The Poetry Marathon

Text Prompt

Take a common saying like “To get lost is to learn the way” or “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” or “This too shall pass,” as the basis of writing a poem. 

The Weaker Sex

You are a force of nature, darling.
Your body turns cells into organs.
Your center brings human souls into the world.
Your existence is humbling.

So, yes, his apology be as loud as his disrespect.

Text Prompt

Try and condense the plot of a book, any book, into a poem. It can be very direct and recognizable, or abstract and obscured.

Girl grows up and wants to find purpose.
Girl meets boy. Love is her purpose.
Girl becomes woman.
Woman finds out that girl was wrong.

Text Prompt

Write a poem exploring the word normal. It could be in the context of pre-pandemic life and the present, how normal needs to be better, or about how normal has always been different within your family. Any interpretation or interaction with the word normal, works as a response to this prompt.

I was never “normal”
and I was made painfully aware of it.

I survived in a household of narcissists.

Eventually it was time to choose,
– end it
or
– diverge

I became an imposter to myself,
shutting down the pathways and patterns that made me different.
I became wrong in my own skin.

I learned the art of people pleasing
and like a light, I drew the abusers and narcissists to me.
A continued symphony of wrongness.

Depression and anxiety came next,
then PTSD,
then an older desire to choose, again.

I am proud to say that I am 31 years old.
I am still here.
I was diagnosed with ADHD.

Nothing was normal,
but,
I finally feel normal. 😀

Text Prompt

Write a poem about walking without ever using the world walking in it.

Where do you go when
anywhere will do?
Lost in the moment.
Knowing it’s worth it to follow your shadow.
Inside you keep pushing for just a bit more.
Nothing is more important than to just keep
Going.

Text Prompt

You find a time capsule buried in the backyard of your new home (or anywhere else, depends on you). What’s in it? How old is it or its probable story is up to the poet.

In the backyard,
behind the apple tree,
I wanted a garden.

I found you instead.

Your story untold.
Your loved ones still looking.
Your heart decomposed.

Let’s go,
into the sunshine,

away from the past.

Text Prompt

Grab a book from your shelf. Read the last line in it. You have to use that line as the first or last line of your poem (with credit).

“A Last Note From Your Narrator: I am haunted by humans.” — Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

Maybe

I see what you’ve done to them.
The children –
they used to sing and dance and play.

Their eyes are hollow – from disappointing you.

When did you become comfortable
enough with capitalism, to trust it with your
babies?

They are carved and refined,
sculpted cogs to take your place,
in the warm machine after you die.

Maybe while they are 6, they should learn how to laugh and play and find joy.
Maybe then, when they are 26, it will be an ingrained habit, like breathing. Maybe they could learn to live for that instead of money.

Maybe you should let your children be children.
Your priorities are confused.
“I am [and remain] haunted by humans” (Markus Zusak).

Write a poem that repeats the same line three times, and then end on a variation of the repeated line. It could be a little different, or vary different, depending on what serves the poem best.

I’m sorry

I’m sorry

I’m sorry

I’m as tired of hearing it as I am of saying it.

I’m sorry

I’m sorry

I’m sorry

Yet here are…

AGAIN.

I’m sorry

I’m sorry

I’m sorry

Sometimes

after so long

a

word

can

lose

it’s

meaning.

I’m sorry

I’m sorry

I’m sorry

Text Prompt:

Use one of the following titles as a jumping off point:

The Joy of Unseen Things

The Dog

Island

Long Run at Dawn

Coffee & Change

Long Run at Dawn

During long runs at dawn,
I stop running from what hurts and
start running towards it.

Full adrenalin surging,
sweating and aching,
body sore but open.

My inner child feels
the freedom of the pavement
and rejoices
because long runs are her time.

She still doesn’t fully understand
why those bad things happened,
but I’m starting to.

Together, we are healing; although,
sometimes she is afraid that by letting go,
her suffering meant nothing, but then I
take her into my arms and show her where we are now.

She touches my pink, purple, and blue hair,
she stumbles wide-eyed, looking at the children we have loved.
she realizes that every pain she endured, allowed me
to protect so many others. She knows her pain was for something
bigger than her tiny, fragile soul.

It got us here, so together,
we run, and hope that things keep getting better.

Write a poem about something ending. It could be a relationship, a stage in life, or the apocalypse. The details are up to you.

The End

I read tarot cards, goosebumps, and the subtle shift in your eyes.
I am a contortionist of compromise,
folding my needs into palatable, paper thin morsels
that melt in your mouth.

By the time your lightening strikes,
I’ll be miles away. I won’t be hit in the same place twice.

The patterns of your behavior create thick grooves in our relationship –
it doesn’t take a palm reader to understand your priorities.

The end will surprise you.
I started preparing for it
when you stopped pretending to love me.

When we fly, you take me higher and further.

We have sat close and visited the past,

maintaining eye contact through the laughter and the tears.

To share the names of my demons, to let you see them and know them, by name.

Halfway there, and you wake up from an awkward nap,

we pull out a crystal ball and predict the future, the whole time, you repeat

you and me

you and me

you and me.

When we reorient ourselves, the stars are a blanket of protection softened by clouds.

“I’ve never been this close to heaven.”

you smile, give me one of “those” looks, and lower your eyes until we both can’t want to land.