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Hey guys!

I don't know if it's this quarantine/lockdown or if this has been a natural progression, but I really want to explore different types of writing. So for May, I thought, "why not poetry?"

Now, I'm under no illusions that I'll magically become a poet in a month, BUT...wouldn't it be fun to compare the struggle at the beginning of the month to the (hopefully slightly smaller) struggle at the end of the month?

For some reason I've also been recently obsessed with bingo boards? Maybe because I've been researching all these cool readathons (that I then proceed not to participate in). So I've come up with a bingo board for myself for my ~Month of Poetry~. However, I still need some suggestions.

Currently, I have 16 spaces filled with:

  • Types of poems (sonnet, haiku, free verse, ode, response, limerick, slam, and blackout/erasure) and
  • Sort of general themes (nature, failure, a meta on writing, the self, success, the world, peace, fear).

I need 8 more spaces though. SO if you have a sort of general/loose theme for a poem, please comment down below so I can put it on my bingo board bahaha!

I think I'll make a physical copy of the board so I can hang it near my desk but I'll also create a virtual copy so that if y'all want to participate with me, you can! And because creativity is so hard to force, even or sometimes especially when given prompts, I'm debating making an alternative! You can get a bonus "free space" for every 6 poems you create that don't match a theme. (You only need max 5 spaces to get bingo so if you do a poem a month, you win no matter what bahaha. See how I workaround my own rules?? It's great.)

What do you think? Am I crazy? Is this a good idea? What's your history with poetry?

An addition to this goal is I'd like to read more poems and poetry books, so if you have a favorite, please let me know! :)

Comments

bonesongs

This sounds so much fun! I've been wanting to practice poetry for years and came up with a really neat idea of trying to use fairy tales and urban legends as prompts, so you can use either/boht of those, if you want!

bonesongs

Also! http://an.owomoyela.net/fun/bingo_generator This bingo generator might help you out if you're looking for prompts too.

wahoo

Poetry has always been this mystical land of undiscovered opportunities to me so, as exciting as this sounds, I have no idea if I'll even be able to come up with something 😬 the idea is amazing though! The bingo layout is always fun and I believe a lot of people would absolutely nail it!

Ray Burkett

Only because I was in a deep funk 7 years ago, how about depression. I've written many a poem on that subject. Helped to get me through some days.

Anonymous

I’m not into poetry, but I used to write a lot of song lyrics back in high school and college! I have notebooks of them! One day, I’ll go back and reread them to see how good/bad they were! My theme suggestion for you is family—or if you want something more general, relationships :)

Charlotte Armstrong

I love this idea!!! Will totally play along with this challenge. I've been writing more poetry sort of things lately, definitely free verse 😂 but I lolike the idea of challenging myself to write more in other styles.

7Nana

Do you speak any other languages? Occasionally, I try to write haikus in Japanese to see how the language of the form's origin fits the form compared to English

Charlotte Armstrong

Additional theme suggestions: 1. Time travel 2. Impossible things 3. The wrong point in history 4. Inspired by a song 5. Inspired by a person 6. Faraway places 7. A poem about a character from one of your books 8. A poem with a made up word used in a way that makes it clear what the made up word means without a expicit explanation

Anonymous

My Creative Writing teacher did this exercise with us which she called "Pop Poetry Poker" or something like that, but the premise was that we create poems with song lyrics we took out of a hat (we could trade them also, so kind of like poker). So to adapt it for one person exercise you could maybe write a poem inspired by a line in a song that you like? Or you could put your Playlist in shuffle and then the first song that plays is the one where you look at the lyrics an get inspired to write something based on that? Also another prompt could be super short poems. My beloved English teacher always says that having a limited number of words in a poem, makes your words be more specific (to avoid generalizations) and more meaningful because you have to be so selective with every word you write. A really good really short poem is Margaret Atwood's "you fit into me". So excited to see what your month of may looks like!! Also super excited to participate!! I feel like writing poetry is super hard yet super rewarding

D.A. Flint

You could focus on middle vs end vs beginning rhyme which is not very common now in days. A lot of poetry now uses the allusion of rhyme either by homonyms or be the visual form

NoFilter Kristine

I think relationships and philosophy could be two subjects to write about.

Anonymous

Maybe love or family?

Anonymous

Social isolation as a subject is probably something people have plenty of feels about right now.

Jennifer Raudenbush

What a cool challenge! I write poetry and had a poem published in Cricket children's magazine last year. Mary Oliver is my favorite poet-I try to read from her "Devotions" poetry compilation at the beginning of each day. Some other types of poems you might want to try: double dactyl, ghazal, silly preschool, a mixed meter poem, acrostic.

Candace Floyd

You should try doing a found poem. You pull quotes, phrases, or lines of dialogue from random places and arrange them into a poem. I did it in grad school using famous authors' quotes about writing. It would be so fun to do one with dialogue from Hallmark movies or the most cliche lines from YA books.

katecavanaugh

CONGRATULATIONS JENNIFER on having your poem published!! That's incredible! And thank you for the recommendations, I've added some and WOW there's so many different types of poems I'd never even heard about before. It's so cool!

Regina Duke

A poem or song lyrics (filk songs) about fanfic? or as fanfic? (said the woman who spent ten years playing with song lyrics). Feeling Chen Yan Chang (above).

themysteriouscloud

Slam poetry is incredible when done correctly! I say that or I agree with doing a Found Poem!

Alvin Fraser

I like the idea of poetry on the struggle of writing/constantly pushing ourselves/etc.

Anonymous

in the style of a famous poet (like keats or something)

Erin

Never been a poetry fan except for a handful. But on the whole, I don't seek them out. Happy reading to those who do like them though. :)

Prettybug (Sydney)

If you're still working on this hi hello, new patron, old-ish subscriber, and my only published work is poetry lmao! for rhyming challenges you can add specific rhyming schemes like terza rima, Scottish stanza, etc. adding challenges of alliteration (maybe not a full line or stanza but the last or first words of a stanza), syllablic patterns? I'm really excited to see this❗

Prettybug (Sydney)

also also for general themes, using a single word generator, having someone pick an object for you to make the subject, or! a poem about/from one of your characters?

Writative

I've written a decent amount of poetry before, but there's a catch. All my poetry is humorous. So if you like Shel Silverstein or Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear or Ogden Nash, you know what kind of nonsense I love to write. Sometimes I'll go to a random word generator online and pick three random words and then make myself use them in a poem. It's a lot of fun. :)