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.
Hope
For adults:
When things are difficult, the world looks to writers, poets and artists to help make sense of it. Personally, I’ve found that sometimes I write what I need to hear, because those words will help others, as well. Today, try writing a poem that either talks about a time when you had no hope or that provides hope. For examples, read “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou (and listen to her read it, too), “won’t you celebrate with me” by Lucille Clifton, “‘Hope’ is the Thing with Feathers” by Emily Dickinson, and “A Litany for Survival” by Audre Lorde.
For children:
Have you ever felt down, and then someone talked to you and made you feel better? The feeling you might have felt was hope. Hope gives us a sense of encouragement and strength. It helps us to believe that, while we might feel down now, we’ll feel better later. Today, write a poem about hope, using the following steps.
- Think of a time when you felt down. Were you sad? Disappointed? Embarrassed? Write down some thoughts about how that felt. What would you compare it to? Did it make you see things differently?
- Think of what made you feel better, or what you would say to someone who felt like that. Did someone say something that made you smile? Did you think about something happy? Did you see something or hear something that made you feel better? Write down some of those thoughts.
- Take the writing you’ve done and circle some of the phrases or words you’d like to use. Turn them into a poem.
Hope
When my eyes and ears run like a waterfall
and my stomach feels full of goo,
I think of something happy
like you, hugging me tight as a monkey.
Maybe making monkey sounds, too.
About Alyce Wilson
