Around the Word in Eighty Ways
A Prompt Deck
1. A Great Distance
Describe the great distance between two places, or some fact of the physical world that seems impossible. Using short sentences and breaking the lines where the natural breath falls.
2. A Moment of Surrender
A poem that witnesses a family member at a moment of surrender. Three stanzas of four lines each; each stanza should describe a point in the process of surrender.
3. A Haunting Image
Choose a still of a film that you’ve watched many times and name your poem after the action within that still. Then, try to describe / capture the emotional turbulence that so haunts you about this moment.
4. A Given Year
Use repetition in a one stanza poem to describe with great detail an instantaneous event beyond anyone’s control that happened in the year of your birth.
5. A Headline
For the title, use the headline of a news article you couldn’t stop thinking about, and only mention the subject of the article in the first few lines before breaking away and branching your attention outward toward something you see out the window or in the room.
6. Loudness and Softness
Long lines tend to be “loud” and move quickly, where short, enjambed lines tend to be whispers and move slowly. In a poem whose lines get shorter and shorter, softer and softer, try to make (real and meaningful) contact with a subject that has no language, addressing it as a “you.” Then, when you’ve drafted the poem, and only then, turn all the “you” references into the third person.
7. A Treasured Object
Write about a treasured object—museum piece or one from family lore—and in describing it, freely jump around from its various owners or the stories that surround us, to “turn” our attention to some vital part of the story at the end of the poem.
8. A Place with a Troubled History
Write about a place that marks a troubled history in your past—and with mood music, in the composition of the poem, the way you break the lines or the rhythms you achieve—tell the story of a triumph of compassion.
9. An Event in Music
Write about an event—some moment in music history (the Koln concert of Keith Jarrett, the block party that invented rap, the last concert of Mozart) while bringing in the political history around the music itself; but focus your poem on the sound, and find a form, as best you can, that embodies its spirit and rhythm.
10. A Letter to the Dead
Write a letter to someone who has passed, telling them the location you’re writing from, why it brought them to mind, and also revealing to them something new, something the dead person does not know about your speaker—by relaying to them a story of some kind.
11. An Act of Translation
Find a poem you admire and write your own prompt based upon it: look at the formal structures but also the mechanics of its argument (if there is one). Call your poem “Instructions.”
12. A Complaint
Write a poem that begins in complaint but then gives up its complaint, based on something it’s observing in nature.
13. A Scientific Principle
A poem explaining a scientific principle to a child, and which elucidates why these facts have bearing on the relationship between the speaker and the child.
14. Feeling in Your Debt
Write with long, staggered lines, and with the leaps in logic and reason. Speak to someone to whom you are in debt; apologize or express gratitude. But never tell us what the debt is. Just describe, with this language, imagery, and music, how it feels.
15. A Dream in Real Time
Describe a dream in present tense, a wild journey of some sort, but do not reveal to us it is a dream.
16. A Strange Beast
Describe the strangest animal you can think of, but do so as if you’re telling us of a mythological being. In the poem the animal must “do” something, whether it is hunting or being hunted. But something has to happen.
17. A Secret Myth
Tell a strange and not-well-known myth; then tell the story of your or someone else’s birth, what you know of it, and where it was, and what was happening in the world. See if you can connect the birth story to the story of the myth.
18. An Animal Unlike Me
Describe a type of animal in the first ten lines, its behavior much like ours; and in the next ten lines the ways that animal exhibits behavior that is unlike human behavior.
19. A Family Story
A poem about a family story you have found it difficult to talk about. But set it within a landscape that feels like a dream.
20. From the Magical to the Ordinary
Bring us to a place that is like the setting of a myth (mountaintop, the deep forest, under the ocean) and name that setting in the title. Then, when you’ve got it in the reader’s head that there is magic here, have something unexpectedly ordinary happen. See Emily Dickinson’s “I Heard a Fly Buzz.”
21. A Strict Imitation
Do a strict imitation of any poem of your choosing, but tell a story, no matter how minuscule.
22. After the Deceased
Name your poem after a known, now deceased, figure. Describe a room as that figure would have seen it, in the third person point of view. The poem should lead to some action or activity that they are famous for, which the poem ends in the middle of.
23. A Title that does all the work
A poem whose title names a place that holds an immediate, historical resonance and tell a little story/describe the landscape without making any mention to the event.
