2025 April PAD Challenge: Day 4
Join poets from around the country and the world to write a poem a day in April. For today’s prompt, write an unexpected mess poem.
Before we jump into today's prompt, I just want to let everyone know that these are not timely at all. While I write my poems in April, I created all these prompts before the calendar flipped from March. So any "hidden meanings" are just (if anything) serendipity. Soo...
For today's prompt, write an unexpected mess poem. Like maybe somebody spills their milk or forgets to put away the groceries. Or maybe the dog leaves a present. Or perhaps the cat is in a gift-giving mood as well. Or maybe the mess is a little more situational (like falling behind on paying the bills or getting caught up in a love triangle). I'm sure everyone can imagine any number of potential messes by now. So capture these unexpected (or even expected) messes in a poem.
Remember: These prompts are springboards to creativity. Use them to expand your possibilities, not limit them.
Note on commenting: If you wish to comment on the site, go to Disqus to create a free new account, verify your account on this site below (one-time thing), and then comment away. It's free, easy, and the comments (for the most part) don't require manual approval (though I check from time to time for those that do).
*****
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.
*****
Here’s my attempt at an Unexpected Mess Poem:
“As You Wish,” by Robert Lee Brewer
I collect dishes
after every breakfast and still
find even more.
Without you, I'd be
a complete
mess, I must confess.
(Note on today's form: For this morning's poem, I wrote a double lune...starting with a Collom lune for the first stanza into a Kelly lune for the second.)
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.
