE ALIVE!” Take notes while slowly chewing the poem. Chew slowly so your saliva breaks the poem down before it slides into your belly to feed your blood and cells of your body. Gather your notes, write your poem.
Love Letter to Jim Brodey

•                                                                         Dear Jim

  for

  those whose

  acid trips were a success

  only twice

  I’ve met men who

  are high exactly

  as they are sober

  both became my lovers

  both died one like

  you died Jim he

  played music too

  loud at parties to

  gather us into a

  single frequency feel

  healed for the length

  of a song

  nothing works forever

  there was something in

  the air that year Jim

  and you put it there

  a rapt center in

  pivot looking

  to face

  love again

  learning to

  accept what’s offered

  without guilt

  to be reminded

  of nothing

  my favorite day not dragging

  the dead around

  they’re looking

  for Lorca in the Valley

  of the Fallen

  Franco’s thugs would understand

  “developing countries” means

  getting them ready for

  mining diamonds drilling oil

  teaching them to make a

  decent cup of coffee for

  visiting executives

  if I’m not going

  to live like this

  anymore I must will

  every cell to

  stand away

  the History of Madness

  725 pages is too much to

  not be normal

  scorn is very

  motivating

  I’m vegetarian unless

  angels are on the

  menu mouth watering

  deep fried wings

  shove greasy bones in

  their trumpets

  the cost of

  scorn is

  often unexpected

  I see my fascist

  neighbor from downstairs

  “Did my boyfriend and

  I make too much

  noise last night?”

  his glare the

  YES that keeps

  me smiling

  • here’s another one: http://www.notnostrums.com/Conrad.html
  • and another: http://www.loadedbicycle.com/conrad.html#
  • and: http://somaticpoetrymeditations.blogspot.com/

  2. a prompt from Bernadette Mayer’s famous list:

  * Write what cannot be written; for example, compose an index.

  http://writing.upenn.edu/library/Mayer-Bernadette_Experiments.html

  3. a scientific one:

  Funding Medical Research

  • Role: medical scientist
  • Audience: prospective donors
  • Format: fundraising letter
  • Topic: contribute money for research
  • Strong Verb: persuade

  You are a medical scientist who is working to discover cures for different diseases. Your research requires special equipment and materials that are quite expensive. Write a fundraising letter to possible donors, persuading them to contribute money to your work.

  or

  Greatest Scientist of All Time

  • Role: you
  • Audience: scientist from a past era
  • Format: written interview
  • Topic: the greatest contribution to science
  • Strong Verb: write and document

  You have the opportunity to travel in a time machine into any past era of history. Choose a date and place to meet the person who, in your opinion, has made the greatest contibution to science. Write out the interview questions you will ask this scientist and document his or her answers. You will publish your interiew when you return to the present.

  http://www.creative-writing-ideas-and-activities.com/science-writing-prompts.html

  4. any prompt from jerome rothenberg’s Technician’s of the Sacred:

  (here’s one)

  Looking for a way to spark your writing with imagery? Here’s a great suggestion from Sheila Bender. Though the exercise is taken from her book Writing Personal Poetry, any writer can put it to use. Bender writes:

  Recently I was standing on a hillside I had looked at years ago from a window at a writers conference. At that conference, I learned a useful exercise from my teacher Robert Hass, who went on to become the United States poet laureate. At the time, he was studying various culture’s poetry using a book called Technicians of the Sacred. In Africa, he taught us, a tribe called the Bantu has an oral poetic tradition they exercise while working. One person says a line and, in the rhythm of the work, another answers with an assocaition that shows the likeness between two objects or perceptions. “An elephant’s tusk cracking” could get the response, “The voice of an angry man.” That day, I looked at the hillside, saw wind in the grass and wrote, “Wind through the grass,” and answered with the line, “I have the feeling you have written.” Here are two-line bantus that students of mine have written in response to this exercise:

  Wire hangers on a bar in the closet

  Wild geese walking by a lake

  Children in a circle on the floor

  The beaded necklace

  Lizard rustles the jasmine leaves

  Father turning pages of “The Sunday NY Times”

  The full moon at midnight

  China dinner plate in a dark kitchen

  Write your own bantus, as many as you can. Try to evoke experiences of sound, taste and smell as well as touch and sight. This exercise is very much like metaphor and simile, but you are free of the need to make images grammatically correct and the results can be haunting.

  http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-genre/horror-by-writing-genre/how_to_create_haunting_imagery

  We invite readers to write poems in response to one or more prompts (or the fevered writing that results from these prompts) and submit  in the Comments section. The best Reader Poem we receive by August 31 will be awarded a $25 prize.

July Poetry Prompts

Prompts are drawn from the media—print, broadcast or social.