24. A Long Title
A poem with a very, very, very long title. It could be a headline; or the first two lines of an old poem; or it could be a title like “Looking out my Window on a Temperate Day in Winter I Think of the Clean Hallways at the Environmental Protection Agency.” Then see how having the title “take care of business” allows you to just focus on the hallways.
25. “A Supposedly Fun Thing” –after David Foster Wallace
A place that is supposedly fun, but which is terrifying to you. Alternately, a place that is usually terrifying, but offered you refuge.
26. Three Interiors
Write a long poem—three poems of 15 lines each--that is a map to three different interiors. Find a way to weave them together with one title.
27. No Punctuation
Write a poem with no punctuation. For an example of this technique, a poem that also uses anaphora.
28. From the Small to the Large
Write a poem that alternates between one and two line stanzas, long lines and short lines interspersed, with a flow of memory that begins with a small object and moves toward something huge.
29. Contrasting and Comparing
Choose two pieces from above and write about the similarities in one stanza and the differences in another. Then, in a third stanza, talk about why this difference is meaningful to you.
30. Being Haunted
Think of something that has haunted you for years—a scene you observed, or a scene in a movie, or a moment in which someone revealed a side of themselves you’d rather not have witnessed. Without explaining why you were haunted by this, describe the scene by going more deeply into it, each line revealing something new, or struggling further toward seeing and hearing and experiencing this scene with more clarity. Then, title the poem after an object described here, preferably one that sits in the backdrop.
31. Many Angles
Describe an idea by attacking it from as many angles as come to your mind during composition, then focus on one of the angles for the last ¼ of the poem.
32. Many Sides
Describe an object by looking at it from many sides, then focus on one facet of the object for the last ¼ of the poem.
33. “The Landscape Listens”
Describe a landscape from various angles, planting an unanswerable question somewhere in the middle of your poem. Think of the landscape as a pilgrim, someone on the run, a farmer, or an exile. Don’t tell us which point of view you’ve taken. Just note that with each reframing of the context, the words you use, the sounds of the words, and the way you frame the world must differ.
34. A News Article
Take any article from the newspapers and find a way to ask five questions about some material the writer did not include. Then answer the questions in a block of text without including the prompts that led you to these answers, or any context from the article.
35. A Brief Goodbye
Tell of, as best you can remember it, detail by detail, a goodbye to an unlikely friend from childhood.
36. A Photograph
Write a poem describing a scene in a photograph. Describe the obvious aspects of the photograph at the beginning and end of the poem, and the less obvious features in the middle.
37. A Historical Figure
Write a poem from the point of view of a historical figure who died a long time ago. Through their perspective, tell a part of their story we have never heard before. Then, revert to third person.
38. Translation
The title is "Translation." Somewhere in the poem you have to say the word "translation." The poem should tell a story of an accident.
39. A Container
Write a prose poem of exactly 120 words about a container—big or small—and the “chaos” it holds. There should be one long sentence at the beginning of the poem and three short sentences at the end.
40. A Repetition
Write a poem of three stanzas of 6 lines each, and the last line of each stanza repeats the same words, but uses them in different orders.
41. The Process of Being Lost
In a poem with no punctuation, describe something that is in the process of being lost. Here, a sense of longing for what cannot be held is what creates space. It can be something in the environment or it can be a person’s life, or just a flower in a vase or a piece of fruit.
42. A Volta
Write a poem with the subtlest “volta” or “turn” you can imagine, in which something extremely small and often unseen changes your perspective.
43. A Commentary
Write a poem that is all commentary, all ideas, but ends on an image with no explanation following.
44. A Problem with Language
Write a poem that begins with a problem with language. With words. The problem with the word “silence” is that the moment you utter it you corrupt the thing you’re trying to describe. Then go into a story of your own that tries to work out a solution to this conundrum.
45. A Conundrum
Write a poem that explores a conundrum in science, something that fascinates you. Name a philosopher or scientist who is working on this problem. Why are we conscious? For example. Present the conundrum and then tell a story in response, an observation, or some other illustration.
46. A Negative Statement
Write a poem that is made of negative statements (Mary Oliver: “You don’t have to be good.”) The poem continues, it is not, it is not, it is not…Then halfway through it turns toward, it is this, it is that.
