April is National Poetry Writing Month, and many poets like to challenge themselves to write a poem a day. With that in mind, Wild Violet will be sharing poetry prompts each day: one geared towards adults and one for kids.
If you write a poem based on this prompt, feel free to share a link to your poem, or the poem itself, in the comments. Poems appearing in the comments are not considered published in Wild Violet, and you retain all rights to your work.
Literary Inspiration
For Adults:
Rather than seeking for the perfect idea to get a poem started, try using a published work as a jumping off point. For today’s poem, you can start either from a book on your shelves, or you can open one of the thousands of books available for free at Project Guttenberg, by using the random order option. Flip or scroll through the pages of the work you’ve selected until you read a passage that grabs your imagination. You might like the vocabulary, or a turn of phrase. Or you might be inspired by the action. Or you might answer a question posed in the text, or craft a different narrative twist.
For Children:
How do poets find things to write about? Some look around them, at the people, places and things they know and experience. Some let their imagination fly into fantastic worlds. Still others find inspiration from the books they read. Today, let’s try getting an idea for a poem from a book or magazine.
- Start by finding a book or magazine to use. Or you can search on the Scholastic Learn at Home page, which has free articles and stories for kindergarten through ninth grade.
- Flip through the pages of your book and find something you find interesting. It may be a word you’ve never heard before. (You can look up the meaning at Dictionary.com). Maybe you’ll like a particular sentence the author uses, or a photograph or picture in the book.
- Write down a few things that your selection makes you think about. Does it create a picture in your head? Does it make you wonder what happens next? Does it remind you of something you’ve seen or experienced?
- Use some of those ideas to create your own original poem.
The Pond
Inspired by “Life in a Pond” by Allen Fowler
This is a pond. It’s small and it’s shallow.
When I step in, the mud squishes over my foot.
I feel like a plant, growing up through the algae.
If I stand still enough, maybe I’ll even see a fish.
About Alyce Wilson
