The Poetry Marathon

Each year I write one prompt devoted to a cliché topic, previously these prompts have been focused on love, death, and angst.

This year the challenge is to write a poem about loss that is not cliché.

Write a persona poem from the perspective of a well known fictional character. You can choose any fictional character but here are a few names to get you thinking in the right direction: Dracula, King Arthur, Red Riding Hood, Katniss Everdeen, etc. . .

Write a poem that involves some kind of ancient myth. The myth can be from any cultural background or origin, but I am not interested in modern myths. The older the better.

The poem can go into the details of the myth and be a retelling of sorts, or it can just borrow a mythic element and place it the modern world. The details are entirely up to you.

Write a poem that contains at least five of the following ten words. Feel free to include all ten if you wish.

Frogs

Evening

Tomatoes

Jars

Raincoat

Steam

Peculating

Children

Elbow

Mystery

What if the world changed suddenly? What if one of the laws of science that has always existed, suddenly stopped existing, or the details of the rules changed?

For example what if we woke up one day and gravity as we know it had changed, the pull of the earth would still be strong enough to walk on for us, but some lighter animals such as mice, would struggle. It would be easier to walk but harder to wash the dishes. We would be in big trouble, but it might also be a very interesting world to imagine.

I want you to alter or stop one of the rules of our earth that we count on. The details are up to you and your imagination.

This poem can be very lyrical or very narrative, or anything in between.

Congratulations First Half Marathoners! I am so happy that you have completed 12 poems in 12 hours! That is wonderful. Thank you for joining us in this madness.

In the past I have personally verified that everyone who applied for a certificate was eligible and then I would make a certificate. That is not possible this year and so we will be operating on the honor system.

If you completed the Poetry Half Marathon please consider the following certificate yours, to update with your name, to print if you choose to do so. We will be taking feedback into consideration, so if you really feel strongly about this new state of affairs please email me at poets@thepoetrymarathon.com to explain your position.

Only use the below certificate if you completed The Half Marathon. Congratulations again on your completion of The Half Marathon. The link below will take to a version of the certificate that is easy to edit.

Half Marathon Certificate

The below image is not as easy to edit and just serves as an example of what the certificate will look like!

Also remember that this year we will be putting together a 2017 Poetry Marathon Anthology.

Submissions will open August 10th and stay open till the 15th.

All submissions must include two poems, no more, no less. All submissions must be made via our email address (poets@thepoetrymarathon.com). The subject line of all emails must be Poetry Submission. Poems must be included in the body of the email.

All poems submitted must be written during the 2017 Poetry marathon. All poems should be completely edited and contain no major grammatical errors.

The first word of every line should not have a capitalization unless it is intentional! Word has an auto caps feature that you can turn off by following the instructions below.

You must indicate which hour each poem was written in. Only poets who completed the whole or half marathon will be eligible to submit.

There is no guarantee that by submitting your poem will be selected although the goal is to include one poem by everyone who submits.

Digital copies will be made available for free to any contributor. Print copies will be available for a reasonable price and any money that is made from them will go towards covering the cost of the marathon.

Want to know what the 2016 Poetry Marathon Anthology was like? Pick up your copy here.

Half Marathoners, this is your last prompt! Congratulations.

Full marathoners, after this you are halfway there!!!

Write a poem that contains no more than 100 words and no less than 90 words. If you repeatedly use the same word it only counts once. For example if the word umbrella was used 10 times in your poem you would only count it once.

The word count feature (bottom left of this text box) is your friend!

For this prompt you should listen to The Swallowtail Jig. You can watch the video or not. Personally I prefer to turn the light on my screen down all the way and just listen. But I want you to really focus on the music and do nothing else the first time through. Then you can either turn the music off or play it again. At that point you should start writing your poem.

Write a poem where color plays an important role. How you choose to interpret that role is up to you.

Write a poem about a spider. This poem should not rhyme.