2014 April PAD Challenge: Day 27
I hope everyone’s having a great time with the challenge; I know I am! But I’m already looking ahead to what’s happening on the blog in May and beyond. I’ve…
I hope everyone's having a great time with the challenge; I know I am! But I'm already looking ahead to what's happening on the blog in May and beyond. I've interviewed more than 100 poets on this blog, discussed dozens of poetic forms, and covered other topics. But I'm not done yet; so this is my one-time call for queries related to poet interviews, guest posts, or other ideas. If you're interested in being interviewed, providing a guest post, or have another idea, please send an e-mail to robert.brewer@fwmedia.com with the subject line: Poetic Asides Blog Idea.
For today's prompt, write a monster poem. There are the usual suspects: zombies, vampires, werewolves, and mummies. But monsters can take any form and terrorize a variety of victims. So have fun playing around with this one, because we've only got a few days of April left.
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Free up your poetry with constraints!
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Here's my attempt at a Monster Poem:
"Clones"
I don't know where I stand on cloning
but sometimes I think it would be helpful
to have two of me, especially for administrative
work, which I always seem to foul up.
I'm not advocating a Frankenstein's Monster approach,
more like The Twilight Zone, thought without
the twist at the end that makes me realize
it was a bad idea, because that would be
such a buzz kill. No, I just want the version
of me that cooks and cleans and transports
the kids to do all that stuff while the other
version of me that writes and edits and blogs
does his thing, and we both get extra rest
at the end of the day. And maybe both
versions will hang out sometimes
because they both should have similar
taste in music and movies and write
poetry. But then a third version will emerge
that wants to get outside more to run
and hike and swim and bike. A fourth
will flirt day and night with the ladies,
and a fifth just hangs in the basement
playing old school Tetris. Eventually, my selves
will have drama and a reality TV show
and everyone will complain about that guy
who is actually a bunch of guys
and he/they never get along, and anyway,
I still wouldn't have time for administration.
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Today's guest judge is...
Jeannine Hall Gailey
Jeannine recently served as the Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington, and is the author of four books of poetry: Unexplained Fevers, She Returns to the Floating World,Becoming the Villainess and The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, upcoming in 2015 from Mayapple Press.
Her work has been featured on NPR’s Writer’s Almanac and Verse Daily.
Her poems have appeared The Iowa Review, American Poetry Review and Prairie Schooner.
Her website is www.webbish6.com.
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Poem Your Heart Out
Poems, Prompts & Room to Add Your Own for the 2014 April PAD Challenge!
Words Dance Publishing is offering 20% off pre-orders for the Poem Your Heart Out anthology until May 1st! If you’d like to learn a bit more about our vision for the book, when it will be published, among other details.
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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems. His book includes a few monster poems, from man-eaters to fathers. Learn more about Robert here: http://www.robertleebrewer.com/.
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Check out these monster posts:
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.
