senses by João Loureiro, on Flickr
As we approach the end of the month, how are you doing with the NaPoWriMo challenge (30 poems in 30 days)? If you’re behind, what are your plans to catch up? Hopefully, today’s prompt is open-ended enough to help:
- Write a poem using at least four of the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell). Often in poetry, we tend to concentrate on one sense at the expense of others. The Poets.org page on “Using Common Senses” provides some classic examples of poems that draw on the senses. Jim Fowler’s article on “Writing Poetry: Using the Five Senses” in Abandoned Towers Magazine provides some further thinking on how to approach writing this sort of poem.
Remember, you are welcome to share a link to your poem in the comments below. If you choose to cut and paste your entire poem instead, just be aware that poems shared this way are not considered published in Wild Violet.
About Alyce Wilson
Alyce Wilson is the editor of Wild Violet and in her copious spare time writes humor, non-fiction, fiction and poetry and infrequently keeps an online journal. Her first chapbook, Picturebook of the Martyrs; her e-book/pamphlet, Stay Out of the Bin! An Editor's Tips on Getting Published in Lit Mags ; her book of essays and columns, The Art of Life; her humorous nonfiction ebook, Dedicated Idiocy: How Monty Python Fandom Changed My Life, and her newest poetry collection, Owning the Ghosts, can all be ordered from her Web site, AlyceWilson.com. In late 2019, she published a volume of poetry by her third great-grandfather, Reading's Physician Poet: Poems by Dr. James Meredith Mathews, which also contains genealogical information about the Mathews family. She lives with her husband and son in the Philadelphia area and takes far too many photos of her handsome, creative son, nicknamed Kung Fu Panda.
