2025 April PAD Challenge: Day 3
Write a poem a day in the month of April with the 18th annual April Poem-A-Day Challenge. For today’s prompt, write a short poem.
Well, I always say that people who make it through the first three days have the best chance of making it through the entire month. So, let's do this!
For today's prompt, write a short poem. In my mind, I'm thinking of a poem that's like 10 lines or fewer, but there are other ways to come at this one (in other words, don't limit yourself to my thinking). The poem could be about a short person or object. Also, wasn't thinking about the stock market when I made my list of prompts, but hey, maybe there's a poetic stock broker up to the challenge.
Also, getting back to what I was thinking, here are a few short poetic forms poets can try if they'd like:
- Lune. A three-liner, also known as the American Haiku.
- Shadorma. A Spanish six-liner.
- Triolet. The French eight-liner I used on Day 1 of this challenge.
- Rispetto. An Italian eight-liner.
- Tricubes. Three stanzas of three lines of three syllables.
Or just write a haiku.
Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.
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Write a poem every single day of the year with Robert Lee Brewer's Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming. After sharing more than a thousand prompts and prompting thousands of poems for more than a decade, Brewer picked 365 of his favorite poetry prompts here.
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Here’s my attempt at a Short Poem:
“Turn,” by Robert Lee Brewer
We cowered
in silent shadows
as the world--
a large fist--
without an ounce of mercy
crashed down around us.
(Note on today's form: I did decide to use the shadorma form mentioned above for my poem today.)
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
