The Poetry Marathon

Emoji Poetry – prompt contributed by Jennifer Faylor

Look at these emoji versions of poems and write a poem by translating one of them back into verse. You can deviate from translating at any point if a poem takes off in a different direction, or write about the concept of or your experience with emojis instead. For additional inspiration check out one of Stephanie Berger and Carina Finn’s emoji poems here.

Write a poem titled Season of the (fill in the blank).

The fill in the blank could be a reference, it could be an actual season, it could be something abstract, or concrete, anything you want.

The key is to write a poem that matches, or interacts with that title.

Write about your ideal day using only imagery and sensory details. It is fine if it is fragmentary.

Using one or more of these images as a jumping off point, write a poem. All of the images are sourced from Unplash.

Write an epistolary poem that is a letter from you to someone who has passed and/or someone you have not seen in a long time.

The Bop is one of my favorite poetry forms. It’s something I discovered last year during the poetry marathon, although I’m going to warn you, it’s on the longer side.

This is the only formal poetry prompt that is part of the Marathon. We always do one per year.

The Bop was developed by Afaa Michael Weaver at a Cave Canem summer retreat a number of years ago.

There are three stanzas. Each stanza is followed by a refrain (so the same statement is repeated three times).

The first stanza is 6 lines long and presents a problem. The second stanza is eight lines long, and can explore or expand the problem. The third stanza is 6 lines long, and can either present a solution or document a failed attempt to resolve the issue.

Recipe Poem contributed by Jennifer Faylor

Choose something unrelated to food to create a recipe for––joy, a winter holiday, or an ideal lover, anything goes. Make a list of five “ingredients” for your poem. For example:

Recipe for Averting Disaster 

Write a poem about a famous woman or an influential woman you know personally.

This is the last day to sign up for the 2020 Poetry Marathon! You can sign up here. We will be sending out the final round of acceptances tomorrow, June 24th. If you do not here from us tomorrow, please send us an email at poets@thepoetrymarathon.com

Over 475 people people have signed up for the marathon. We also recently announced that there will be an anthology open to everyone who successfully completes the full and half Marathon.

Right now about 50% have signed up for the half marathon – 12 poems in 12 hours, and 50% have signed up for the full marathon – 24 poems in 24 hours.

The marathon itself will start at 9 AM ET on the 27th of June and go till 9 AM on 28th. Half marathoners can start at 9 AM ET or 9 PM ET on the 27th.

This is an international event with participants from all around the globe. Generally 500 people attempt the marathon. You do not have to be a poet to participate. To find out how to convert your timezone go here.

To learn more go here. To sign up go here.

We will get back to applicants on a rolling basis. Most people who apply will be accepted. If you have not heard from us a week after applying please send us an email at poets@poetrymarathon.com. Please do not try and contact us through the FB page.

We are very happy to announce that the 2020 Poetry Marathon Anthology is going to happen! We had announced earlier that it would not be a part of this year’s events.

But after much ongoing discussion and after securing a generous private donation and contributing to that donation ourselves we are able to offer $550 dollars for someone to edit the anthology.

The Poetry Marathon Anthology is some writer’s first publication, and others’ hundredth, but it is always a clear representation of the range of people who participate in the event.

We have found an editor to work on the anthology this year. A huge thank you to everyone who applied.

You can see what last years looked like here.