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.
Get Small
For Adults:
The more condensed a poem, the more powerful. Today, challenge yourself to whittle down to the essential words. Try writing a poem in five lines or less, and strive to make every word count. For some examples, read “On Spies” by Ben Jonson or “You Fit Into Me” by Margaret Atwood.
For Children:
Poems can be as long as a chapter in a book or as short as a few lines. Today, try writing a short poem, using the following steps.
- Look around you for a small object that you can describe: such as a toy, a grape or even a clump of dust.
- Write down some words that come to mind when you look at that object. They might be a physical description of it (color, shape, texture), how it makes you feel, or what you imagine it could be doing or thinking.
- Circle the words you like the most and turn those into a poem.
LEGO Hero
Hands up, running
from a dinosaur disaster.
But one foot
stuck on bumpy grass.
Waiting for play time.