47. A Story You Are Still Getting Right
Write a poem of 15 lines, whose lines are extremely close in length, where there are three stanzas of 5 lines each. The poem should be about a story, once again, you (the speaker) are trying to get right. Call the poem, “Triptych.”
48. The Moment it Collapses
Write a poem in 20-30 lines about a moment in which something collapses. It could be a building, or it could be an idea about yourself. But it should use setting, characters, conflict, and climax to set the stage for that collapse.
49. Something Being Built
Write a poem in 20-30 lines about something being built. The final lines should be the final moments of construction. Here too, it can be an object or a building, or it can be a theory or even an equation (Einstein at the moment e-mc2 came to him, for example; or Darwin building his theory on the Beagle).
50. A First Meeting
Write a poem in 20-30 lines about the first meeting of two important people in your life. Address the poem to those two, and choose one story among the many, many you may know about them. It could be parents, grandparents, two married friends, two business partners. Be as creative as you like.
51. Four Cities
Write four short poems (exactly 8 lines each) about four cities. Each little poem will be named after one city. In each poem, apply a different lens (above) to capture the essence of that place for you. You can simply call the poem “Four Cities” or you can find another title (say, “Exiles”) that captures the theme that arises. Each should have in common their length, but each should be different in the way that it looks at or sounds out sense.
52. One Subtle Word
Write many dreams into a one stanza poem of 21 lines and title the poem after one subtle word contained in line 7.
53. The Other Side of a Story
Tell the other side of a known story. Try to keep ten syllables in each line. The poem is 14 lines. So it will look and sound like a sonnet. At the end of the proto-sonnet there should be a “volta” – a turn, or a change of opinion.
54. An Elder at the Age You Are Now
Write about the life of the oldest living person you know—but at the age you are now. Imagine their world. Research it down to the year, month, day.
55. Six Leaps
Write a poem of twenty lines that leaps in its thinking to a new idea, new focus, six times.
56. Writing Around the Subject
Write “around” the subject of a small object, allowing your mind to take you wherever your imagination demands. In other words, do not tell one narrative about an object and don’t merely describe it, but look at its shape, its use, its history, its contextual meaning to your family or your own life.
57. An Image from Science
Write about an image from science to embody the struggle between objective observation, which turns the image into a “thing,” and a meeting of one mind, called by philosopher Henri Corbin, “sympathetic union.” Write your poem in three parts, with each part no longer than ten lines.
58. An Abstraction
Make the title an abstraction, a vague mood imposed on the poem, but the piece itself an attempt to tear away boundaries of something. In a poem that looks at a marvelously “locked away” subject, use imagery and imagination to go deeper and closer to its heart. Take at least three steps “into” this subject, whether it be news story, caged animal, or family legend.
59. A Process
In a poem of 20 lines, remember a recipe and the person who passed it along to you. What was the process by which this dish was made? What went into it? What did it say about its maker?
60. The Beginning is My End
Write a poem that begins at the end of a story. Begin at the climactic finish of a profound event, and study its reverberations, which lead up to one image, one solid, concrete description which “holds” all the complexes of thought and emotion leading up to it.
61. Three Dramatic Moments
In a poem of three parts, in which each part is 8 lines, focus on three dramatic moments of a longer story, whether it be yours or something from the news, or even a development in science. The idea is to “hold” the narrative in the gaps between the stanzas. Then, take away any markers of sections for the poems and allow the three stanzas to stand as they are. Is the story still there? Use an epigraph for context if necessary.
62. A Climactic Moment
Study a climactic moment in a famous story and think about all its applications and implications, but don’t mention that moment until the middle of the poem.
63. A Translation of Syntax
Write a poem that imitates not the language or material or even the form of another poem you admire, but the syntax (the grammatical workings of the sentence). Apply the same grammar to your poem as you are writing it.
64. A Secret You Never Tell
Writing “away from” a secret you have never told anyone. Write the secret at the top of the page, and let the whole narrative informing it be contained in the way—I mean the words you choose, the images you gather—you write about an activity. Then, of course, erase the secret at the top of the page and let it go.
65. A Visit to the Underworld
There are so many poems about visitations to the underworld. Whether they be the shades of the Homeric epics or the damned of the Inferno in Dante, or whether they be the ordinary dead of Our Town, our dead take on a dignity that rises out of their passing over into the unknown. These dead, all the dead, know more than we do about dying. In this poem, you will adopt the persona of a family member who is dead, and look back on that person’s life, a specific moment upon which all the major circumstances were contingent. Describe this key moment for the reader. The title should contain the name of who is speaking.
