M Christine Delea's Blog, page 44
October 16, 2022
You are Spring: Poetry Prompt
This week's writing prompt takes its own inspiration from Gwendolyn Brooks and her poem (also posted on this blog today), "To the Young Who Want to Die."
First, choose a group that your poem will address. It can be anything from the termites in our lake cabin to motorcyclists without helmets, the nurses caring for my neighbor to the Terra Cotta Soldiers, the maple trees in the arboretum to the 2nd graders at my daughter's birthday party. Brooks chose a very specific group, and so should you.
...
October 12, 2022
About Almonds and Ambergris by Lorna Goodison
About Almonds and Ambergris
by Lorna Goodison
Atlanta Review, Spring/Summer 2019 issue
There is a perfume rising off the sea today.
A scent of almond top notes and base notes of ambergris.
I think about ambergris, a griege ball of scent starter
coiled in the stomach of sperm whales or rolling free,
a pomander perfuming the waters of oceans.
Did Jonah know that he was valuable as ambergris
sought after and needed to touch pulse points?
I meditate upon these matters this day as I lie
upo...
October 9, 2022
You're Such a Softie: Poetry Prompt
Think of, or--better yet--get ahold of something very soft.
It could be a blanket, moss, your own hair, a feather, a cashmere scarf, shaving cream, flower petals, cotton balls, taffy, you pet's fur, an eraser, a marshmallow, a ball of yarn, a mushroom, a silk blouse, fuzzy slippers, a stuffed animal, whipped cream, etc.
Feel this thing, or think of it intensely.
Write your answers to the following questions. Don't worry yet about form, line breaks, diction, etc.--just write.
Your item fee...
Residual Memory of Mercy by Nicole Rollender
Residual Memory of Mercy
by Nicole Rollender
published in typishly
Everything is the hopesprung phantom
of something else. I married
that man, the next morning for a moment
not knowing why I was tucked
in his bed. He collects spoons’
shiny reserve, clay pots of lush succulents,
handmade soaps smelling of spiced apples &
wet horsehair. He moves through me
as through a quiet house.
As if he has thought what he will
do when I die.
He says I’m dark fruit.
A wind moving outside myself.
A s...
October 5, 2022
Rural Gothic by Despy Boutris
Rural Gothic
by Despy Boutris
published in Zócalo Public Square, April 16, 2021
Loneliness thick as the fields of wheat. Wheat I walk throughdaily, scent of heat and silt. It shimmers in the breeze, the sun unfurling over the hills. I stand at the edge,cupping my mouth around someone’s name. A cloud of gnats makes chaos of the August air. We need a word for this:feeling far from home when you’re right there. And what is to miss but a catch in the throat, the scentof spoiled frui...
October 2, 2022
Go Negative: Poetry Prompt
For this week's prompt, I'd like you to write a negative poem.
I am not talking about the speaker's attitude, necessarily: the tone, subject, and theme of your poem does not have to be negative. This exercise is more concerned with diction.
Below are some ideas for how to approach this prompt.
You can:
stress what not to do, who not to speak with, where not to go, etc.
write a poem in which the speaker gives advice in the negative.
start with a negative first line and stay negative, then...
On the Turning of the Year by Karen An-Hwei Lee
On the Turning of the Year
by Karen An-Hwei Lee
published in Spoon River Poetry Review, Issue 43.2, Winter 2018
To witness five seventeen-year cicada
cycles in a lifetime—To hear an entomologist refer to cycles
as blooms—
To say a metallic clicking noise repels the crows in our apple
orchard—To say cicada blooms explain the crashing
bird populations—
To list reasons why I wish to murmur injunctions of praise
in the ellipses of fireflies—To wonder if a funicular monikered...
September 28, 2022
The Lake Isle of Innisfree By W. B. Yeats
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise an...
September 25, 2022
Answer Me This, Part 2: Poetry Prompt
On October 17, 2021, I posted a prompt called Answer Me This. It asked that you write a piece that answers 6 questions. A wonderful poet, Penelope Scambly Schott, shared with me the poem she wrote from the prompt and it is amazing. I was thinking about her poem and thought it is time for the same prompt, but with different questions. You can find the original prompt if you scroll through the prompts.
Below is the second Answer Me This prompt. As always, have fun with it. Remember that poetry is...
Feed My People (The Toxicology Prayer) by Cedric Tillman
Feed My People (The Toxicology Prayer)
by Cedric Tillman
published in RHINO (won 2nd prize in the 2021 Editor's Prize contest)
Father we come to you again because another dead black man is on the news. Lord I askthat by this time tomorrow we’ll find out he didn’t need money, that he had a regular joband not a side hustle, that you’ll close up the mouths of the reporters fixed on telling ushe was broke. Make him worthy of mercy Lord, not one of these people selling burntCDs or loose ciga...