Collaborating poet Olga Garcia Echevarria offered these prompts to Terry Wolverton:

• “Woman Gives Birth, Fights Off Bees, Starts Wild Fire in Northern California” (Joseph Serna and Veronica Rocha, LA Times Local, June 30th)

• “What Gaining a Leap Second Means For a Hummingbird” (Nicholas St. Fleur, New York Times, 6/30/15)

• “Trust Me. Butter is Better.” (Mark Bitman, New York Times, 6/24/15) 

• “Goldfish the Size of Dinner Plates Are Multiplying Like Bunnies” (Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, 6/26/15)

Terry Wolverton offered these prompts to collaborating poet Olga Garcia Echevarria:

• “Space is hard” (scpr.org)
• “Dolphin leaps onto boat, injuring woman” (scpr.org)
• “Poetry is against gravity” (Ai Wei Wei On Poetry, Poetry magazine)
• “Guns in Paradise” (song title from Meanwhile…Back at the Lab, Slightly Stoopid)

We invite readers to write poems in response to one or more prompts (or the fevered writing that results from these prompts) and submit  in the Comments section. The best Reader Poem we receive by July 31 will win a $25 prize.

June Poetry Prompts

Prompts are drawn from the media—print, broadcast or social.

Collaborating poet Elena Karina Byrne offered these prompts to Terry Wolverton:

• …low energy transfer orbits to the Japanese lunar (from Wikipedia on Edward Belbruno)

• An Iceberg Flipped Over, and Its Underside Is Breathtaking (Smithsonian.com)

• DOUBLE GAME (Book title: Sophie Calle)

• Birthday Cake Shot (Instructables.com)

Terry Wolverton offered these prompts to collaborating poet Elena Karina Byrne:

• Sundown Over Ghost Town (album title, Ellen Jewell)
• Set Yourself on Fire (song title, from American Spring, Anit-Flag)
• Lions Don’t Eat Us (book title, Constance Quarterman Bridges)
• Abandoned Detroit Home Filled with Thousands of Flowers (flavorwire.com, May 30, 2015)

We invite readers to write poems in response to one or more prompts (or the fevered writing that results from these prompts) and submit  in the Comments section. The best Reader Poem we receive in June will win a $25 prize.

May Poetry Prompts

Prompts are drawn from the media—print, broadcast or social.

Collaborating poet Chiwan Choi offered these prompts to Terry Wolverton:

Researchers Discover Fracking Fluids in Pennsylvania Well Water (i09.com)

“Our Demand is Simple: Stop Killing Us.” (nytimes)

Russell Brand voted world’s 4^th most influential thinker. (the guardian)

Here is the Face of Civil Rights (gawker.com)

Terry Wolverton offered these prompts to collaborating poet Chiwan Choi:

• …Man punches bear to protect his per Chihuahua (latimes.com)

• Home of child goddess unshaken (financialtimes.com)

• If he says he’s a woman, he’s a woman (Cosmopolitan)

• To pimp a butterly (album title by Kendrick Lamar)

We invite readers to write poems in response to one or more prompts (or the fevered writing that results from these prompts) and submit me in the Comments section. The best Reader Poem we receive in May will win a $25 prize.

April Poetry Prompts

Okay, poets, it’s National Poetry Month and you know you’re gonna be writing some poems. So why not enter a Reader Poem here, for a chance to win $25? Use one of these prompts to inspire you, or you can wait until our fevered writing gets posted.

Poetry Prompts from Angela Peñaredondo:

• Dis-Assembly Lines: gestures, situations, and surveillances (from Women & Performance Journal)

• A Garden & Honey Do’s (Courier Journal)

• Secrets of Velvet Worm Slime (International New York Times)

• There he was, sheepish and handsome on the elevated platform (The New Yorker, April 9, 2001)

Poetry Prompts from Terry Wolverton:

• At Pepperdine’s Surf Chapel, prayers some in waves (L.A. Times)

• Herd of goats gets loose, chases children (Huffington Post/Weird News)

• If you’re reading this, it’s too late (album title, by Drake)

• The world’s most oblivious driver lives in Canada (www.roadandtrack.com)

All prompts are drawn from the media — print, broadcast or social media.

Readers are encouraged to write and submit poems of your own, inspired by one or more of these prompts. There will be a $25 prize for the best poem we receive from a reader in April..

March Poetry Prompts

Poetry Prompts from AK Toney:

“Two Children May Have Died for You to Have Your Mobile Phone” (Inter Press Service News Agency)

yet the name “coltan” elicits quizzical looks. (thestar.com/insights)

What makes anything worth having and owning has a lot to do with preserving art and culture within a natural environment. (kcet.org/departures)

New City Election Dates and Schedules; One-Time Adjustment To Align Terms with New Election Dates By 2020. Charter Amendment 1 (Official Sample Ballot and Voter Information Pamphlet)

Poetry Prompts from Terry Wolverton:

L.A. inmate escapes from jail, is found in hot tub (Los Angeles Times)

Prophet of Respect (The Huffington Post/Black Voice)

King of sea lions spotted in Southern California waters (scpr.org)

Scientists take the first ever photograph of light as both a wave and a particle (businessinsider.com)

 

All prompts are drawn from the media — print, broadcast or social media.

Readers are encouraged to write and submit poems of your own, inspired by one or more of these prompts. There will be a $25 prize for the best poem we receive from a reader in March.