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.
Telling Untruths
For adults:
Most of the time, we delve into our personal lives for inspiration. But today, take a different approach and write about something that is untrue. You might write about the opposite of the way you’re really feeling, or what you’ve really experienced, or you might rework the truth of something that happened to you, giving yourself a different outcome. For examples, read “Lie” by Rae Armantrout, “A Man” by Louis Untermeyer, “Jet” by Tony Hoagland and a poem by John Haag, whom I was fortunate enough to study under, “Seasons.”
For children:
For today’s poem, try starting with something true and making it bigger and more ridiculous through exaggeration, until it becomes something that is untrue. To exaggerate means to claim that something is greater than it really is. The use of exaggeration in writing is called hyperbole. So, for example, you might be hungry enough to eat a big dinner, but you might exaggerate and say that you’re hungry enough to eat a whole grocery store. Exaggerating can be lots of fun, and it can be a way of adding humor to a poem.
When I Fly to the Moon
My rocket will zoom faster than a lightning bolt
and everyone on Earth will watch its take-off.
Five minutes later, I’ll land
with such grace and flourish
they’ll write songs about me
that will be sung for a million years
and saved in a time capsule
to shoot out into the galaxy
for aliens to find, so that they can learn
about the time I flew to the Moon.
About Alyce Wilson
