The Poetry Marathon

Write a persona poem from the point of view of a person without a home. You can have a specific person in mind, or they can be entirely imagined. This person can be a homeless beggar, or someone who drifts from town to town, or someone who just can’t imagine settling in one place, so they don’t.

Write a poem of praise. It can be praising a person, a place, or a thing (right now I feel like praising coffee). But this poem should be filled with admiration and gratitude.

Write a poem about or involving one of the following images.

The dreaded form prompt! This year I scheduled it a lot earlier in the marathon. This year the prompt has to do with my favorite form, the pantoum.

The pantoum is a form of poetry similar to a villanelle in that there are repeating lines throughout the poem. It is composed of a series of quatrains; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next.

Now in case that all was a little much for you, here is a link to a pantoum generator Jacob made: http://jacobjans.com/pantoum.html

The key to writing a pantoum is to write about something that either obsesses you, or something that automatically requires some sort of repetition (ie cooking).

If you want to the repeated lines can include some new words, but they should still be recognizable.

Here are two good example pantoums:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/56284

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/parents-pantoum

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

This year the challenge is to write a poem about angst that is not cliché. Good luck!

This next prompt is inspired by a dear friend of mine (who is a past poetry marathon participant). The challenge is to write an English haibun.

A haibun is a traditional Japanese form that combines prose and haiku. The prose section should be approached like prose poetry and every word should be made to count. Most poets suggest that the prose section should be no more than 120 words, but if you want to make it longer go for it.

Then end with a Haiku. The haiku should serve as the climax or epiphany to the text that proceeds it.

Traditionally an English haiku is three lines the first being 5 syllables long, the second being 7, and the third being 5. Traditionally a haiku is about nature, but yours does not have to be.

You can learn more about the haibun and read some examples here.

Write a poem about technology. The details are entirely up to you.

This prompt is a little different. Read the first step, follow it, then read the second step follow it, and then read the third step.

Step 1
Write a ten line narrative poem. (A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story.) It should tell a complete, or mostly complete story.

Step 2
Add ten more lines to that poem. You can add them at any point, they can be interspersed throughout, or together in one section. However they cannot all be at the end of the poem.

Step 3
Remove eight lines from the poem. These lines can be taken from any point in the poem.

Write a poem. The contents of the poem is completely up to you, but the title must be ‘Before Darkness’

Listen to the following song and then write a poem. You can write while listening, or after listening, depending on your own personal preference.