66. A Question
Remember a completely silent moment among a family circle (anyone you consider family will do). Embed in the middle of your poem a question but refrain from answering it for us. The more mysterious this question is, the more it will haunt us. If something is to happen in this poem, let it be as subtle as the soft sound of turning pages.
67. A Dream that is Seen as Real
Another dream written as if it were an agreed-upon fact. Transcribe a dream without commenting on it, without explaining its significance; your voice should never exit the terrain of the dream.
68. An Ancient Place
Describe a scene among ruins or in an ancient place. There is a feeling of eternal silence here, but instead of the family unit creating it (and the explosive tension underneath it), it is the voiceless and faceless who seem to be everywhere. Describe that place, taking one last great leap in your thinking in the last line, which is a complete sentence.
69. “Cornered by History”
In a poem of 16 lines, traverse at least 300 years of history. Title the poem after a small item (“Thimble” or some such object), or a small animal, and then figure that person or thing into the larger sweep of the historical moment.
70. A Single Sentence
Write twenty lines that are one sentence, with no punctuation, describing something that is in the process of being lost. It can be something in the environment, a dying elm, or it can be a person’s life, or a species. The mere acknowledgment of the process without intercession or comment is enough to offer space, offering the reader a chance participate. The first line of the poem should be “Then.”
71. A Thank You
Think of someone in a profession you understand fairly well, someone who did the unlikely, outside of the range of expectations. Write a poem you title “Thank You” and explain to that person the importance of their unlikely act. The first word of your poem should be “When.”
72. A Poem that Unfolds like an Activity: The “How” is the shape of the “What”
Write a poem that describes an activity that also embodies the sense of time involved. In Charles Simic's poem “Prodigy,” the mastery of chess moves is captured in the many stanza breaks. Once you’ve chosen an activity, seek a title that keys into the difficulty of this work, and remind us of this difficulty at the end of the poem. So, if you were writing a poem about sewing, you might call it "Precision;" you might use a lot of em-dashes in the text so it looks like sewing; and at the end of the poem, you'd talk about the precision of your grandmother, darning the toe of a sock.
73. A Split Second
Terse simple sentences when mounted in a poem tend to slow down time and raise suspense and tension. Write a sonnet about an event that passed in a split second, but describe it in 14 clipped sentences, one mounted upon the other.
74. Five Images
Take a walk and write down five images that strike you: a feather on the ground, a chipped grave, a single child's shoe, etc. Just write down the image when you see it. Don't take a picture. Really look at it. Then go back and describe it as though you're describing a portrait in the National Gallery.
75. A Change of Mind
A poem that changes its mind--a yes or a no. You needn't wait until the very last line, but do state an opinion and then go back on it, shift or pivot or correct yourself, somewhere toward the end.
76. Veils of Separation
Write a poem that describes in great detail a dead insect. When you feel yourself getting very close to describing it just as it is, what once made this shockingly beautiful being live and function, commit to writing five more lines and leaning in to get yet closer.
77. Poem as Unity (a sequence)
A poem of identification with the whole (laud/hymn). Hymns and psalms have traditionally been the vehicles of praise and gratitude. Such prayers sung and recited at Matins and Vespers and other times of Canonical Hours were often contained in a Book of Hours. Write a poem of five parts as though they were prayers said over the course of a day, describing the natural settings of each moment, so that in the arc of the entire series one day has begun and ended. Each part should have eight lines. Direct your speech at a higher power (whether it be God or physics or a lover or a late parent; anything you see fit) though you need not name them. Just have them in mind.
78. Source of Emotion
Trace an emotion you are now feeling back to its first cause, describing the setting you are now in, in present tense, and continuing to follow the thread back in time until the emotion doesn’t exist anymore. You might explore who it came from, or you might end with it leaving your consciousness.
79. Source of a Belief
Write a belief you have about the world or yourself as the title of the poem. Then ask yourself and explore where that belief came from, making the subject of your poem the very moment this scar or impression was left upon you. Enter and exit the moment as you like, so long as you home in on one moment in time for the brunt of the poem.
80. A Major Revision
Write a major revision of an earlier poem you’d written, but write the revision from memory, and apply one of these prompts to the process.